Non-standard control configuration

[daver_777]

Hi all,

Was wondering if anyone knows of any helicopters that are out there (or that used to be out there) that had the controls configured so that the collective was operated by the pilots right hand and the cyclic in the left?
And if so was the transition difficult from the standard configuration.

Note: this does not include reaching across the cockpit in a dual control fitted machine;)

Daver

[eagle 86]

Early Sycamores had one collective between the seats with two throttles sticking out either side at right angles!
GAGS
E86

[Brian Abraham]

Also the very first Sikorsky's.

[Nigel Osborn]

The Sycamore controls were very tricky from the left seat as you shared the collective which was shaped like a spade handle. The throttle was shared too!:ok:

[Gaseous]

If you fly an enstrom you will spend quite a bit of time with left hand on cyclic as it is flown from the left seat. All the radio, altimeter etc need to be operated with the right one. If you want to operate the collective between the seats its there to use unless you want to use the middle seat. I find no problem flying it either way.

[oldbeefer]

If you fly an enstrom you will spend quite a bit of time with left hand on cyclic as it is flown from the left seat. All the radio, altimeter etc need to be operated with the right one. If you want to operate the collective between the seats its there to use unless you want to use the middle seat. I find no problem flying it either way.


Don't go there! A number of experienced instructors have crashed while trying to fly 'wrong handed' (including a certain ex Shackleton pilot in a confined area!).

[Senior Pilot]

A number of experienced instructors have crashed while trying to fly 'wrong handed' (including a certain ex Shackleton pilot in a confined area!).

Why do I have this strange mental picture of a Shackleton trying to fit into a confined area ;)

[John Eacott]

Not a very clear photo, but one that I took of the shared collective of the Sycamore at RAF Museum, Hendon:

http://www.eacott.com.au/gallery/d/2059-2/DSCN1565.JPG


plus one from Airliners.net:

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/middle/7/2/1/0319127.jpg

Interesting that the throttle is set opposite ways in the two photos, I guess the collective must be located on different sides of the centre console as well. Any really old drivers have an answer?

[FH1100 Pilot]

John, I think the top picture was flipped in developing.

[Gaseous]

Don't go there

Probably wise not to fly left handed unless you have to, but in order to set transponder codes, mixture, etc. there is no choice but to hold the cyclic in the left hand. It does become second nature. I find myself flying lefty for extended periods without even thinking about it. I dont do it low level I dont think.

My one and only engine stoppage occured while left hand on cyclic because right hand was otherwise occupied. I seem to recall lowering the right collective. It was necessary to swap hands on the way down to try and get it going again as the only start button is on the end of the left collective.:ooh:

Heres a picture. The right collective goes where the centre cushion is.

Try setting that transponder while still holding the stick with the right hand!http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/avenuedentistry/panel.jpg

[John Eacott]

John, I think the top picture was flipped in developing.


:p

I must work on that one: digital camera, I don't think so ;)

[kevin_mayes]

Same as a Bell-47, except that I can't seem to get to grips with the left hand cyclic bit...http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa111/kevin_mayes/Bell47071.jpg

[Gaseous]

Answer is, fly more Kevin. It'll come.

[Fareastdriver]

The 1st picture of the Sycamore with the single collective is reversed, the second picture is correct. Other Sycamores had twin collectives but the picture is of a HAR14 or the German equivalent.. The yellow rings are the trim wheels, the small lever is the rotor brake and what looks like a handbrake is one. The red knob is the slow-running cutout.
The throttle cam for the engine wasn’t ideal so as you raised the collective you had to roll on throttle initially but as you lurched into the hover with the old Leonides howling away at about 40 ins MAP you had to roll it off to stop the wooden blades flying off.
The technique in the RH seat was to put you hand on the top of the throttle so that the opening and closing was a natural wrist movement. In the LH seat you put your hand underneath the throttle to get the same action.
No hydraulics. Trim wheels operated force springs for the for & aft and lateral trim. C of G was corrected by a tank of water meth under the cockpit floor that could be pumped backwards and forwards to a tank in the tail boom. The tail boom had a thick leather pad on the starboard side to encourage the blades to bounce off it should the droop stops not engage.
Sit in the left hand seat of a 332 and fly it the cack-handed with HYD AP out and you have a rough idea of what it flew like.
Surprisingly instructers who spent most of their time in the left seat used to prefer to fly it solo from the same seat. The station display pilot used to do the whole show, real vertical torque turns, etc with some poor airman strapped into the right hand seat as ballast.

[eagle 86]

Did I awaken from a long slumber dinosaur-like Sycamore pilots? No insult meant!!
GAGS
E86

[John Eacott]

The 1st picture of the Sycamore with the single collective is reversed

John, I think the top picture was flipped in developing


Guys, the photo is as I took it through the window of the Sycamore at RAF Museum Hendon. It's a bit too far for me to go back and take another, so if someone in London is passing by maybe they can check for me and see whether the two photo that I took are accurate or not? I took two, they're totally untouched by me (check the EXIF file at my website)

Photo 1 (http://www.eacott.com.au/gallery/v/aviation/pprune/DSCN1564.JPG.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1)


Photo 2 (http://www.eacott.com.au/gallery/v/aviation/pprune/DSCN1565.JPG.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1)

To add further to the discussion, this photo by Andrew Simpson show the Weston-super-Mare Sycamore with what appears to be a "normal" collective. It is also apparently positioned on the right hand side of the centre console, the same as the photos that I took at Hendon!

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/middle/7/0/4/0583407.jpg

[Fareastdriver]

I know that your first picture is reversed because the yellow for and aft trim wheel which in your picture is in front of the red slow-running cut out was between the right hand seat and the consol. The cut out is over extended because it is probably disconnected from the Hobson fuel contol unit. Kosher....Honest...
There were 14 Marks of Sycamore with several different configurations in the cockpit. Some with twin collectives and at least one that was designed to be flown from the left hand seat but none were designed to be flown with the controls switched. It is possible that the Weston machine is LHS one by the positioning of the flight instruments but I would have thought that it was a full dual contol version because of the cut out in the right hand seat squab.
If you look at the conbined engine/Rrpm gauge (the one with the big green sector) on the German machine you will see that 3000 Engine RPM is eqivalent to 275 Rrpm. On the Weston aircraft it is only 225 Rrpm. That shows the difference between various Marks.
I have tried to think of some way of forgiving your camera. Trim wheel on the wrong side, if possible, collective upside down but even though aircraft at that time had stacks of built in Murphys I don't think so.

[Fareastdriver]

I have just had another look at the Weston machine and there are TWO Eng/Rotor Tachos. I think the panel is off an early piston driven Belvedere.

[sycamore]

It almost brings tears to the eyes,or is it the sweat off the brow;have to agree with F-E-D, about the controls;early civvy Sycs. operated from the LHS with/without duals,and main instrument panel on left,then it changed to RHS and a central collective.Comfortable leather seats,wind down windows,manual trims and controls(a right bu%%^r if you didn`t get the trim pre-set for a hover and forgot the Cof G compensator was running the wrong way),steep turns,max rate turns-yes !,torque-turns,proper ones,`jump` take-off- over-rev to 300?,hoik the lever and hope you got 30 kts,before you touched down,otherwise,you got ground resonance and couldn`t get airborne,and then coming back to land on the `spots` outside the CFS crewroom(goofers gallery),and getting resonance every time you touched the ground,then landing back on the grass to ask for an instructor to come out !!Didn`t happen to me,of course,says he,modestly,because Paddy McL.....taught you all the tricks!Anyone remember JWP(Pranger` to his friends) bashing the t/r on a d/wind q/stop?Happy Days and we all grew more hair on our chests !! Anyway, better go and fit the 2-stage amber and put on the blue goggles for some sim. I/F in the Beemer ,ahhh,nostalgia,ain`t wot it used to be....Syc....amore..

`Engine failure,BLOGGS !!`....Down ,Off,and up to 2!!!

[Fareastdriver]

Thanks sycamore. I'm glad I didn't have to explain all that. I thought all the rest had died off. Happy days indeed!

[FH1100 Pilot]

Well, you know...when you're wrong, you're wrong. In the extra pics John Eacott supplied (the "Photo 1" and "Photo 2" links) it appears that, to my tired old eyes at least, the lettering on the red knob does indeed say "cut out" in plain ol' non-reversed English.

Old helicopters are fascinating. We think (like to hope?) they'd all be the same, but there were so many variations as manufacturers played with this or that. You find an example somewhere and look in and go, "Oh wow, that's...uhh, different. I didn't know they did that!"

And perhaps that is the case with this machine. Perhaps it was set up for LHD with the pilot's right hand on the collective? Strange, but who knows what they were thinking back then?

Anyway, my apology to you, John.

[Fareastdriver]

John. Apologies from me too. The picture of the collective the wrong way round put in a mindset that everything else was reversed as well. FH1100s contention that the writing was normal threw in the doubts. I then got on the blower to a mate of mine in Oz who had a lot more time on them than I had to find that he had unfortunately passed on. However his widow had their son, another pilot, visiting and he remembered a copy of the pilot’s notes in the house.
We went through the cockpit illustrations and the fore&aft trim wheel is on the left hand side which is where I was wrong. We went through a couple of other points but we reached the stage where the company might query the telephone bill so we had to stop.
Logical when you think of it. All collectives are pivoted under the pilots left shoulder joint so on the Sycamore the lever would have obscured the trim wheel if it was on the right hand side underneath it.
I blew up you picture on Win Media and the collective is definitely upside down because the landing light motor switch is on the bottom instead of the top. The throttle retaining clamp nuts are on the top where on your picture of the German model they are out of sight underneath.
I believe that when they assembled it at Hendon the people involved would have assumed that, like a motor cycle, the twist grip would be on the outside. The mounting was probably very simple. After all, nobody would be stupid enough to fit it upside down, would they?
If nothing else a good illustration of Murphy’s law and the camera never lies.

[John Eacott]

Fed & FH1100Pilot,

Thanks, I was begining to doubt my camera there!

After all, nobody would be stupid enough to fit it upside down, would they?

Which begs the question, off topic as it may be: who is going to tell the RAF Museum? :E :p

[Fareastdriver]

Dayer777
Going back to the original point of the thread I do not think that there is too much of a problem. There has been a lot of discussion about the Sycamore because that is the obvious example.
Thousands of airliners have a central throttle box and the pilots have no difficulty flying them left or right handed as required. The Vulcan did not have a yoke, pistol grips and central throttles, again no problem.
Even on the Sycamore you get the hang of it in a very short time and fly it as well as you could conventionally.
Should a manufacturer produce a helicopter where it was essential that the controls were reversed there would be lots of shocks and horrors but if the pay cheques dried up it would be accepted.
Millions of non-pilots seem quite happy to have their arm hanging out of the window irrespective of whether they are driving a LHD or RHD car.
I hope that answers your question.

[eagle 86]

I have minimum F/W time mainly in lighties and mainly a long time ago - I've flown left and right options and despite little experience found no difficulty swapping. I am a very experienced QHI and despite this, when the size of the cockpit made the exercise feasable, I have found it extremely difficult and unnatural to attempt to master a reverse control situation in the hover. No doubt I eventually would get the hang of it but the exercise appears to be not as simple as swapping around in a fixed wing.
GAGS
E86

[daver_777]

Thanks heaps for everyones input, it has made for some very interesting reading. What sparked my curiosity inthe first place was a story on here about a certain QHI who attempted to fly his helicopter cack handed, which resulted in him almost loosing control, and then his flight commander trying the exact same thing and bending the aircraft.

Im not sure i would compare flying an airliner or driving a LHD/RHD car to flying a helicopter. I have flown fixed wing aircraft and been required to change hands when switching from the LHS to RHS which presented little problem. I can imagine swaping hands when purely flying the helo probably wouldn't be too difficult but I think hovering would be a completly different matter. Just thinking about it gives me a headache:\

Thanks again

Daver_777

[Fareastdriver]

eagle 86

I agree that an informal attempt to fly cross control is difficult. It is not required so time and money would not be spent achieving the object. The Sycamore HAR 14 was different. By having two cyclics, yaw pedals and a central collective it was designed to be flown left handed. It was, to some extent like learning to fly a helicopter all over again but in a shorter time because one was used to the basics, but it had to be done. The Sycamore was the RAF’s basic helicopter trainer in the early 60s so every QHI in the RAF could fly left handed. So could a lot of German and RAN instructors.

daver_777

My nightmare would be flying a Sycamore from the left hand seat with its own collective.
Into the hover, change over hands to retrim, back again to cure that sinking feeling as the Rrpm is dying off, change hands again because the trim has changed. Creaking noises tell you the rpm is up to 300 and the blades are stretching so back again to control that. You’re running out of forward cyclic so change hands again scrabbling around for the transfer pump.
No thanks. I would rather fly it left handed.