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How many left handers fly helicopters?


TomPPL

How Many Left Handed Pilots Fly Helis?  

42 members have voted

  1. 1. Are you predominantly left or right handed?



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I’m right handed.

I tried Robinson left seat, cyclic with the left hand and right seat collective with the right hand...not my game. Did it just to get the feel of how counterintuitive it must be to be a southpaw learning to fly.

 

I've never thought about that before, bet it was the strangest feeling ever..!

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I find it to be relatively easier.

 

The difference between left and right handed pilots is that Left handed pilots are obviously left hand dominate, yet (at least in my experience) have learned to use their right hand quite frequently in life as almost everything handed-related is built with a right handed person in mind; thus lefties get to practice using both hands more frequently.

 

Good question though. I was thinking a lot about this literally last week lol.

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I’m right handed.

I tried Robinson left seat, cyclic with the left hand and right seat collective with the right hand...not my game. Did it just to get the feel of how counterintuitive it must be to be a southpaw learning to fly.

Yeah, I tried that too. Kinda like being pre-solo. I reckon you fly like you train and practice.

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It's just something you deal with. Jump from a chopper with cyclic in right and power in left, into a Beechcraft with throttles on right and control wheel in left. Or a Pilatus Porter with stick in left and throttles on right.

 

You learn different skills with different hands. (Change hands tonight and see how different it feels.)

 

There was only one left-hander on my pilots course, and he was able to fly a Huey without a problem.

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Eric:

Change hands tonight and see how different it feels.)

What does this mean?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Left sided completely never thought about it.

In piston machines I find it more difficult regarding throttle rotation compared to motor cycle.

Never thought about which seat\side with 300 \ 500 it could be either subject to model, never been a problem, never given it a thought.

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  • 1 month later...

I fly 60's, no issue. Never heard anything from any of my fellow pilots complain about being lefthanded. There is one benefit, I never have to let go of the cyclic or transition to my other hand to write something down on my kneeboard. I do throw right handed so I may not be the foremost authority on this either.

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I'm right handed but about 30 years ago when we had one helicopter and it might go from the Atlantic Ocean for a shoot to the Gulf of Mexico for a shoot and then maybe up to the Great Lakes (all in one long weekend) I did a lot of cross country flying. You get bored and then try out flying with the other hand so I learned to fly with both hands. I thought of this as a friend was working for an agency where he had to know how to fire a gun and one day they told him he had to learn to shoot with the other hand (apparently someone got shot in his shooting hand and couldn't shoot his own gun with the other hand). You should probably only practice this with an instructor on board.

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  • 3 months later...

I find it to be relatively easier.

 

The difference between left and right handed pilots is that Left handed pilots are obviously left hand dominate, yet (at least in my experience) have learned to use their right hand quite frequently in life as almost everything handed-related is built with a right handed person in mind; thus lefties get to practice using both hands more frequently.

 

Good question though. I was thinking a lot about this literally last week lol.

I'm left-handed ambidextrous, many years and thousands of hours flying fixed-wing before I added my commercial rotorcraft to my ATPL. I think my being able, capable, and comfortable using both hands (in conjunction, simultaneously) was a big help in learning to hover. My instructor was absolutely dumbfounded at how quickly I became proficient.

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For fun we would fly the Huey hands-free, with the cyclic between our knees. Relatively easy until you get to the end of the approach, where you transition from a nose-high mini-flare, to a more level hover attitude. Took a bit of shifting the backside on the seat, which mucked up the co-ordination on the pedals too. And then the cheating came with having to raise the collective with the left hand.

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