Landing from the right seat....

genna

genna

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... is very weird for the first time.
 
Oddly, the first time I ever landed a Navion was from the right seat and I greased it. There are two things working in my favor. First, Navions are easy to land. Second, having never flown one before, the right side wasn't any more strange to me than the left side.

Oddly, taking off in the Navion from the right seat is the hard part. The gear retract lever is really designed to be operated with the right hand and not too easy to do from the right side. When I let people fly from the right side, I offer to raise the gear when they say to do so.
 
The thing was, I was flying as a safety pilot and I was doing the last LPV approach to land. the approach part was fine, even looking at all the instruments on the left side and final was fine, but just as we were crossing the threshold and I need to cut to idle, my muscle memory attempted to take over and all of a sudden throttle and yoke hands got reversed and the controls stopped making sense. Had to give it back to the other pilot and go around.

It was really unnerving.
 
... I've flown right seat before with no problems, but never attempted to land or take off.
 
I tried it for the first time in my cherokee a couple of weeks ago.. it was definitely an odd experience, and the landing wasn't anything to brag about, but no bent metal. At least now I know its possible and not really a big event. Lack of toe brakes was the biggest issue!
 
Did it in a Cheyenne,several times,was a piece of cake in my arrow,and beech Travelair. Was practicing for the CFI,but quit.
 
The more time you have flying only in the left seat makes the transition to right seat more difficult IMHO. My instrument training partner and I both started flying right seat early on working on the instrument rating. Take offs, approaches, landings from the right seat became second nature for both of us. By the time I hit 250 for the commercial, I probably had 50 hours flying right seat.
 
MikeELP said:
The more time you have flying only in the left seat makes the transition to right seat more difficult IMHO. My instrument training partner and I both started flying right seat early on working on the instrument rating. Take offs, approaches, landings from the right seat became second nature for both of us. By the time I hit 250 for the commercial, I probably had 50 hours flying right seat.
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I concur. The sight picture does not transfer from one side to the other and it takes some getting used to. I know I was flying "crooked" from the right seat for the few landings I tried. If I ever go for a CFI ticket, this will be a "fun" aspect to overcome. :)
 
I've only landed my 182 from the right seat on one occasions...did it three or four times. And yes it was very weird. It felt like I didn't have the plane aligned straight down the runway even though I did.

Not a comfortable feeling at all but, they worked.
 
Smoothwaterman said:
That CFI must drive an automatic. You never brake with your left foot, even in an automatic.
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Nah, he must be an F1 racer. Clutch-pedal-less race cars' drivers brake with left foot
 
Is there a wrong seat?

For my last BFR we switched seats for a while so I could get the feel of it.
 
genna said:
Nah, he must be an F1 racer. Clutch-pedal-less race cars' drivers brake with left foot
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Or, if like me, you were trained by a Ferrari racer. Then you brake with your left foot. It's a whole lot faster and your driving is smoother.

:)
 
genna said:
Nah, he must be an F1 racer. Clutch-pedal-less race cars' drivers brake with left foot
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Still have clutch pedals, only the new Lambo Super Trofeo race cars and Ferrari Challenge cars don't have clutch pedals. Formula Cars, prototypes, and everything else still has a clutch. ;)

F1 cars have the clutch on the steering wheel.

/endthreadjack
 
Maciej said:
Still have clutch pedals, only the new Lambo Super Trofeo race cars and Ferrari Challenge cars don't have clutch pedals. Formula Cars, prototypes, and everything else still has a clutch. ;)

F1 cars have the clutch on the steering wheel.

/endthreadjack
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Not sure what you are trying to say here. I did say "clutch-PEDAL-less" cars not cars without a clutch. All cars have clutches, even slushbox automatics have clutches inside of them.

SMG/DSG cars all have computer control clutches with no driver input other than launch-control. If you are racing, you would go faster if you use left foot to brake(if you are trained that is). WRC, F1 do have clutches, but the driver only uses the pedal(WRC) or a button(F1) during a launch. F1 clutch can only handle about 4-5 hard launches. After that it's all computer controlled. You brake with left foot.

It's generally a bad idea on the road since you are likely to ride your brake and confuse people behind you with brake lights.
 
genna said:
Not sure what you are trying to say here. I did say "clutch-PEDAL-less" cars not cars without a clutch. All cars have clutches, even slushbox automatics have clutches inside of them.

SMG/DSG cars all have computer control clutches with no driver input other than launch-control. If you are racing, you would go faster if you use left foot to brake(if you are trained that is). WRC, F1 do have clutches, but the driver only uses the pedal(WRC) or a button(F1) during a launch. F1 clutch can only handle about 4-5 hard launches. After that it's all computer controlled. You brake with left foot.

It's generally a bad idea on the road since you are likely to ride your brake and confuse people behind you with brake lights.
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Yeah, I'm well aware of it. I'm heavily involved in high level racing. All of the sequential cars even with paddles have physical clutch pedals. Porsche Cup Cars with paddles, still have a clutch pedal; sports racers with paddles like the Wolf GB08, Caterham SP300R, Radicals etc, still have a clutch pedal; formula cars that have paddles like F3, still have a clutch pedal.

And just to add more insight into it, computer controlled the clutch is not, you don't need a clutch once your rolling. Then it's all controlled by throttle and off loading the gears to shift. Also, all F1 car clutches can handle many more than four to five hard launches. This is the stuff I deal with...

DSC_2239.jpg


Now, back to the regularly scheduled programming...
 
I'm still kind of confused. I see what you are saying. Paddles does mean no clutch pedal. But then you say: "All of the sequential cars even with paddles have physical clutch pedals." Which is not accurate even by your own statements. F1 does not have a pedal, but a button. And road DSG cars don't have third pedal. But I get your point of it not needing to not have a pedal for left foot braking.

As far as computer control vs throttle/off loading. Sure, I was referring to some road cars. In race car application you are correct.

Also, nice F50! I think it is
 
Well I'm nowhere near @Maceij but all the cars we had at work were electronic clutch and had no clutch pedal.

The most impressive was the 458 Italia with it's dual-clutch gearbox was smooth as butter. You almost couldn't feel the shifting...just hear it. Totally the opposite of the Lambo; that thing was obnoxious.
 
Clutch? I guess I have those. What I don't have is a transmission (other than a fixed gearing between the MG and the wheels). Other than the park position, all the other positions of my transmission lever just tweak the software.
(This I have to remember when transitioning back to my wife's Audi that it does not like being shifted into D while still moving backwards at a good clip).
 
genna said:
I'm still kind of confused. I see what you are saying. Paddles does mean no clutch pedal. But then you say: "All of the sequential cars even with paddles have physical clutch pedals." Which is not accurate even by your own statements. F1 does not have a pedal, but a button. And road DSG cars don't have third pedal. But I get your point of it not needing to not have a pedal for left foot braking.

As far as computer control vs throttle/off loading. Sure, I was referring to some road cars. In race car application you are correct.

Also, nice F50! I think it is
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Newer F1 cars from circa ~2000 I think have the clutch as a lever, not a button since buttons aren't allowed to manipulate the clutch. According to the rules the driver still needs to manipulate the engagement. Sequential is different compared to dual clutch transmissions; sequential gear boxes utilize a single clutch.

And interesting tidbit, it's a one of three F50GT, 2000lbs with 750hp and a V12 revving out to 11,500rpm :)

Stearman said:
Well I'm nowhere near @Maceij but all the cars we had at work were electronic clutch and had no clutch pedal.

The most impressive was the 458 Italia with it's dual-clutch gearbox was smooth as butter. You almost couldn't feel the shifting...just hear it. Totally the opposite of the Lambo; that thing was obnoxious.
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All street cars that are sequential manual gearbox have no clutch pedal which is what I'm assuming you're referring to, that would go for the original SMG in the BMW E46 M3 (in the US, in the rest of the world E36 M3s actually had SMG first), Ferrari calls it the F1 transmission, Lamborghini calls it E-gear, etc. Maserati uses Ferrari's tech.

The dual clutch transmissions are absolutely outstanding. Although the comparison you make between Ferrari and Lamborghini isn't fair. The Lamborghini uses a single clutch setup which is quite different, with the dual clutch transmission it's one continuous pull without any pauses in power delivery.
 
The dual clutch transmissions are absolutely outstanding. Although the comparison you make between Ferrari and Lamborghini isn't fair. The Lamborghini uses a single clutch setup which is quite different, with the dual clutch transmission it's one continuous pull without any pauses in power delivery.
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Right. Guess I wasn't clear.

I would guess everyone will be going to the dual clutch at some point; it's so much smoother.
 
I find that dyslexia helps a lot with swapping sides of the plane. If you don't know right from left or better yet if it doesn't matter to you swapping is easy. Even landed from the backseat many times.....J3 cub of course.

Used to work on indy cars that had 4 plate manual clutches. In the 2003 season the F1 cars had computer controlled clutches with paddles for the driver to select the gear when necessary. The engineers normally selected shift points via computer and either downloaded during stops in practice or via telemetry. Engines ran at 18-22K rpm and the gearbox (my dept) used tiny little gears and a hydraulic multi plate clutch. At that rpm the 700-900HP engines had very low torque. The computer cut the engine and shifted for upshifts and revved the motor for downshifts. Valves were computer controlled too and used pneumatic cylinders to open and close. Clutch was really only used for starts but the driver used a button rather than a pedal for starts. The indy cars used a launch control button for a while but our engines were limited to 18Krpm for qualifying and 16.5K for races. We still had clutch pedals and some drivers used the clutch for shifting while others didn't. Compared to the F1 cars our gears and clutches were huge and heavy. Lots of cool stuff in the "old" days. Loved working on gearboxes.....


Frank
 
My first time landing from the right seat was real fun when I remembered on touchdown that I had no brakes on the pedals. Handbrake wound up working out ok, but it took me a bit to remember to use it.
 
SkyHog said:
My first time landing from the right seat was real fun when I remembered on touchdown that I had no brakes on the pedals. Handbrake wound up working out ok, but it took me a bit to remember to use it.
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I believe that falls under "Major Pucker Moments" lol
 
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