I did occasional moonlighting on a DC3 freighter with old Bill Brown of Brain and Brown fame. I think it was in the early Seventies. He told me to get comfortable in the copilots seat one dark early morning while he did a walk-around inspection. Then he hopped into the left seat and started the right engine which was ran OK. Then just as he moved the mixture to rich to catch the left engine there was an mighty bang from that direction. Bill looked through his glasses across to me and said WTF was that? I said "Dunno, Bill but sounds expensive" and while he was dithering as Bill did, I cut both mixtures.
Bill climbs from his seat and walked around the left engine and found a inch missing from the tip of a blade of the port prop. The culprit was the observers safety belt buckle hanging way out from the hamburger door (small freight door immediately behind the pilot). Bill hadn't done a very good walk-around inspection otherwise he would have seen the belt trapped under the bottom of the freight door and dangling from the door. As the port engine started, the belt was pulled into the prop which passed within inches of the hamburger door. Now you could see why the freight door was called the hamburger door.
I thoughts that's it - the prop blade is rooted so I may as well go back to bed at home. But Bill pulls out a metal file from somewhere and grabs a servicing stand and I watch in mouth-open amazement as he spent the next ten minutes filing the prop tip to iron out the jagged bits. After an exemplary career in the RAAF I now knew I was in GA.
We eventually got airborne and there was no vibration so Bill must have known what he was doing I guess. When we returned from Tassie to EN later that day he gave me the landing from the RH seat. Now I had been an instructor on RAAF Daks and thought I knew all about what surprises a student can do to you, but I tell you what, old Bill really caught me out after I had done a greaser in a strong northerly on 35. As the tail of the DC3 lowered the aircraft began to swing into the gusty crosswind and I was ready for it when suddenly the rudder totally jammed leaving us with no rudder control.
I was only able to keep it straight by harsh dabs on the starboard brake which set off the gear warning horn with the side strain. DC3's could do that to you sometimes in a strong crooswind as the tail came down. I couldn't move the rudder pedal and glanced down to find that bloody old Bill had deliberately engaged the automatic pilot shortly after touch down. The autopilot did its job only too well and centralised the rudder against my pedal pressure. I said to Bill WTF are you doing to me? I was only trying to help you sez Bill.
Now in the DC3 it was common practice to engage the autopilot while taxiing in a strong crosswind in order to stop the huge rudder surface from banging from side to side which you could not prevent with sheer leg power. Bill should have waited until the end of the landing roll and then asked me did I want him to engage the autopilot which I would have quite happy to accept.
But no - the bugger engaged the autopilot as I was trying to sort out the crosswind swing (the DC3 is a tail-dragger with all that means in a crosswind - meaning they swing harshly). So now the rudder was jammed central with 600 PSI hydraulic pressure holding the rudder fore and aft and me trying to use full rudder to keep straight. Thanks for nothing dear old Bill - but a lovely old codger for all that. He died many years ago.