PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Question about the difference in the left and right seat controls on Airbus
Old 1st Dec 2009, 22:59
  #15 (permalink)  
goldfish85
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Near Puget Sound
Age: 86
Posts: 88
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Left vs Right handness

I find this is an interesting topic and often wondered why none of us in aircraft certification worried about this. Perhaps it is because I am one of those left-handed pilots. It never bothered me until 777 training. I had a lot of trouble with using my left hand for the cursor control device on the center console. In spite of being left-handed, I couldn't use a mouse or a trackball with my left had. I was finally able to use on - after a fashion - after months of practice.

Using the stick or yoke has never been a problem. It must be the difference in using arm versus had muscles.

I just finished reading an article by the folks at Calspan on simulator evaluations using a sidestick. They had nine pilots (3 left and 6 right-handed) perform a bunch of aggressive maneuvers using left hand and right hand sidesticks.

There was a noticable loss of performance when flying using the non-dominant hand and the pilots reported higher workload.

Dick Newman
goldfish85 is offline