Right to Left: the Airbus Sidestick
 

Hi all,

Just a quick question for any pilots that have gone from the right to the left-hand seat of an Airbus: how long did it take you to adjust to the left sidestick?

Cheers,

I've been told it's similar to trying to steer your car wheel with the other hand - very fast to adjust.

Perfect - it just feels 'weird' but I guess that'll fade out quickly enough. Thanks!

After a few sim sessions, becomes normal.

I instruct from both seats now and the side stick is the easy bit. The hard bit is remembering the scan flows using a different arm and sitting on another side. Even simple things like which way to rotate the ENG MODE selector for an engine start when sat on an opposite side needs thinking about before doing it as you're doing it with your other hand/arm and the switch is on the other side of you than you're normally used to.

I didn't even think of that, to be honest! It's always the simple things...

30 mins to master the stick. About 6 months to find all the other switches with the 'wrong' hand!

I just didn't even consider it to be an issue but I can believe it!

Hopefully, it doesn't take too long...

In my current outfit the average is 22 landings for an experienced upgrade to stop smashing the plane on the runway. Sorting out the buttons and not looking to the left hand side for help usually gets fixed during sim training.

Swapping shade brands and flashing a Breitling, that's another dinner...