Brit312
This was not very popular with the crews and the ground engineers were persuaded to test the ignitors before presenting the aircraft for service. However due to the engine starting Fuel Pump switching, this resulted with a small fire in the hangar, and so the crews were back to starting on Lh or RH ignitors.
The main problem with testing ignitors in the hangar was residual fuel. The LH ignitor sat right at the bottom of the can, and sometimes had a small puddle of fuel lying over it. This would produce a small 'whoof' of smoke out of the jet-pipe for about a second or two as the ignitors fired, but no more than that. The main danger was forgetting to trip the START PUMP C/Bs before you did the ignition check. If you did you had a guaranteed fire in the can (the pump would run as you know as soon as 'START' was selected and stayed running for 30 seconds after the start switch was returned to NORMAL) which was very messy (and scary as hell too). The only remedy was to grap a start truck, make sure the C/B is finally tripped and dry motor the engine until all the smokey stuff is gone. (It did no damage, but made a hell of a lot of smoke; the fire brigade were never best pleased). But provided the ignition checks were done correctly there was no ptoblem. (In nearly 30 years of doing ignition checks CORRECTLY, I never once saw a problem. Saw a few when people did forget to trip the start pump C/B however.
In any case as far as the 'ground engineers' doing the check of the ignitors, in my opinion if you are doing a pre-flight check, there is no point doing it unless it is pre-FLIGHT. Just about every other system on the aircraft got tested right up to when you boys arrived at the aircraft, but quite rightly you tested them again. (The whole point of 'us' testing systems was to pre-empting failures before they could impact the departure time).
No dude we never came to see you boys for the "Pilots Tech Refresher" as we always had to keep those lectures very simple as otherwise the pilots would go to sleep.
If you even bothered to read what I wrote "But the 'trainers' often used to come seek me out in the hangar and .....confer about various system quirks and nasties....". I never suggested that anyone but the trainers themselves wrote the tech refreshers; but several of the guys (not you, obviously) waited 'til I was back from leave etc to ask away over coffee about some specific system QUOTE quirks and nasties UNQUOTE they figured I would know about and could use in their refresher.
Or perhaps you are suggesting that I am hallucinating or worse?
Dude
