Decision time....go/no go

This is a true story, and it happened so long ago the statute of
limitations has to be protection.

I was in the takeoff run for my Instrument Rating -- a 172 sometime in
the 60s, and the damned airspeed needle wouldn't come off the stop. I
chopped the power, the examiner asked what was wrong, and I pointed to
the airspeed indicating zero while we were at maybe 30 kts. It was on a
5000 foot runway as I remember. He said "Go anyway." I think I won my
rating when I pulled back the throttle.

Anyhow, I had some real partial panel flying that day, and can tell you
the Cessna 172 is a real forgiving airplane!

I don't recall ever returning after taxiing out for weather reasons,
but must have a dozen times for equipment problems. NAV not testing
right, carb heat cable breaking -- it's not supposted to come out a
foot! -- bad radio, too rough on one mag, etc. Nearly all of those were
on rental airplanes, that means within my first 300 or so hours.
Problems like that went way down when I began flying my own airplane.