You don't need to be down on your knees, there's a ruddy great indicator you can see if they're not latched. Just bend over and have a look.
True, but it seems that this check is somehow being missed, by pilots and personnel who have either closed the cowlings or those who are near them during engine start and see off.
We had manual wing unlocked indicators on the top of Phantom FGR2 wings. It wasn't even necessary to bend down to see
them, at about eye height all you had to do was look across the top of the wing.
We lost an aircraft on take off when the wings folded. Pre flight groundcrew checks missed the ruddy great indicators. Pre flight aircrew walk round missed the ruddy great indicators. Start crew missed the ruddy great indicators even though they had to walk round running their fingers along the top of the wings feeling for boundry layer air within inches of the ruddy great things.
A cockpit warning caption would have saved us the loss an aircraft (assuming the crew didn't ignore it of course!)
They got out by the way, it could have been a lot worse. My point is that we often see what we want to see and don't see what we should.
There seems to be a problem with the current system, perhaps it should be revised.
Cost benefit of an electronic warning system? mmmmmmm