Left Handed Pilots

mulligan

mulligan

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Mulligan
Just curios if there are many left handed pilots? I'm wondering if anyone else has found it challenging writing down things and working the radio etc... I find my arm hits the side wall of the plane when a write and I seem to always have a pen in my hand when keying the mic. Getting used to it but if there are any tips and tricks the lefties have learned I would be interested in hearing.
 
I never had a problem. I can't tell you that I did anything special either
 
I think you are at an advantage in planes with the throttle in the middle. Left hand on the yoke and right hand on the throttle. Strong left hand on the one that needs the most muscle. As for writing down stuff, yeah maybe thats tuffer, I dunno. Thats hard for righties too. Try it in the right seat.
 
mulligan said:
Just curios if there are many left handed pilots? I'm wondering if anyone else has found it challenging writing down things and working the radio etc... I find my arm hits the side wall of the plane when a write and I seem to always have a pen in my hand when keying the mic. Getting used to it but if there are any tips and tricks the lefties have learned I would be interested in hearing.
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I am right handed, but in my personal (and very non-scientific) experience, I have discovered that there seem to be many more left-handed helicopter pilots than those flying fixed wings. I have also heard others mention this weird phenomenon. I sometimes felt I was in the minority among heli pilots. :)
 
Not any different than a right-handed CFI sitting in the right seat.
 
I'm left handed and I struggle with writing when I'm in the airplane.
 
mulligan said:
Just curios if there are many left handed pilots? I'm wondering if anyone else has found it challenging writing down things and working the radio etc... I find my arm hits the side wall of the plane when a write and I seem to always have a pen in my hand when keying the mic. Getting used to it but if there are any tips and tricks the lefties have learned I would be interested in hearing.
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My writing? I try to use the notes thingy on the ipad

I'm right handed but lost it when I turned 25. I also have skin grafts on my fingers so despise any radio with stiff, clunky knobs like the King 170Bs, Garmin 250xl that I flew with for years and don't even really like the feel of a brand new 530w that a friend bought a few years ago.



I'm redoing the panel in the family cruiser now and wiring all the remote frequency swap, tuning, etc functions available to the left side of the airplane.
 
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Being left handed when I use a kneeboard I put it on my right thigh. Keeps me from hitting the door.
 
I've never had a problem. But for some reason I seem to be able to adapt to less than ideal situations better than most of the other lefties I know.

I think left handed people seem to have varying degrees of ambidexterity, more so than right handed people anyway. So you might try doing some of the less complicated tasks with your right hand while using your left hand to do something else. As an example, I tend to reach over and key the mic switch with my right hand while writing with my left when I need to.
 
I'm a lefty. I don't recall any problems, except maybe occasionally using my right hand to fly while writing things down early in my IFR training. However, with the exception of writing, I'm pretty ambidextrous in the first place and have used the computer mouse/trackpad with my right hand for many years.
 
Yeah I agree that the lefties are generally ambidextrous. I write left handed but I shoot a gun or a bow right handed (now that I think about it, I know I shoot a rifle right handed but I think I shoot a pistol left handed), I strongly prefer my left hand for using tools like a hammer, I bat righty, I shoot pool lefty, my son was trying to teach me to ride a skateboard but I can't remember if I was more comfortable righty or goofy foot. So I'm kind of all over the place. I have no problem at all working the radios and GPS with my right hand but in the Cessna 172, my left arm is either hitting the door or the yoke when I try to write.
 
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My very best paraplegic pilot was left-handed and he made it work through private, commercial, and instrument. His right hand was occupied with the hand control.

Bob Gardner
 
Also a lefty. It's like planes are telling us, "Start the engine and fly the plane, let the right hand do everything else." Like most lefties, we adapt and use our right hand more than right-handers use their left. Knee board on the right leg helps with writing.

Never really thought about it until now, but as a CFI, it is a little bit easier to tune radios, etc. from the right seat.
 
Left seat was easy for me. When I was doing my CFI training it was a little weird. I can fly both sides comfortably now.
 
Kneeboard on my right leg and no issue with elbow room.
 
I am likewise left hand dominant writing, eating and batting. But like some others I shoot, golf and bow hunt right handed. As for the writing I use my right leg for kneeboard support. I have never noticed any problems while flying from being left handed.
 
Yes, I agree. Lefty people would face the problems while writing. My brother is getting flight training & he also facing the same problem as he is also lefty.
 
Like Alfadog, I'm pretty much cross-wired. I write, eat and throw left handed. Except for shooting my rifle, almost everything else I do right handed.
 
Norman said:
Like Alfadog, I'm pretty much cross-wired. I write, eat and throw left handed. Except for shooting my rifle, almost everything else I do right handed.
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It's odd, I'm very strongly left hand dominant for simple things like hand tools. For example, if you hand me a right-handed pair of scissors I'm going to use it in my left hand and don't feel comfortable with it in my right hand. But more complex things, or perhaps things that require more hand eye coordination, I lean towards right handed. When I was younger, I played the guitar right handed. After I injured my left hand, it was difficult for me to make chords and I kinda put the guitar away. I have a left handed guitar here in the house but not enough inclination to relearn.
 
Yes, I found writing a clearance while in flight and without an autopilot a great challenge. No tips for you there. Don't find anything else in the plane a problem though.

Outside the plane, it seems like in almost every office I've ever worked in the best place for the phone was on the left side of the desk instead of the right, so if I want to write while on the phone I have to go over or under the cord.

I throw a ball right handed, shoot a basketball left handed. Swing a baseball bat left handed, play golf right handed. Hand me a tennis racquet or ping pong paddle and I'm paralyzed; they don't feel right (correct) in either hand.

In second grade I was the only left handed kid in class, and for some reason became very self conscious about it, so I started trying to write with my right hand. The teacher noticed and offered to let me stay after school so she could work with me on that. Since my mother was the school secretary and she was my ride, I was there an extra hour every day anyway. I got to where my right hand writing was almost as good as my left hand writing. But then I got over my self-consciousness and abandoned it.
 
I was a mirror-writer for a few weeks before they spotted it and made me change. As a lefty, when the teacher said to push or pull the pencil, I did and it ended up being exactly backwards, but correct when viewed in a mirror. Once I realized "push" meant "pull", I was fine.

ps I also had trouble telling time when she said the big hand is on the 3 and the little hand is on the 5. Does "big" mean long or fat?
 
Never had a problem with it(I'm right handed). Even when I flew a stick in pilot training, just swap hands.
 
Mason said:
As are GW Bush, and Bill Clinton.
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only one of those three are pilots. The other two are just, well, penguins.

(apologies to penguins)
 
I'm left eye dominant. I write left handed, shoot a rifle or shotgun left handed, etc. I throw right handed and bat right handed. I shoot a pistol with whichever hand I pick it up with, but always use my left eye to sight. I regard myself as left handed, in spite of the things I do right handed.

All that said, I haven't had any trouble flying. I do put my knee board on my right leg as that works better for me.

Just remember, everybody is born right handed. Only a select few overcome the handicap. :D
 
I've heard that lefties are much more predominant in the pilot ranks than in the general public. True?

I'm ambidextrous, thanks to the nuns refusing to let me write left handed.
 
Many Lefties, at least the older ones among us, also have their hand above the line when writing, and when we used a fountain pen smudged our work. The younger generations seem to write more like a right-hander.

That said, I once encountered a doctor who wrote right handed but his hand was upside down. He sheepishly admitted he didn't know how he got there. Probably couldn't even read his own scribbling. :D
 
Norman said:
Many Lefties, at least the older ones among us, also have their hand above the line when writing, and when we used a fountain pen smudged our work. The younger generations seem to write more like a right-hander.

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Yup, and the heel of our left hand is smudged with ink residue from the lines above. Geez, I haven't written enough in ink in years for that to happen and was just reminded of it :yes:
 
I have one of these, the ArmBoard not the airplane, but I am not a big fan of it and would rather work out a way to position a normal kneeboard.

5705.jpg
 
I have so little time that my observations may not pan out in the long haul (pre-solo), but I feel like it is an advantage. I can fly exactly like I drive, which is left hand working the steering and right working everything else.

And since the plane needs less adjustment than a car, or at least you can do them on your own schedule more, taking my hand off the yoke to write stuff down is easier.
 
Blindrage said:
I have so little time that my observations may not pan out in the long haul (pre-solo), but I feel like it is an advantage. I can fly exactly like I drive, which is left hand working the steering and right working everything else.

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I can fly like I drive also, right hand on the wheel and left elbow hanging out the window. Did you know that you can have the window open on a Cessna 172 at any speed up to Vne? Though it gets pretty noisy at anything above pattern speeds.
 
upstateny said:
I was a mirror-writer for a few weeks before they spotted it and made me change. As a lefty, when the teacher said to push or pull the pencil, I did and it ended up being exactly backwards, but correct when viewed in a mirror. Once I realized "push" meant "pull", I was fine.

ps I also had trouble telling time when she said the big hand is on the 3 and the little hand is on the 5. Does "big" mean long or fat?
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I did the same thing.

I really haven't had any problems being a lefty in a plane.
 
I am left handed and have terrible short term memory so I want to write every clearance, frequency, etc down. So, yes I do run into the issue of juggling hands between the yoke, radio, pen and so on. The elbow hitting the side of the plane is a pain and slows me down even more. When I first started my training I looked into a kneeboard from Zuluworks that had velcro backing and allowed you to re position the clipboard part at any angle. Here is a pic that shows it in right hand config, but you just reverse the board to work for us lefty's.
zb-embk.jpg

I never had the chance to try this kneeboard out and sadly it looks like Zuluworks is now out of business.
As severeral others have mentioned, lefty's do seem to be more generally more ambidextrous and I am no exception. With the exception of writing and sports that I was taught as a lefty (golf and tennis) I do everything with my right hand. Guess I just have to learn how to write with the "wrong" hand for flying! Or go fly choppers full time!;)
 
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