When I went thru Rotary Wing Qualification Course in the US Army in 1973, I ask the same question and was told;

From the cocpit seat the rotor blade swings from right to left....you can see if the area is clear before you start to spool up the rotors.

Best explanation I'd heard of....But then again, not all helicopter rotors turn the same direction....

.... and most helicopters have at least one other blade poking out the other side !!!!!!

Helicopters, cars etc.... right hand drive, it's the only way.
Look at the fast jet jockeys their little beasts are all laid out for right hand on the stick and left hand on the throttle where they should be.

The moral is: all half way decent vehicles HAVE to be right hand drive. Anything else is heracy.

But even more seriously, it's all about ergonomics. Left hand drive helicopters are simpy a pain, try changing frequency from tower to ground just as they put you in a hover on a hot day with a load of pax with only one radio with no pre-select and you will know why!

PIC Seating Position
 

Pax questioned my right seat position in the R22. I've heard numerous explanations from my colleages.

1. That's the seat I trained from. Subsequently became a habit.

2. On counterclockwise helicopters, obvious choice of turn to the left, using less pedal than right turn. Right seat position good place to clear the tail.

Interested to know what type you fly? Your PIC seat position and why?

Always believed that on an R22 it was to do with CoG in relation to fuel.

Think you'll find that as the main fuel tank is located on the left hand side that pilot and fuel weight would cause CoG problems and insufficient cyclic control movement to maintain any sort of hover. Figured that was also why the PoH specifies a minimum pilot weight as well as maximum seat and baggage weights.

Presume similar reasons for the R44 and 206. All naturally hover left skid low so better distribution of weight must help. However willing to be enlightened by those more in the know.

Schweizer 300 has PiC seat on the left and therefore, with me in command, hangs very left skid low :{

Something to do with Hughes saying "Only poofs and perverts sit on the right"

Cheers

Whirlygig

EC120 is certified to be flown from either seat.

I thought the right seat was 'the' PIC seat for historical reasons - my own theory is that it allows the Pilot to use his/ser left hand to operate the avionics etc.

If the command seat is on the right, the heli will be designed with other stuff on the left (fuel tank in R22 etc) to try and balance it out, rather than designing the helicopter and then choosing the single pilot seating position by whichever side's the lighter.

Aircraft with three front seats will tend to have the command seat on the left 'cos the central passenger does not necessarily want the Pilot's hand wandering up and down between their legs. ;)

My tuppence ha'penny.

PIC Position
 

Whirly

Is it the 300C which is left seat and right seat for 300CB.

I was told right seat because early helicopters only had one collective and with it been used by left hand it made more sense to have it in the helicopter rather than nearly hanging out. That's what I was told anyway.:ugh:

pandemonium revisited
 

Right, left, center--there's no reason for choices, any more than for CCW vs CW rotation main rotor.

Similarly for f/w; for the general aviation fleet, the FAA does not designate one side or the other as PIC or SIC, rather the left-right is resolved by the LOCATION of the individual designated as PIC, he can sit either side.

R22's, particularly, have a placard saying Right Seat Solo: the factory has made the decision for us, going beyond FAA policy but, since they put that placard up, the FAA subsequently backs it as mandatory. (DUMB placard--all that's needed really is intelligent use of W&B to place ballast right seat--maybe 80#--sufficient to offset L main tank, pilot light-or-heavy then would be OK in left seat solo. Then we'd have more operational flexibility for special missions. Except for the placard, requiring an act of congress to fly left seat solo.)

Why so many helicopters right seat command? Rumor I had heard (no substantiation available) was the the FIRST surviving heli pilot flew from left, like f/w, and was unwilling to take the risk of switching to the right to check out his fellow pilots. So all subsequent pilots learned to fly from right side, and here we are. This is so glibly plausible as to seem silly; does anybody know?

Many helicopters with dual controls are limited to being flown from the right seat single-pilot because...... well, just because. The controls, switches, and knobs that may require manipulation sometimes can only be reached from the right seat, because the manufacturer put them there. The right seat has become traditional for various reasons, some of which make sense. If you're in the left seat, and you need to tune a radio, do something with the GPS, or do anything else with switches, controls, etc, then you have to change your hands so that you control the cyclic with your left hand while you do what needs doing with your right hand. If an emergency, such as an engine failure occurs while you're doing this, then you have to do a lot of switching to take care of it, and in some models a second can become a lifetime. From the right seat, it's a relatively simple matter to just hit the collective with the left hand and go into autorotation, with little loss of time.

The story goes that the first Sikorsky(??) model with two pilot seats had only one collective, in the middle, and flying from the right was preferable to the pilots, who were right-handed. I won't swear to the truth of that, though, because I wasn't there.

I asked this same question a couple of years ago on here, thinking it was probably a silly question and that everyone except me knew the answer!!! The thread then ran for several pages. You might still find it if you do a search. Anyway, the concensus seemed to be, much as on this one, that it was mainly a historical thing.

I'm with Gomer on this one. I'd heard about there being only one collective in the centre, but on a Bell model, Sikorsky's early models were only one seat in the centre of a thin fuselage.:\

The Sycamore in the Museum of Army Flying at Middle Wallop has a centre-mounted collective.

I sit in the left seat ALL the time and I'M the commander of the aircraft. Instructor.

Gomer Pylot, was not aware the left / right handed dominance was an issue in cyclic control. I'm left handed, control the R 22 cyclic with right hand. I remember bringing up the issue with my instructor prior to beginning the commercial course. The old adage "if in doubt mumble" well it worked. Never thought about it again.

Dominant handedness isn't really that much of an issue except for the historical reasons. Plank drivers, flying from the left seat, use their left hands on the wheel. The real issue is that the cockpit in a helicopter is set up in such a way that it's really impractical to fly with the left hand on the cyclic most of the time. The collective is on the left, and the orientation of the cyclic head is such that it's just not that easy to do it left-handed.

Dominant handedness isn\'t really that much of an issue except for the historical reasons. Plank drivers, flying from the left seat, use their left hands on the wheel. The real issue is that the cockpit in a helicopter is set up in such a way that it\'s really impractical to fly with the left hand on the cyclic most of the time. The collective is on the left, and the orientation of the cyclic head is such that it\'s just not that easy to do it left-handed.

BTW, I sit on the left side at least half the time, and I\'m almost always the PIC. Sometimes I just fill in as a cojo with a more senior captain. Our normal practice is to alternate seats on alternate days, so the captain may be on either side.

We have a left-PIC 300CB and a right-PIC 300CBi. You can get the 300s however you want them.

I spend about the same amount of time in each seat - I like the right because you can clear the tail, I like the left because the collective is closer to the seat and ergonemetrically more comfortable.

Other than that, left, right, whatever, it's all good!

Enstrom is usually flown from the left, however it can legitimately be flown solo from the right - exept there is no starter button on the right. I have done both and it makes absolutely no detectable difference to the way it flies, apart from it flies right skid low when P1 on the right. The mast on an Enstrom leans to the left which apparently counters the C of G thing to make it hover level when lard arse is on the left. It seem to work.

As has been said before, no centre lever with 2 pax so P1 must be on left. A bit of a no brainer really.

Someone said about hovering an R22 whilst fiddling with the radio. I vividly remember my instructor demonstrating what happens when the pax leans on the lever to get comfortable whilst doing this. Believe me, its safer to land first!

Which is the right seat?
 

Unless it has already been mentioned here is the reason for flying from the right seat. Since the days of the S-55 (H-19), H-34 and the likes the passengers entered and exited from the right hand side of the helicopter and, the hoist was also installed on the right hand side which gave the pilot clear view of what was happening relative to ingress and egress and what was happening relative to the hoisting operation. Placement of the hoist cable gave advent to vertical reference.

Even on early small helicopters (B-47) the Pilot flew the helicopter from the right hand seat. On the S-51 which is also equipped with a hoist mounted on the left side of the helicopter the pilot occupied a centerline seat. The same was true for the B-47 J2 Ranger.

Who’s to say which is the correct position? As they say, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

:E :E