When we could start all over again.....

[Double Back]

Post here Your ideas about aviation issues that were wrong, right from the start.
Launch item:
We would connect the rudder the other way around!

Currently:Push the stick or yoke away, nose goes down, push it left, left wing goes down.
Push Yr tiller to the right, nose turns right.
Push Your left rudder, nose ahhh .....comes left?
Wouldn't a movement to the right be more logical? I guess N-1 training, where especially in the beginning students make horrendous "natural" mistakes with the wrong foot, (and we had to learn/teach dead engine is dead foot, so illogical it was....)

moving up from a soapbox car to an aeroplane will become more easily! ;)

OK, differential braking will become interesting!!!! :}

[mustangsally]

Personally I prefer the current method of flight control movement. To me it is very logical. On your rudder control comment, the method used to pull the nose to left, step on the left rudder is very logical. When riding a bike, it is logical to put the drag the left foot to pull the bike to the left.


On the Bleriot XI and the Wright flier used wing warp for roll control. Rhinebeck in New York State does have a Bleriot in flying condition. OK, it was last flown in late seventies, maybe three flight totally about ten minutes. I did visit the museum and had a rather long talk with one of the members. The flight control was discussed. It had two control sticks. One for roll, wing warp and a separate one for pitch. To roll left the stick was moved to the right and to pitch down the stick was pulled back.


The Bleriot at Rhinebeck was found in a barn outside Boston and had suffered minor fire damage. The good folks ant Rhinebeck rebuilt it replacing only a handful of parts.


I like our current method, but would like to see a little more feed back in the controls. So few aircraft use wire and springs anymore it is all moved by a flight control computer, read autopilot with manual inputs.

[Double Back]

Mustangalley.
I have flown since the age of 14 so for me it is our current way "logical" too. But I have seen many beginning students, having problems already with taxying on their first lessons. AFTER they had to learn that throttling UP was forward on the throttle!
I had students really have big problems with N-1, kicking the wrong rudder pedal (interesting flight lessons!).

Aside: controlling a bike is very complex, in fact You do not turn the handlebar to the left for a left turn, You shift Yr weight left, partly by steering RIGHT initially, then the bars turn left to coordinate the turn! I have tested this extensively driving a motorbike, push the bar to the right, You turn left!

Controlling a bike hands free is perfect with weight shifting. All young kids here in Netherlands can do this (we are kind of born on bikes.....)

[TyroPicard]

All perfectly logical...
Sailing boat with tiller.. you are at the stern so you push the stern to the right in order to turn left.
Aircraft.. You are at the front so you push the front to the left to turn left.

[RAT 5]

Sailing boat with tiller.. you are at the stern so you push the stern to the right in order to turn left.

This I understand was the route cause of the collision by the Titanic. This was during the transition from tiller control to wheel control of the ship and the SOP steering commands. Hence, eventually, the command was not "right rudder" to turn left but "left hand down" to avoid confusion. In the case of Titanic the officer of the watch was of the old school and the wheel man of the new. They were at cross purposes in meaning & understanding. (sounds like marriage, but I stop right there).

One thing I've seen many times, especially from the students with more artistic than scientific leanings: the MCP V/S wheel. You want to go up so we rotate the wheel down, and visa versa. The artistic students moved the wheel in the opposite/incorrect direction: i.e. up for up & down for down. Now if this was an electric switch, similar to the electric flap switch on C150 etc. then the switch goes down and the flaps go down. If the V/S control was a toggle switch then I'm sure this would be the logic, but it's a wheel and for some reason it is in the opposite sense. For those of us who've been with this since the beginning we do it without thinking, but for the newbies they use intuition and realise their mistake, eventually. But is it really a mistake? Why did Airbus make all their overhead panel switch opposite to Boeing? Some ergonomic guru had a plan, I guess.

For those of us who venture into hang-gliding, beware. You do indeed pull back to go down and push to go up. Just got to learn new tricks with new toys.

No. 2. Why does PIC sit on left when standard circuit & hold is right? Who wants to sit on the outside of the turn?

[172_driver]

Standard circuit is left, right?

Standard VFR holding (..if there is such a thing) is also left, isn't it? Can't remember, long time since I did one.

Only IFR holding that's to the right, right?

[Double Back]

Rat5
Not only Airbus,
The capts I flew with on Boeing 747s who were ex DC8, were always complaining about the "wrong" direction landing lights needed switching.

[FERetd]

RAT 5 Quote :- "Why did Airbus make all their overhead panel switch opposite to Boeing?"

RAT You could also have asked why did Boeing make all their overhead panel switches opposite on different Boeings?

At the same Company, we had Boeing 720s with the opposite switch logic to the Boeing 707s.

In those days perhaps it was the customer's choice. The aircraft were obtained second-hand from two different operators.

As for your Airbus question perhaps it's a case of "Vivre la differance!"

[megan]

At least up until WWII French aircraft (plus other nations) had a convention where you pulled the throttle aft to increase power, and pushed forward to decrease power. With the outbreak of war the French aircraft went to the RAF and had to be modified to the other way round.

[mustangsally]

Back in the early Boeing days, I'd say prior to the mid-50's all Boeing switches moved the same direction. I don't know if it was forward for on or off. Then comes the jet age, 707 and 720. Boeing is trying to sell airframes and airlines started order the airframes with switches mounted which ever way the customer wanted. I flew 727 that had been Eastern, Delta, United, what ever and one never was sure which direction was off or on. Move the switch if the light or pump comes on great, if not move it the other direction. With the introduction of the 57/67 Boeing moved to make every airframe the same. If the customer wanted them the other way, fine, but don't change it till you own it.

[RAT 5]

Regarding Airbus switches: was it not Lufthansa who had a mixed fleet, Boeing first, and in the early models of Airbus 300/310 etc. paid a fortune to have the switches reversed a la Boeing. Just a story in the bar somewhere. (if I could remember where I didn't enjoy myself enough.)

[Double Back]

Here we have a look into the history of legacy airlines' freedoms of ONE guy (most of the times the chief pilot) to order modifications at will, without ANY financial foundation.... Those hobbies must have cost millions... To the point Boeing nearly went crazy(and T.U.) trying to accommodate all those features.
How times have changed...

[reynoldsno1]

Helicopter main rotor rotation - make 'em all turn in the same direction for chrissake ...:ugh:

[DozyWannabe]

This I understand was the route cause of the collision by the Titanic. This was during the transition from tiller control to wheel control of the ship...
Sorry to say, but what you have there is an urban legend. A quick check shows me that steam ships had been using wheels and telemotors for around 50-60 years by April 1912. The British maritime practice was still using "tiller orders", however (this continued until 1933) - so a "starboard" order involved turning the wheel to the left and a "port" to the right. What may have caused some confusion is that the attempted evasive manoeuvre was known as a "port around" (which has nothing to do with the direction you're steering in).

The man at the wheel was Quartermaster Hichens, and the man who gave the order was Second Officer Murdoch - both of whom were very experienced and respected. The orders given were "Hard A-Starboard and Full Astern", indicating a left turn with the engines put into reverse. Once alongside the 'berg, the wheel was ordered to port (turned hard right) to use the remaining momentum to swing the stern of the ship clear. One of the investigations had White Star take Olympic (Titanic's sister ship) out to demonstrate the turning response to those orders, and the findings to this day indicate that it was a reasonable thing to attempt - turning the other way would have been just as risky. The only other option was to ram the 'berg head-on, which would have in all likelihood prevented the ship from sinking but would have certainly caused a significant amount of damage and an equally significant number of injuries and fatalities.

To get a bit more on-topic I remember having fun trying to master coordinated turns in the Air Cadets, as I discovered I had a natural tendency to extend the opposite leg to the direction in which I was turning with the column (as my instructor noted, cadets and sideslips shouldn't mix).

[EDIT : Going back to the maritime thing and how it connects to aviation, I reckon it's interesting how the latter seemed to have exactly the same kind of "growing pains", though at a significantly accelerated rate. Ultimately what doomed Titanic was a combination of complacency and retention of "traditional" practices which with the benefit of hindsight were massively inappropriate (namely the tradition whereby westbound mail steamers were discouraged from slowing down for anything except immediate danger). Identical aircraft types with the systems wired differently for each airline also sounds like a bonehead move from a perspective of 50 or 60 years down the line.

I suppose that with the frequency of civil airliners taking flight expanding massively faster than was possible with ocean liners (journeys taking a number of hours rather than a number of days or even weeks), it follows that the dodgy practices were weeded out more quickly - however the shadow of complacency never goes away, probably by its very nature. ]

[onetrack]

Replace throttle with a twist grip? Everyone automatically knows that screwing the grip pours on the coal!
Seems like people who have operated plant and equipment have the greatest amount of trouble with aircraft throttle operation, because nearly all of the earthmovers use rearwards movement of the throttle lever for speed increase!

[Denti]

@RAT5: Lufty had all the overhead panel switches on their 737s reversed. But not for commonality, there was or is a european norm regarding switching and they just wanted their switching according to that norm. Which, funny enough, coincides with the switching direction on airbii.

Always was kinda confusing when training on the lufty simulators in FRA, those in BER had the "normal" switching configuration.

[John Farley]

Interesting topic.

Back in the 80s and 90s I was lucky enough to be involved in a clean sheet of paper research project to investigate how the next generation of controls for a vertical landing jet fighter should be designed. Clearly they could be like a helicopter, like a Harrier or something new.

Since the helicopter and Harrier concepts both have issues that make them less than ideal for a vertical landing jet, something new was indicated. After many possibilities were tried we settled for pull the stick back to go up and push it forward to go down (surprise surprise) but at any speed. This meant that as you slowed to a hover that you continued using your normal technique for height control and were effectively just flying an aeroplane that did not stall. Today the F35B uses this concept.