At CFS as a student beefer I was once required to give a lesson to fellow QFI students and the staff on the aircraft electrical system (
) as part of my course assessment. I knew I had better spice it up a little to avoid them all nodding off.
The night before I made up a large brown cardboard box (of tricks) and punched a small hole in each side near the bottom and stuck large labels with '+ve' and '-ve' by them. I led the end of twelve feet of red battery cable into one hole and knotted the end; also twelve feet of black cable into the other and knotted that. I fastened large brass bowser earthing clips to each of the other ends of the cables.
The time came. The staff sat on the rear row and the studes on the front, as usual. The box of tricks was in full view on the desk.
To start the lesson I asked the two chaps on the ends of the front row to hold an earthing clip each (they were nervous already
). I explained that I had a novel way of making them remember the lesson.... and made a couple of wisecracks about how it should be a really positive experience for the one and hopefully not too negative for the other.....
Everyone else, especially the staff seemed to find this a huge joke. So far so good.
The lesson went well. To the amusement of everyone else, I continually reminded the two to hold onto the earthing clips tightly - they weren't very happy about that.
At the end of the lesson, I said the time had come to "reinforce the learning experience". I opened the top of the cardboard box.....
The rear row of staff pilots now leaned eagerly forward to see what would be the fate of the front row "victims". At that point I told all the QFI students in the front row to cross arms and hold hands.
Their faces dropped, but they obeyed - they were all now convinced they were "in the circuit". The staff loved it even more.
I stood behind the box and put my hands inside. Inside was a toy dragster car, powered by a pull cord gyro, borrowed from my son. I pulled the handle and it started revving up with a very loud buzzing noise. As the noise reached a crescendo, I flicked the switch on a small battery pack, which switched on a small red light on top of the box. The faces of my fellow student QFIs was a picture!
With that, I took the hat pin I had taped to the inside of the box and stuck it into the large balloon filled with talcum powder which was taking up the rest of the space inside. As it went off with a loud bang, blowing a cloud of "smoke" out of the box, the entire front row jumped off the floor, convinced they had been given an electric shock.
To finish off, I then took a flash photograph of them as a momento. Some of their expressions were priceless.
I got a good mark for that lesson.