If anyone out there wants to relive the glory days of learning to fly, it's amazingly easy. Just slide over to the right seat. Make sure there is an instructor in the left seat

I decided it would be handy to let my student pilot wife fly left seat on x-countries so she could get some more practice. Always a cautions cat, I decided I'd fly around alone a while in the right seat before we went up together.

Wholy crap.

After my third landing attempt I went up to 5K feet and switched seats...not an easy thing to do in a 140 when you're 6'5". It just must have been a bad day. I then booked an hour with an instructor so I could iron out the bumps...not that I really needed him there, but I didn't want to take any chances on bending the plane.

90 minutes of duel instruction later I still haven't landed the plane on my own. Worst of all, when it really gets close I go into reverse control...using the yoke like the throttle and the throttle like the yoke. I add throttle when I'm trying to flare and I push the nose down when I'm too low.

I didn't grow up around airplanes...every minute I've spent in one has been as the pilot, so I don't even know what it's supposed to look like from the right seat. Turns out it looks a lot different.

If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. It's pretty much like learning to fly all over again.

I've only attempted flying right seat once since I learned to fly. Your experience sounds exactly like mine. What a disaster I couldn't do anything right, luckily my dad was in the left seat and took it over for me. Haven't tried again since

ravi wrote: Wholy crap.

I had about 12,000 hrs total time, all left seat, all single pilot (never was/never will be a CFI) when I decided to move up in the world and took a first officer job in a Casa-212.

Holy Crap is right. It took probably 50 hours to get comfortable in that seat (and it is not a hard airplane to fly), and for the first ten hours or so, I assume I looked and flew like I'd never been in an airplane before in my entire life. It sucked pond water.

Gump

I know of a couple of guys, not from my airport, who were out in a nice 170.

Pilot/owner decided to fly right seat and let pilot friend fly left seat. Same results as Ravi. Nosed the 170 in and totaled it. Both were hurt, and lucky to make it at all.

Best to get an instructor. I have a little time in the right seat, but not comfortable there.

Be smart, fly safe, Bub

Geeezzz. I fly right seat more than left, and I never thought it was any harder than flying from the left.

Course, most of my landings from the left seat are fairly scary as well......

MTV

MTV,

Don't you have your CFI too, to spend that time on the right?

I plan on it a soon as I can get it done, between family, finances and time.

Maybe even the CFII and MEI.

See ya, Bub

A CFI is not required to fly from the right seat, though I do have one. As long as the manufacturer of the airplane listed the right seat as a control seat, you can fly there as PIC.

Same goes for back seat of a Husky, for example, even though back seat solo is prohibited. You can put someone in the front, and fly it from the back.

MTV

My right seat experience was a bit of a surprise.

I was taking float training from Dave Wiley while my M5 was getting new skin.

We walked down to his T-Craft and only after I did a preflight did he point out that to hand prop the bird required being on the right float; thus, flying from the right seat.

Say What????

Was not that bad ( did not bend AC), but rivers are a good bit wider than the normal runway.

Flying with Dave tended to keep you mind off things like what seat you are in.

TD

watkinsnv wrote:P.S. I'm sure theres a lot of copilots out there that would like to blame being on the right side of the aircraft for some of their landings.

Yup.

Thanks guys, thought it was just me.
My brotherinlaw the airline captain recently purchased a taildragger and stopped by to get some TW practice before flying her home.

Once more "wholy crap"!

Bet he is still wondering how I have managed to keep from hurting myself
in that little Cessna. Who knew it was different on the right
Dale

For those interested, here is an AOPA article from a few years back about right seat flying.

http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot ... t9905.html

I haven't flown much from the right seat, but it reminds me of the first time I rented a car at Heathrow (a 4 speed stick) and plunged into a roundabout at rush hour--"anti"-clockwise, shifting with the left hand, trying to keep from smashing into everyone and everything. I got used to it after a week or so. I haven't tried landing from the right seat, but I think I'll leave that to the pros, at least in my plane.

CAVU

Right hand drive is easy. Why? Because you actually think about what you are doing while you are doing it. How many of us have driven home after work and don't remember the trip. What is scary is when you become comfortable enough with right hand drive that you forget the trip and then the biggest problem becomes the little flash of "turbo paranoia" that hits you as you pull out of a driveway back home and wonder which side of the road am I supposed to be on.