Quote:
"When I watched the big prop liners like Constellations and the various DCs, starting up at Entebbe, Uganda, there were always two chaps with an extended fire extinguisher standing by the engine about to be started. Notice they weren't used during this machine's startup."
Precisely my thought too, Argonautical. See my earlier post (Lusaka). Doubt it was just jobs for the locals.
Quote from b1lanc:
"...as the Good Lord is my witness, the captain climbs the stairs and starts hammering on something in the engine. Climbs down, instructs the ground crew to bolt her back up and move the ladders and air stairs, clambers back on board and number 2 starts as if nothing had ever been wrong."
Maybe a tip he'd picked up from a grizzled maintenance guy at Zurich? Not all captains were mechanically-ignorant premadonnas, Herod, as I'm sure you will remember - and a handful were/are even ex-mechanics! Sometimes, if it's the B-team's turn on the ramp, even a pilot can show them a thing or two...