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By PeteBC
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1863305
Am installing a new radio to replace the portable and that will mean a new centre panel. All good, but I ordered a red lamp for for the starter warning lamp without thinking.... Is there a specified colour? This is a permit aircraft.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1863345
Not only is there no prescribed colour there is also no need to have a starter warning light on a certified aeroplane let alone a permit one.

The mandate was dumped when the UK aligned itself with EASA, whether it will come back now control has been taken back once more is an interesting question. Another 124 AANs were dumped at the same time.

I am not aware any accidents, incidents resulted from the liberalisation.
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By Rob L
#1863358
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:Not only is there no prescribed colour there is also no need to have a starter warning light on a certified aeroplane let alone a permit one. .....
(my snip)
I am the LAA Inspector for a Christen Eagle II, and there is an LAA Mandatory Modification for the "Addition of starter warning light on P1 instrument panel adjacent to starter switch, connected in parallel with the output side of the solenoid."

(Source: http://www.lightaircraftassociation.co. ... E%20II.pdf )

Quite why a starter warning light is required is another question, but as long as I am required to verify one is fitted, I will do so.

Rob
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By wigglyamp
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1863363
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:
I am not aware any accidents, incidents resulted from the liberalisation.


Many years ago I had the job of rewiring the main battery cable in a Chipmunk. The reason: The starter contactor engaged during aerobatics and stuck there, so the starter continued drawing a high current until the battery cables started to smoke! Fortunately at that point the pilot turned off the Ground/Flight switch and made a hasty landing.
The aircraft did have a start engaged warning light but it had a dimmable cap fitted so wasn't visible to the pilot.
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By aerofurb
#1863373
To confirm the CAA starter warning light was always a red warning light.

The LAA do consider the starter waning light warning light mandatory on LAA administered Permit to Fly aircraft.

To quote LAA Technical Leaflet TL 3.26 paragraph 3.8:

‘A starter-engaged warning light is considered mandatory by the LAA, in order to warn the pilot of a failure of the starter motor to disengage.

The starter-engaged warning light used to be mandated by the CAA on most certified aircraft by way of an Airworthiness Notice which has since been withdrawn. This is not because CAA no longer considers these devices important but rather that where necessary they are nowadays specified by way of the basic design certification codes.’

http://www.lightaircraftassociation.co. ... sytems.pdf

A point to note is that although it is often termed (and placarded) as a ‘starter engaged’ warning light, normally they were wired up to the starter contactor (solenoid) so are in actual fact a ‘starter energised’ warning light.

Some 20+ years ago, the flying club that I worked for had a Cessna 172 and I had a note on the Monday morning to say that the starter motor had failed the day before. As it was at the back of the hangar, I removed said starter and it was obviously an ex-starter motor as it had failed internally.

On went the new starter motor and I took the aircraft outside to test it. I got in, turned the battery master switch on and instantly, the new starter did its thing and the propeller spun. No key in the ignition switch – all I’d done was but the battery master on. If anyone had been within the arc of the propeller it may well have killed them.

Obviously, what had happened was on the last flight, the starter contactor had failed and stayed in the energised position. The starter motor remained engaged for the hour long flight which took its toll on the innocent starter motor. The highly experienced instructor/examiner hadn’t noticed the ‘starter energised’ warning light was illuminated from their side of the cockpit.

From that moment on, I have never applied power to an aircraft without ensuring no one was near the propeller and a warning call made of ‘power going on’. I taught new engineers this and aircraft owners and pilots whenever I got the chance.

PS With aerobatic aircraft, it might be considered wise to mount battery and starter contactors horizontally rather than in the more common vertical position to ensure G loads can’t affect the contactors’ required position.
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By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1863400
Our LAA permit Jodel doesn't have a warning light. We have had the starter fail to disengage after start, however it was picked up by the pilot thinking he heard a strange noise, so he shut down again. All good, but I suspect other aircraft wouldn't have been as obvious.
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By Kemble Pitts
#1863695
riverrock wrote:Our LAA permit Jodel doesn't have a warning light. We have had the starter fail to disengage after start, however it was picked up by the pilot thinking he heard a strange noise, so he shut down again. All good, but I suspect other aircraft wouldn't have been as obvious.


Seems like you might be missing a Mandatory Mod :whistle:
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1863720
My memory is that LAA don't add this as a requirement for aircraft transitioning from CofA and the requirement is triggered at build or transition to LAA.
Aircraft was LAA long before we bought it but more importantly, our inspector is happy.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1864943
After 25 + years of reciting 'starter warning light out' as part of post start checks and verifying the light was out I realised I had no idea if the starter light even worked at all having never ever looked at it during cranking. :wink:

So next time I started up I forced myself - it was surprisingly hard - as my eyes really wanted to look elsewhere:.

It worked but a more weedy pale red light I've never seen.... :roll:
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1864989
I must admit the only time the starter stuck into "engaged" for me, from the right seat I was not attracted by any weak red light but saw the voltage dial in front of me doing unseen-before things to let me know there was a problem.
I once got into a syndicate permit aircraft (one or two here might recognise it) and there was quite a large bulbous bulb cover painted black, but I could see from a tiny scratch in the paint that the bulb was lit. What's that? Turns out someone a few years before had painted it out as it was annoying them, it was to show master switch was on. Presumably removing bulb wasn't allowed or physically possible for some reason.
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By Rob L
#1865078
A month or two ago I was outside a hangar at my local airfield and a C152 taxied past to go on a sortie; there was an odd "tinkling" sound coming from the front somewhere, so I signaled to the pilot, whom I knew, to stop.

It was found that both forward Phillips screws on one of these new light-weight starters had come loose, allowing the Bendix (?) pinion unit to slowly migrate forward. In fact one screw had already departed the airframe at some unknown point.

The starter pinion was just "tinkling" against the starter ring gear, even though it was fully retracted in its now-forward housing.

It was not audible from within the cockpit above general engine noise, and no red light (obviously because this was a mechanical, not an electrical issue).
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