MSc Human Factors on left and right handedness

[juggling pete]

Hi All,
I am researching possible issues regarding flight deck and control column handedness ie does it matter which hand you learn/fly with? Is the flight deck asymmetric? etc. I am especially interested in anyone who has had or knows of problems - from that first trial flight with the 'wrong' hand to changing from helos or military to fixed wing, left seat to right (and vice versa) , gliders and so on. Anything at all , even just a relevant article Juggling Pete



New question!!
Does anyone know for sure -with evidence- how the left hand seat PIC rule and circuit arose? I assume it was the americans 'driving' the regulations, but would like to be certain. cheers

[Final 3 Greens]

pete

Sorry I can't help directly, as I never had a problem either way.

But have you looked at David Beatty, The Naked Pilot .... there might be a link to people who suffer from laterality.

[redsnail]

Right handed.
Flown left and right seats. No problem with either. Takes a short while to get "used to doing the power lever & yoke with the other hand" but then no probs.

[BigGreenPleasureMachine]

I'd have thought it's similar to driving a left hand drive car when used to a right-hooker, you bash your left hand against the door a couple of times trying to change gear, then you get the hang of it. However, that's an empirical observation. You'll have to translate it into
a theoretical model yourself;-)

Regards BGPM

[Flock1]

I'm only a lowly PPL student at the latter stages of the course, but as i am left-handed, i thought i'd mention my experiences.

Being a left-hander hasn't been a real problem, but the only difficulties (and this may be only relevent to students) is when writing ATC messages down on my kneeboaed. When i was taught to fly, i was always told to put my left hand on the yoke. Later, when i was at the navigating section of the course, and ATC would give me all sorts of clearances or whatever, i tried to write down it down with my right hand. I couldn't do it - because i wans't quick enough or neat enough. So now i remove my left hand form the yoke, and switch my right-hand to the yoke. This is simple for me now, but when i first started flying lessons, the yoke would be 'unnattended' for quite a few seconds - while my instructor would witness my ineptitude with startled eyes.

Hope this is the sort of thing you're looking for!

[Luke SkyToddler]

Ditto the above - writing clearances left handed is a real pain in the ass.

Apart from that, no real disadvantage that I've observed.

I read somewhere in my training, that something like 40% of pilots are left handed (against a global average of 10% of left handed people) ... anyone else confirm such a thing for me?

[juggling pete]

the comments are all very interesting and I am looking exactly at problems like writing and those percentages . Also I have Beatty, thanks!

[Stan Evil]

As an instructor I see a lot of pilots and there cetainly seem to be a lot of left-handed ones. I once worked for an organisation employing about 50 instructors; 6 of us were picked to set up an instructor training course and at the first meeting we found that 5 of the 6 were left-handed!

In the military, with a control column held in the right hand and a throttle on the left, being left-handed was useful when it came to writing things down (as it is for me in the right-hand, instructor's seat nowadays).

I can only reacall personally one instance of getting my hand actions round the wrong way and that was a very early right-hand seat trip in a glider when I flared with the spoilers and eased the stick in (forward) - not a pretty landing.

[Intruder]

As others have indicated, I don't think it really matters. You will likely adapt to the specific airplane rather readily, once you learn to fly one type comfortably.

I started about 30 years ago in Piper Cherokees (left seat; left hand on yoke, right hand on throttle). After I got my license and joined a flying club that had a Super Cub, it took no time at all to switch to right hand on stick, left hand on throttle.

When I entered Navy flight school, the stick & throttle fell naturally to hand. When I went back to small airplanes in the aero clubs, the left-hand-on-yoke setup was just as natural. When I got to try my hand in a Cobra helicopter, the left collective and right sidestick cyclic were no problem (though controlling collective through decel and flare on landing took a couple flights).

Lest you think it's all a "yoke = left hand; stick = right hand" affair, my latest transition was from an Aeronca Champ to 747-400 -- right seat; right hand on yoke, left hand on throttles. The wide reach to the throttles was more disconcerting than the fact I had a yoke in my right hand, but it only took a few minutes to adapt.

[LAF]

Speak to Airbus Flight Test Dept...they have done a lot of stuff on this.Most interesting was the max braking rejected take offs.No pilot could beat the max aircraft auto braking...interestingly from your point of view the left brain stronger pilots started to reduce pressure on the left foot earlier (if I remeber they suggested weaker right brain controlled left foot)...anyway they have got all the info..speak to them.

I am left handed for writing only...everything else done with right hand.No problems apart from writing as indicated.

[aztruck]

I'm left footed and write right handed, but play sports left handed (or right handed) because timing seems to be a bit better that way. When I went for the Initial Class one they did an eye balance test and told me that I had no dominant eye and should have been a fighter pilot. Bit bloody late seeing as I was 35 at the time....

[DANZ]

Just started an instructor rating myself. Interesting first few moments converting to the right hand seat, but once you tell your brain not to pull back on the mixture knob crossing the fence it's no problem. So far 3 hours right hand seat.
Also, it's a bit of a ****** being a lefty as someone said before swapping hands to right clearances but got that sorted too!

Dan

[OVERTALK]

Well I suppose that I'd have to say that, on the one hand, whilst I've always been ambidextrous, on the other hand I've always been ambidextrous also.

In the middle of it all I find that I have no problem getting on top of it - but always seem to fall off to the left behind. That's perhaps because the girlfriend is downright-underhanded and always needs to be in the right.

On balance I feel unequivocally gauche about being so adroit when all about me seem to be perfidious, dissimulating, duplicitous, mendacious, double-dealing and two-faced about their own multi-faceted dexterity.

insincerely
Links Rechts

[arcniz]

Right on, Overtalk.

The one bilateral topic you seem to have left out is the sometimes complicated matter of asssymmetry.

[gingernut]

Is this piece of research any use ? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9450607&dopt=Abstract (http://)

Sorry, the link doesn't appear to work. Find "Medline" via your search engine.

Medline is a medical database, and has its own search engine.

Try entering "left handed pilots" or other appropiate keywords.