See, John F. You really started something when you got this thread going. Old farts like me come in spinner with our stories.
During our training at No 1 OTU at RAAF Base Williamtown in 1953 we went straight on to Mustangs for gunnery, rocketry, formation stuff and all that.
The course included one hour of night flying in the Mustang.
Two courses earlier, one "student" (he was a Sergeant then but became an Air Marshal eventually) lost control as he got the tail up in the take off run. I am not certain of this but I believe he tried to force the tail up in the Mustang to get a quicker view of the runway during the early part of the take off roll and was slow to contain the ensuing swing. He left the runway and went through trees shedding the wings on the way. He was unhurt but the Mustang was a write-off.
Months later I was on course and was briefed for our night flying. I think there was about five Mustangs flying that night. We were briefed to climb to 5000 ft and do a patrol up and down the coast for half and hour then return to the aerodrome and do some circuits (touch and goes).
The night take off in the Mustang was no fun as the glare from the Merlin exhaust stacks a few feet in front of the pilot affected vision and because of the long nose you could only see one flare in front of you on either side until you got the tail up. If you switched on the landing light which was situated in the wheel well its beam reflected off the propeller arc straight back into your eyes. If you were a short-arse like me there was a great incentive to get the tail up quickly so you could see where you were going.
The bloke that had pranged his Mustang on his night take off a few months earlier was a six footer and even he couldn't stop the swing with his long legs. In my case I had the choice of raising the pilots seat and seeing over the top earlier but then lacking the long legs could only get partial rudder on -or - lowering the seat and getting more rudder at the expense of forward vision until the tail was up. I have always believed the Mustang was built for six-footers. I needed a cushion behind my back to get full rudder control.
Anyway, I kept straight on my first take off at night and soon reached 5000 ft and went on patrol. I was quickly conscious of heat coming from the instrument panel on the left side and found it extremely uncomfortable. Even though I was wearing flying gloves my left wrist was hurting because that was where the throttle was and I couldn't afford to take my hand off the throttle. I thought I had better get on the ground quickly because I was concerned that maybe a fire was going to start up.
After rejoining the circuit I landed safely and after switching off, reported the problem. An airman shone his torch towards the area where I explained the heat was coming from and said "You had the cockpit heat lever full on". With only a few hours on Mustangs I didn't know the cockpit layout all that well and one knob I didn't know about was the position of the cockpit heat lever. I felt such an idiot. But it was a good excuse not to go out and complete the mandatory touch and goes as I was dreading those