Re: Lefties...
 

Another variation is moving from Rotary to Fixed-Wing. As a left hander, flying a helicopter seemed work out especially when operating as a single pilot, being able to make notes which are ledgible subsequent to the clearance. I was fortunate to transition to the Airbus fleet on the right hand seat on the 320/321 and now the 330/340. Airbus were very considerate and equipped these with a cyclic, which acts rather like a Bell 212 with Duplex SFENA, i.e. the inputs are transparent, it feels like you select an attitude which is maintained (actually its a 'G' command in pitch and a rate in roll, but just to give a idea). There is no collective but the speed selects are mounted upside down on the center console and work in pretty much the same way. The interesting bit is changing seats to the right, the whole arrangement is a mirror image and hands need to be retrained. Adaptation is interesting for the first few hours, but seems to smooth out in due course.

Trouble they don't hover very well.

I think the brain is an amazing organ and its ability to adapt with either a right or left dominant hemisphere.

Re: Lefties...
 

Sassy,

You're DEAD!

I was blonde once, I admit. Twenty years ago and it was all out of a bottle. I did NOT have TGIF written on my sling-backs; but I did have red laces on the left boot and green on the right!

Lunar, you're not really being fair on us right-handers, I have lived with a sinister person and admire the more ambidextrous ability that he had over mine (which was, and still is, non-existent!).

However, I know a couple of left handed guitarists; one has his guitar strung the other way round and plays it back to front (from my perspective) while the other just gets on with it the way the guitar was designed. Paul MacCartney plays bass with it strung the other way round; Jimi Hendrix played it (effectively) upside down but that was the skill of the man!

Cheers

Whirls

Re: Lefties...
 

Whirls,

I said a post or two, not all... Trying not to tar everyone with the same brush.

Other musicians who were/are lefties and I use musician loosely in some cases...

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, composer
David Byrne (Talking Heads)
Glen Campbell
Vicki Carr
Natale Cole
Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)
Phil Collins (Genesis)
Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
Dick Dale (guitarist)
Don Everly (The Everly Brothers)
Phil Everly (The Everly Brothers)
Bela Fleck, jazz musician
Glenn Frey (the Eagles)
Eric Gale, guitarist
Noel Gallagher (Oasis) (?)
Errol Garner, jazz pianist
Judy Garland
Crysal Gayle
Kevin Griffin, guitarist & lead singer (Better than Ezra)
Thomas Hedley, vocalist/musician
Jimi Hendrix
Isaac Hayes
Tony Iommi, guitarist (Black Sabbath)
Albert King, guitarist
Melissa Manchester
Chuck Mangione, trumpet
Martina McBride ?, country music singer
Paul McCartney (the Beatles; Wings)
Christie Marie Melonson (opera)
George Michael (Wham!)
Peter Nero, conductor
Joe Perry ? (Aerosmith)
Robert Plant (Led Zepplin)
Cole Porter, song-writer
Sergei Rachmaninoff ?, composer
Maurice Ravel ?, composer
Lou Rawls
John Lydon a.k.a. Johnny Rotten (Sex Pistols / Public Image Ltd.)
Rich Szabo, trumpeter
Seal
Ringo Starr (?) (the Beatles)
Paul Simon (Simon & Garfunkel)
Tiny Tim
Rudy Valee
Lenny White, drummer
Paul Williams, song-writer

But I was initially wondering about Helicopter pilots and if there are more lefties in this job than the general 5 percent that we are in the population. In my experience I have found a lot of lefties in the job. Wondering what you left and right handers out there have found.

Lunar

Re: Lefties...
 

Thomas,

"Never heard so much boll**s in my life."

I never said it wasn't boll**s - I just said it was what my instructor told me! Regardless, it worked for me anyway. I don't think there is any doubt that we all have a dominant "hand", it's just how well you adapt to using the other one for what are initially non-intuitive tasks.

As for cross-controlling, some well -documented incidents (and at least one crash) on Army Gazelles, where the LHS Instructor grabbed the RHS student's collective to fix the problem, with predicatable results. It was introduced as a teaching point on the Ac Commanders syllabus to show how exciting your day gets if you try to control the RHS collective from the LHS.