Well, you know...when you're wrong, you're wrong. In the extra pics John Eacott supplied (the "Photo 1" and "Photo 2" links) it appears that, to my tired old eyes at least, the lettering on the red knob does indeed say "cut out" in plain ol' non-reversed English.

Old helicopters are fascinating. We think (like to hope?) they'd all be the same, but there were so many variations as manufacturers played with this or that. You find an example somewhere and look in and go, "Oh wow, that's...uhh, different. I didn't know they did that!"

And perhaps that is the case with this machine. Perhaps it was set up for LHD with the pilot's right hand on the collective? Strange, but who knows what they were thinking back then?

Anyway, my apology to you, John.

John. Apologies from me too. The picture of the collective the wrong way round put in a mindset that everything else was reversed as well. FH1100s contention that the writing was normal threw in the doubts. I then got on the blower to a mate of mine in Oz who had a lot more time on them than I had to find that he had unfortunately passed on. However his widow had their son, another pilot, visiting and he remembered a copy of the pilot’s notes in the house.
We went through the cockpit illustrations and the fore&aft trim wheel is on the left hand side which is where I was wrong. We went through a couple of other points but we reached the stage where the company might query the telephone bill so we had to stop.
Logical when you think of it. All collectives are pivoted under the pilots left shoulder joint so on the Sycamore the lever would have obscured the trim wheel if it was on the right hand side underneath it.
I blew up you picture on Win Media and the collective is definitely upside down because the landing light motor switch is on the bottom instead of the top. The throttle retaining clamp nuts are on the top where on your picture of the German model they are out of sight underneath.
I believe that when they assembled it at Hendon the people involved would have assumed that, like a motor cycle, the twist grip would be on the outside. The mounting was probably very simple. After all, nobody would be stupid enough to fit it upside down, would they?
If nothing else a good illustration of Murphy’s law and the camera never lies.

Fed & FH1100Pilot,

Thanks, I was begining to doubt my camera there!

Which begs the question, off topic as it may be: who is going to tell the RAF Museum? :E :p

Dayer777
Going back to the original point of the thread I do not think that there is too much of a problem. There has been a lot of discussion about the Sycamore because that is the obvious example.
Thousands of airliners have a central throttle box and the pilots have no difficulty flying them left or right handed as required. The Vulcan did not have a yoke, pistol grips and central throttles, again no problem.
Even on the Sycamore you get the hang of it in a very short time and fly it as well as you could conventionally.
Should a manufacturer produce a helicopter where it was essential that the controls were reversed there would be lots of shocks and horrors but if the pay cheques dried up it would be accepted.
Millions of non-pilots seem quite happy to have their arm hanging out of the window irrespective of whether they are driving a LHD or RHD car.
I hope that answers your question.

I have minimum F/W time mainly in lighties and mainly a long time ago - I've flown left and right options and despite little experience found no difficulty swapping. I am a very experienced QHI and despite this, when the size of the cockpit made the exercise feasable, I have found it extremely difficult and unnatural to attempt to master a reverse control situation in the hover. No doubt I eventually would get the hang of it but the exercise appears to be not as simple as swapping around in a fixed wing.
GAGS
E86

Thanks heaps for everyones input, it has made for some very interesting reading. What sparked my curiosity inthe first place was a story on here about a certain QHI who attempted to fly his helicopter cack handed, which resulted in him almost loosing control, and then his flight commander trying the exact same thing and bending the aircraft.

Im not sure i would compare flying an airliner or driving a LHD/RHD car to flying a helicopter. I have flown fixed wing aircraft and been required to change hands when switching from the LHS to RHS which presented little problem. I can imagine swaping hands when purely flying the helo probably wouldn't be too difficult but I think hovering would be a completly different matter. Just thinking about it gives me a headache:\

Thanks again

Daver_777

eagle 86

I agree that an informal attempt to fly cross control is difficult. It is not required so time and money would not be spent achieving the object. The Sycamore HAR 14 was different. By having two cyclics, yaw pedals and a central collective it was designed to be flown left handed. It was, to some extent like learning to fly a helicopter all over again but in a shorter time because one was used to the basics, but it had to be done. The Sycamore was the RAF’s basic helicopter trainer in the early 60s so every QHI in the RAF could fly left handed. So could a lot of German and RAN instructors.

daver_777

My nightmare would be flying a Sycamore from the left hand seat with its own collective.
Into the hover, change over hands to retrim, back again to cure that sinking feeling as the Rrpm is dying off, change hands again because the trim has changed. Creaking noises tell you the rpm is up to 300 and the blades are stretching so back again to control that. You’re running out of forward cyclic so change hands again scrabbling around for the transfer pump.
No thanks. I would rather fly it left handed.