Always check your flight controls BEFORE starting your engine

I dutifully followed the checklist, which called for checking flight
controls free and correct after starting the engine. After fifteen
years of flying never having had any problems with the flight controls,
today I was in the runup area and found that my right rudder pedal
didn't have full travel. I had to taxi back to the FBO and shut down
before I could extract what turned out to be a flashlight (someone
else's) from underneath the copilot's right rudder pedal.

Oh well, at least I got a nice flashlight out of it.

rg