Hello Jack. First of all I hope you are doing well, and I am glad you can start already your career in aviation, I bet you are very excited about it. However I would like to suggest you a few things. I am approching as a colleage, we all are working in aviation industry and we all always try to put in our mind " safety comes first" . I know you are probably underpressure since you are working for LIFT, but Jack ,you have to understand that the way you speak about us is not profesional and respectful,plus you are emberessing yourself from your lack of knowlegde, no offense. The chief instructor is a great pilot who has more than 5000h in different aircraft including turboprop, the other instructor that you mentioned saying he did not want to fly because one of the nav light was not working is a very profesional and intellegent person who in fact was the first one to notice the contamination problem in the system, and probably saved all our lives including myself. The assistant chief instructor is an outstanding pilot who has been working for probably one of the best flight academy in the world, and as for me I consider that being in this industry for 10 years, flying in 8 different countries (USA, UK, Spain, Egipt, Jordan, Indonesia,etc..) gives me the right to think that i understand a bit about my profesion. If we decided that the airplanes were not OK to fly is because there were enough reasons for it. Im not going to get involed on all this, but I guess I have to come clear about the inccident we both experienced unfortunally.
After take off we both noticed a high power loss around 200ft, (not a TOTAL engine failure), as you mentioned you decided to reduce the throttle back to idle, then I took control applying full power. I took this desicion because first of all we did NOT loose the engine and for your information there is a fuel tank below the seat covered with a very weak frame and supported by a weak landing gear as well (you can do the math). If I told you that you did OK, its because we have always seen you very scared at flying and not very confident when weather or engine conditions were not perfect, like being in clouds, engine running a bit roughly, etc.. plus after seeing you almost crying and hyperventilating in the cockpit during the power loss after T/O, I thought it would be better to tell you that you did right. I appologize for not being honest at that time, but I thought that was the best for you to know at that moment, probably i shouldve told you later about the situation, but I was dealing with all the problems that LIFT is having, then I had to leave for personal reasons. I hope you dont take this in the wrong way, I think and hope you will success in your career but if you want to take an advice, its better to say "I dont know" than pretend you undertsand something that you do not.
P.S: regarding you had information coming engineers of LIFT: these people have ever had any experience in piston before working for LIFT plus their lack of knowledge is frankly scary. Other than our own reseach about the fuel contamination we have total support from a very good mechanic specialized in the liberty XL2 who recommended us not to fly.