Originally Posted by
Trim Stab
Never underestimate the adaptability of the human brain! I am no test-pilot, but hop between LH and RH seats on helicopters and fixed-wing, and occasionally to weight-shift microlights, with no issues at all. It is little different from riding a bicycle, then driving a car, then riding a horse.
I'm trying to work out if you're playing devil's advocate, or blissfully ignorant.
Like most of the people here I jump types fairly often - this year my logbook shows 6 types so far, covering 3 seating positions and 2 control systems. And no, I don't find this impossible or frightening - but I do have "issues": whether that's left/right switch whilst flying to the required accuracy, flying the right attitudes and speeds, having the right engine restart and spin recovery drills to hand, dealing with different parallax issues in the two seats. And this all assumes I'm *trying* to fly to appropriate levels of accuracy for commercial/instructional/test-flying purposes, which generally I am. Which also, of-course, means I need sufficient spare capacity whilst coping with the changes to handle the other tasks I have in that cockpit, which is likely to be either instructing, or conducting an evaluation task.
Which is why the self-brief and "fingertip information" practices LOMCEVAK described are to me essential. Without those, I can *probably* still operate the aircraft safely, but likely little else, and I'd not put too much money on my ability to handle a genuine emergency either.
G