Airbus Sidestick
 

Excuse what my appear to be a stupid question, however this discussion came up over dinner the other night with fellow anoraks and no one knew the answer.

On the airbus if you are first officer and in the right hand seat you "fly" te plane using your right hand, conversley of you are in the left seat you "fly" with the left hand.

As a right handed person who has tried to play video games/flight sims etc with the left hand I found this to be a challenge, how does the professional pilot make this tranisition from right to left hand?:confused:

With practice, it comes!

No different than say changing seat on a 737 as an FO will fly using his right hand and have his left hand on the throttles, vice versa for a Capt.

Within 15 minutes or so in the simulator

A lot (most?) pilots deal with using different hands for the controls throughout their careers, whether it be from flying aircraft with center stick and left hand engine controls (e.g., Piper Cub) or from flying in the right seat as an instructor.

Just out of interest, (not being familiar with Airbus FBW philosophy) what would happen if the Captain, and FO applied opposite forces to their sidesticks? Does one take priority over the other?

TotalBeginner, have you heard about the concept pilot flying (PF) and pilot not flying (PNF)? :rolleyes:

You get the sum of both inputs, so if one goes full left and the other goes full right you get nothing.

And it shouts "DUAL INPUT" at you!!!

and...?

I was just asking a hypothetical question. I'm well aware that only one pilot needs to manipulate the controls in order to fly the aircraft.

Thanks for the info!

Yes! there is a setting for "sidestick priority" which is delegated to the pilot flying.