I have never attempted to fly with control locks in place, and always check that everything moves as intended before a flight, but I am guilty (okay twice!) of taking off with a pitot cover in place. In the latter case, I had failed to notice the grey plastic tube with a cork in the end, which the aircraft owner used as a pitot cover (it had no red flag, but I still should have noticed). It would seem simple to land back and just take it off, but in this case, it was a 180 floatplane, and I had taxiied out of a very congested area to get to the takeoff area and go, and was hardly taxiing back in. So there I am safely back on the water, in the middle of the lake, but it sure is a long reach to pull off that cover, when all you have to stand on is the float. Solution? Climb up on the wing, work your way out on your belly, and reach over to get it. I'm confident, after that spectacle, I won't make that mistake again!
Flight control locks and covers are sometimes not clearly marked, and are missed during hasty preflight inspections.
Sometimes they are very well marked, and still things go wrong... I flew this helicopter on several occasions, though not the last....
How could you miss that cover?
It was done. Bad day....
Could you miss this one?
Pilot DAR