Question for Rotary Wing Folks

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

In fixed wing aircraft, the pilot sits in the left seat, co-pilot in the right. In rotary wing a.k.a. helicopters, it's reversed. Why is that?

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

Because the pilot is not a liberal?

[union jack]

This is because rotorcraft are unstable in flight and require constant control input from the pilot .You can however release control of the collective pitch lever which is held in the left hand for brief periods .Thus the radios etc which are clustered in the center console are more easily reached if the pilot is in the right seat .

[Charlie Harley, #14153]

What Union Jack said is part of the answer.

 

The second has to do with the aerodynamics of the rotor head. In American helicopters, the rotor rotates such that the right half of the blade is going forward. In forward flight, the right half tends to produce more lift which has to be accounted for with other adjustments. One of those adjustments when the aircraft is being flown solo is to put the pilot's mass to the right of the rotor head.

 

This is especially true in smaller aircraft such as the OH-58A/C/D models.

[union jack]

But then again French helicopters which rotate the opposite way also have the PIC on the right and then again ,H-500 series(which are the best helicopters ever designed!!!) have the PIC on the left so who knows :). Anyway as no body has ever figured out how helicopters stay up other than by the amazing skills of the pilots ,who knows !

[Papa Irish]

Helicopters fly because they are so ugly the earth repels them according to many fixed wing people.

[Duffield, SASS #23454]

^{Helicopters do not fly, they are a form of levitation.}

 

^Duffield

[Wrangler Rich SASS #42157]

The cyclic which controls position of the rotor head is between your legs, the collective which has the engine speed control and pitch of the blades is on the left. The pilot sits in the right seat so he doesn't have to climb over the collective every time he enters and exits the aircraft.

[Trailrider #896]

NO first-hand knowledge, but I understand SOME Army pilots in 'Nam elected to sit in the left-hand seat. Air Force pilots back from 'Nam in the late '60's, flying missile support, sat on the right. Sitting on the right makes sense for the reasons stated by Wrangler Rich.

[Hurricane Deck 100366]

helo's fly by beating the air into submission

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

NO first-hand knowledge, but I understand SOME Army pilots in 'Nam elected to sit in the left-hand seat. Air Force pilots back from 'Nam in the late '60's, flying missile support, sat on the right. Sitting on the right makes sense for the reasons stated by Wrangler Rich.

Maybe the Army pilots figured the VC would aim for the guy on the right side?

[Trailrider #896]

Maybe the Army pilots figured the VC would aim for the guy on the right side?

I dunno, but whichever, there are a lot of guys who owe their lives to the dustoffs and gunship crews over there. However, if our Air Force missile support helo pilots were any example...they're all nuts! Got a ride back from a Launch Facility one time (seldom had that privilege), pilot let me ride in the left seat, he's flying from the right. Decided to chase an antelope or maybe it was a coyote (been a long time now). Talk about nap-of-the-Earth! Most of these guys were straight back from 'Nam. Stateside, the powers wouldn't let them fly if there was a single cloud in the sky! Drove them nuts! End of the month they wound up orbiting the base to get their 4-1/2 hours in to keep their flight pay. Ever try to get a colicy baby to sleep with a chopper coming over the house about every minute-and-a-half? Well, turn on the T.V. Every time that radar beam sweeps by...zzzrrromm!

[Muleshoe Bill SASS #67022]

helicopters are magic. Gimme a UH1D any day

[Utah Bob #35998]

http://www.airspacemag.com/need-to-know/why-do-helicopter-pilots-sit-in-the-right-seat-243212/?no-ist

[Utah Bob #35998]

But sometimes from the back seat.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

The second has to do with the aerodynamics of the rotor head. In American helicopters, the rotor rotates such that the right half of the blade is going forward. In forward flight, the right half tends to produce more lift which has to be accounted for with other adjustments. One of those adjustments when the aircraft is being flown solo is to put the pilot's mass to the right of the rotor head.

 

This is especially true in smaller aircraft such as the OH-58A/C/D models.

Ahh, that makes sense!

 

I was wondering because all the SxS seating planes I flew had throttle, mixture, prop, flaps, landing gear, trim and navcom stuff etc. in the center. Seating position didn't really matter much because all was equally accessible from either side. I figured an experienced helicopter pilot could manage the collective/throttle and navcom stack from either side.

 

Only problem with most of the fixed wing stuff I had access to was that primary flight instruments were in front of the pilot on the left. It's challenging to view an attitude indicator and directional gyro from the right -- especially when on instruments. Weight & balance issues didn't come into play much until the plane was loaded behind the pilot.

 

On the tandem seat arrangement everything was on the left fuselage, with navcom scattered about the instrument panel or anyplace else they could stuff it.

 

Thanks, guys!

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

Sooooo, it has nothing to do with the Brits driving on the other side of the road?

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

Sooooo, it has nothing to do with the Brits driving on the other side of the road?

Spent a summer working in the Bahamas where they "drive" like the British. Don't get me started!

[Phantom Falcon, SASS # 46139]

Years ago I was told by most of my "rotorhead buddies" that Naval Aviator rotorheads have the HAC (Helicopter Aircraft Commander) in the right seat because of carrier operations. Apparently the right seat gives them an overall better view of the flight deck and island clearance. Don't know if this is totally true so take with however many grains of salt is necessary.

 

PF

[Utah Bob #35998]

I never met a left seat pilot but I have seen some of the heavy lift construction birds operate like that.

[Sedalia Dave]

Years ago I was told by most of my "rotorhead buddies" that Naval Aviator rotorheads have the HAC (Helicopter Aircraft Commander) in the right seat because of carrier operations. Apparently the right seat gives them an overall better view of the flight deck and island clearance. Don't know if this is totally true so take with however many grains of salt is necessary.

 

PF

Being a former Airdale that logic is actually true. For carriers and other warships that have a large flight deck; the standard approach for a helo is to come alongside the port side of the ship while underway and then move to the right over the deck to land. Harriers also perform the same maneuver. Also allows the pilot to better see the Landing Signal Officer during the approach.

 

They do this because directly aft of the flight deck while underway there is a pressure wave or bubble of air that forms aft of ships underway. By approaching from the side provided much smoother air.

 

Also sitting on the right allows the pilot the necessary visibility to stay clear of the Island and the SE parked around it.

 

In jets the pilot sits on the left so that have a better view of the Fresnel lens. The lens could have been put on the other side of the landing area but it would have been in the way and greatly reduced the available area on the flight deck.

[Cpl. Henry B. Tolate]

Just happened to see this post and even though it's several days old, thought I'd add my 2 cents.

Hueys and Loaches had more of the flight gauges and instruments on the right.

On regular missions we flew with primary pilot on the right and the aircraft commander on the left.

So, the question reverts to why where the gauges that way.

[Utah Bob #35998]

 

Patrick McCourt of Huntington, New York writes: “On fixed-wing aircraft, the pilot in command sits in the left seat, but on helicopters, the PIC seems to sit in the right seat. Is this always the case, and if so, why?”

For the answer, we turned to Roger Connor, curator of vertical flight in the aeronautics division of National Air and Space Museum. “The pilot in command often does sit on the right on a helicopter, but by no means is it all of the time,” Connor writes in an email.

“The reason is mostly historical, though there can be some operational advantage. Since most helicopters are more inherently unstable than most airplanes, a helicopter pilot rarely likes to let go of the cyclic stick with his or her right hand, even with trim, and particularly in hover operations where near-continuous control inputs are required. [The cyclic controls the helicopter’s attitude and direction of movement, almost like a combined elevator and aileron for an airplane.]

“In steady flight, the left hand that normally moves the collective lever [which changes all the blades’ pitch angles simultaneously] is sometimes free to push buttons or twiddle instrument knobs that are usually on a center console in a cabin with a side-by-side crew arrangement. Rotor brakes and clutches are also usually centrally located for the same reason.”

The cyclic is usually positioned between the pilot’s knees, so it can’t be shared. A left-handed pilot in the right side seat, presumably, would have to get used to using the right hand for it in much the same way that a lefty copes with a stick shift in a manual-drive car. Most helicopters with side-by-side seating have always had two cyclics.

Connor goes on to explain that when Igor Sikorsky built the world’s first mass-produced helicopter, the R-4 (“and no, Flettner Fl 282 prototypes were not in mass production beforehand,” he adds), weight was a serious issue. “The R-4 was intended as a trainer, but was so underpowered that Sikorsky was looking for any potential savings, so Igor and his engineers decided to let the instructor and student share a single collective. The only place to put it then was in the middle between the two seats. Given the coordination and strength required to manipulate an R-4 cyclic for any length of time, the student always flew from the right.

“Thus, the first generation of U.S. Army Air Forces, Coast Guard, and Navy pilots, along with those from Britain and its Commonwealth who learned on the R-4, and its follow-on, the R-6 (also with a single collective), flew exclusively from the right.”

That all changed in 1946 with the arrival of Bell’s Model 47, the first civilian-certified helicopter, which featured dual collectives. From then on, dual collectives became standard for side-by-side seating, and a helicopter pilot could fly from either the left or right seat.

 

Air and Space Museum Magazine