After having a look at the 'History of Helicopters' thread, and an episode of Top Gear which talked about the first car to have the now common C-B-A three pedals and gear stick setup in cars, it got me thinking: Have choppers always had the Collective (raise/lower), cyclic (forward/back/left/right etc) and torque pedal (push/push) setup in order to achieve control?
Presumably not?- So, it begs the questions: How was the current 'accepted' method of controlling a helo adopted? What was the first machine to utilise this? What have been other methods (that presumable were a failure)?
Especially with IFR helos, could it be possible to free up a hand by being able to 'pull' the cyclic up in order to raise collective? ...or other such ideas.
.....aaaaaaand begin discussion........now.