I have had one solenoid failure on the start side, resulting in a closed solenoid, therefore no fuel flow. One solder joint on one wire had failed. Resoldered wire and all was well. This would seem to indicate that a solenoid fails in a closed position.
Jerry
Jerry:
I've seen that a couple of times. Fortunately for us down here, our local turbine distributors carry a good amount of little spare parts like solenoids so we've never been out of flight because of them.
One thing we always do at our club, is to open all the hatches before we start our turbines. In that way we can see fuel flowing or not flowing into the lines and that makes diagnostics in case of failure easier. Also it helps to see if something is wrong (ex: flames) and allow us to react faster. I've seen that in many places they start the airplanes without opening the hatch, without connecting the turbine terminal and making some tests to see if the turbine is performing 100%. That for me is a recipe for failure..... maybe not today, but at some moment.