Originally Posted by
yoko1
-snip-
s I understand it, you’ve never been part of a two-person airline crew, so I can understand if you are not familiar with the protocol. I suspect that you are instead focusing on that blue vertical line that was added by the author of the Leeham article you have cited, but the author was actually marking another event.
Whenever aircraft control is transferred in a multi-crew aircraft when the autopilot is not engaged, the proper technique is to first place the aircraft in a neutral trim state (i.e. no control pressures, represented by the spot of relative calm on the CCCForce FDR trace before the blue line) and then make the hand-off (procedurally accompanied by some verbalization such as “You have the aircraft” “I have the aircraft” though this part is sometimes omitted). Ideally the pilot on the receiving end would not have to make any immediate control input. A pilot does not, I repeat does not, transfer control when there is an ongoing control input or out of trim state. That would be a significant error.
yoko1, I have been an aircraft commander in a multi-crew aircraft who has taken controls when the other pilot was having difficulty controlling the aircraft - no, they were not trimmed when the controls were passed.
The inverse of that happened once to me - as a "not the aircraft commander" pilot - on a dark and moonless night where I hardly had it trimmed when the aircraft commander took controls.
I'd be careful of making such a sweeping statement about what a pilot would or would not do on a forum with a lot of pilots (and of course other interested folks).
Yes, the normal passing of control is as you describe.
We are, I think you'll agree, discussing a not-quite-normal situation.
*return to lurk*