Referring to my original Post No.1 about nasty instructors. Here is a classic example from long ago. The venue was the RAAF training airfield at Point Cook in Victoria where we had Tiger Moths, Wirraways and Airspeed Oxfords all sharing the same air space. After heavy rain the grass was wet and earth soft. The instructor staff included three well known "shouters". One was my instructor F/L Ted Whitehead, an embittered middle aged man who had been an instructor for years and had a short fuse. The session was going to be on instrument flying.
We used blue coloured flying goggles and amber screens that you stuck on the inside of the front windscreen. With goggles down over your eyes you could see the instrument panel but looking outside through the amber screen through the goggles gave you total blackness. Very effective simulation.
My instructor Ted (Sir, to me) was already sitting impatiently in the back seat of the Wirraway when I climbed into the front seat with my goggles plus parachute and Mae West (life jacket).
The propeller pitch control was already in the coarse position and we would place it in the fine (forward) position after engine start which was done from the front seat. As I clambered into the front seat I realised in horror that I had forgotten to bring the two amber screens with me. That really upset my instructor who shouted at me to go back to the flight hut and get the amber screens. That done I ran back to the Wirraway and clmbing back into the cockpit, strapped on my parachute and attached the amber screens to the windscreen with the studs.
The instructor said he had already done the before start checks from the back seat and because the starter button was only in the front cockpit I had to start the engine. I was still strapping in when the instructor released the brakes and started to taxy across the airfield to the take off point. Because the propeller pitch control was still in full coarse it took a lot of power to taxi the aircraft on the soft ground.
By the time we reached the run-up position the engine had been operating for nearly ten minutes in coarse pitch and the cylinder head temperatures were rising quite rapidly towards the red line.
It was then the instructor discovered the pitch control was in full coarse pitch. The CHT gauge was in the front cockpit and only I could see it. The instructor was in a hurry to get airborne and shortly after lift off I saw the CHT was on the red line. I said to the instructor "Sir - the CHT is in the red." Christ Almighty, was the shocked reply and the instructor immediately went into a tight low level circuit and landed. By now the CHT had dropped back to normal level and without further ado we took off again for the training area with me on instruments..
The point I am making was that I knew the prop pitch control was in coarse pitch while we were taxiing over the soft ground and I could see the CHT rising, but I thought bugger it, I won't tell the instructor about the rapidly rising CHT - that is his problem - not mine. My stupidity could have caused an engine failure after take off and all because my instructor was a screamer and I wanted to get back at him for abusing me over the forgotten amber instrument flying screens .