Flying with the wrong hand

[Gertrude the Wombat]

What I usually fly has left hand on the yoke, right hand on the throttle. The other day I flew something that had left hand on the throttle, right hand on the stick.

Whilst I was thinking about it I did the correct thing with the correct hand. But once or twice I didn't ... particularly the stall recovery, where I instinctively put the left hand forward a bit and the right hand forward all the way, and ended up heading straight down. (I'm not sure whether or not the instructor realised why I did what I did - I recovered it OK, he didn't say anything (other than to comment on where the G meter had got to), and I didn't work it out for myself until after the flight.)

Reminds me of my first couple of flying lessons, when I was much more used to driving boats, and in that sort of boat when you suddenly need full power you pull back on the throttle, so once or twice I chopped the power in the aircraft when I was trying to get full power.

Having read about how this effect operates on people re flight controls I have decided I'm never going to fly anything where you push forwards to go up!!

So, I assume that people who regularly fly both left-handed and right-handed (whichever way round you define it) aircraft in due course sort themselves out and never do something with the wrong hand? How long does it take, I wonder.

[MLS-12D]

Gertrude, I'm surprised! I thought that you had flown cubs and similar airplanes equipped with 'sticks' rather than 'yokes'?

Personally, I started off in gliders (sticks, natch), then learned to fly airplanes in Cessnas (yokes), and over the last two or three years have flown only tailwheel airplanes fitted with sticks. I've never found it particularly difficult switching from one format to the other. IMHO, sticks 'feel' slightly better; but either is quite acceptable.

[tmmorris]

Exactly the same thing happened to me on checkout in a Firefly - where you have the choice, but the stick is 'shaped' for the right hand (there are two throttles). I stuffed the nose down and only gave it a bit of throttle, instead of the reverse. I must say I've taken to flying it LH stick RH throttle, at least until I have time to get more used to the reverse!

Tim

[jabberwok]

If you say you only erred once or twice then it looks as though you adjusted fairly quickly - and probably a couple more flights would have ironed those out. In other words one adjusts quicker than you would think.

One point to note though. You normally have your left hand on a yoke because most aircraft have the throttle(s) in the middle. All the aircraft I have flown with sticks have the throttle on the port cockpit side. Maybe the fact that you are gripping a stick already tunes the brain into accepting the behavioural pattern is different.

I'd have to fly an aircraft with a yoke and left hand throttles to see if I would really get confused! Don't know if such a beast exists - that us mere mortals could get to fly that is.. Right hand seat in a Staggerwing qualifies but I only had 20 minutes in that..

[1McLay]

Gentleman please...all this talk of griping sticks is making the ladies blush!

:O :oh: :}

[FormationFlyer]

To be honest its a matter of time nothing more - only takes a couple of flights to sort out. :ok:

I now regularly fly left/right handed on yokes/sticks and throttles from left or right seats. I dont even think about it now.

My only word of caution is this. If you are flying in formation beware - In some aircraft it is easier to fly odds from the right seat rather than the left due to the windshield curvature.

Don't attempt to fly in formation using a hand/control/seat combination you arent used to. :oh: It can be tempting sometimes because other people are often seen doing it all the time - but interestingly enough the issues experienced in the first post are extremely common - almost all instructors find when moving to RH seat flying that their first couple of hours seem them once or twice doing completely the wrong thing - although its less usual to do it wrong with the control column/yoke/stick thingy...The most likely and common errors I have seen have all been throttle control!

I encourage everyone to fly a number of aircraft types and get a good feel flying left or right handed - it can always come in useful...

[Milt]

Right to left handed.

Most of us have mastered the change over from learning to fly with the right hand on stick and left on engine control to the reverse for most two place cockpits.

One then has to wonder whether the process is more difficult for a leftie.

Of course we have all managed to operate aircraft rudders which all work in a reverse instinctive sense. All because the early designers considered it an unnecessary complication to cross over the control cables and concluded that we pilots would all be able to operate rudders in reverse. So now we all do just that.

Couple of others to ponder.

Is there a standard direction to operate a twist grip power control?

Which way should you push/pull a wing sweep control ?

And which way should I operate the rocker switch to operate the electric windows in my car. Mostly I get it wrong!!!

One that almost did me in. Ran out of oxygen in a Canberra. In a hypoxic condition grabbed and pulled a knob to release oxy from the emergency bottle in the seat. The knob moved as though to indicate correct operation. Wrong. I should have pushed.
That was a close call for two of us.

[KCDW]

The CAP10 presents an interesting dilemma. It has a throttle on both left and right. For aeros and general handling, the one on the left is far more comfortably placed, so throttle left, stick right. However in the circuit, the flap lever is on the right, so touch and gos are nigh on impossible in the previous combination (don't fancy letting go of the stick in the ground roll somehow) so I've trained myself to switch hands for circuit work. Took a bit of time to get used to it.

[shortstripper]

The Falconar (Jodel) was the most odd for me to get the feel of as it has a stick but the throttle is central. It took no time to adjust, but as I'm so used to "stick" aircraft having left throttle and "yoke" aircraft having right throttle it felt a bit alien. Mind you compared to going from conventional aeroplane to weightshift microlight (still unmastered) it was nothing!

SS

[Final 3 Greens]

I've never found it difficult to fly stick/yoke with either hand, either because of the layout/choice (e.g. Robin DR400) or because of flying from the RHS.

What is more an issue for me is the parallax view of the instrument panel from the RHS, when sitting there, but I guess that's a matter of adjustment through use.

[FormationFlyer]

Milt
Of course we have all managed to operate aircraft rudders which all work in a reverse instinctive sense. All because the early designers considered it an unnecessary complication to cross over the control cables and concluded that we pilots would all be able to operate rudders in reverse. So now we all do just that.

I assume you are talking about weightshift microlights here and interesting taxying...because I always thought that pressing L rudder - aicraft nose goes L seemed 'natural' to me.

Indeed - as an instructor 'natural sense' is an exact phrase from Ex4.1 effects of controls....

Im curious....can you elaborate pls? :confused:

[tmmorris]

Pilot mag this month has an accident report where it looks as though the pilot (new on type, can't remember what it was and I've thrown the mag away!) was used to LH stick , RH throttle and made a mistake on short finals (sudden sink, tried to apply a fistful of throttle to correct but instead stuffed the nose down). So this kind of inbuilt behaviour can be v. dangerous. I seem to remember something from the Human Factors course that says we revert under stress to the first learned behaviour - certainly seems true for me. Hence teaching Undercarriage Down as a downwind check, even on fixed gear types.

Tim

[Milt]

FormationFlyer

Rudders in Reverse

Strange that all aircraft pilots have been retrained away from natural instincts and childhood learning for rudder yaw/directional control.
Most don't even realise that this happened during the first few hours of their training and have rarely been prompted to consider how extraordinary is the result..

Human steering on the ground.

Start on horseback as the evolutionary beginning of the human steering process.
Then the learning progression through the tricycle, billycart, bicycle, motorcycle and motor vehicles.
Then go fly and the instructor introduces you to a rudder bar or the equivalent and surprise, surprise it works the opposite way round. Oops.

Generally takes 2/3 hours of concentration before the reversal starts to become sub-conscious - remember?

Test pilots and purists often speculate on the ability of the experienced pilot to operate nosewheel steering and rudder simultaneously without any apparent mental conflict. Perhaps if a nose wheel steering wheel was changed to a miniature rudder bar there would be considerable mental conflict.

Oddly I don't recall any difficulty with the tiller in the Beverley which one could imagine to be the closer spoke of a wheel.

I well remember being caught out in a Folland Gnat having a prototype full slab tail. With gear down at slow speed and normal full nose up trim, full back stick was inadequate to prevent nose down pitch. One was then forced to go for over-ride trim via a two way switch on the instrument panel. Instinctively I selected the switch down as though to instinctively rotate the nose up - Whoops. It had been installed the other way. A green field rapidly enlarging gets your attention. Happily a quick switch reversal sorted things out otherwise I would have had some interesting practice with inverted flying.

[John Farley]

Put another way pilots move the stick (or yoke) in the direction they want the nose/wing to move but have to move the rudder in the opposite sense. As Milt says that is perverse.

[effortless]

I blush to admit it but the first time I used a yoke after having only ever associated a stick with flying, I tried to steer it like a car when taxying. It was only for the briefest brainstorm but I almost put the wing over the tables in the caff. :\