Left turns easier?

Silvaire

Silvaire

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Silvaire
Do left turns just feel more natural or is it just me? Even in a tandem seat aircraft where you're on the centerline left turns just seem "easier". Maybe it has something to do with the brain, or at least the brain of a right handed person. I notice that pretty much all race tracks are counter-clockwise, even dog and horse tracks although I did go to Le Mans a couple of years ago and it's clockwise. There must be a reason ...
 
I feel more comfortable making a left turn than a right turn. Likely due to the turning tendencies mentioned above but also because I am in the left seat.
I am going to fly from the right seat next flight and see if anything changes.
 
You have to use your right foot in a right turn.

This feels awkward for people who never move their feet. :)
 
Maybe it's individual. Or maybe it's based on which direction you have to turn most? I'm a rightie, and I prefer right turns, on the ground or in the air. My left steep turn sucks. My right was decent. (Turns both ways will suck, I am sure, when I get back in a plane again.)
 
When I fly RC planes, I much prefer left turns to right turns.
 
Left turn were easier in the Japanese Zero also.
https://www.historynet.com/myth-of-the-zero.htm
The Zero’s flight controls mixed some ingenious engineering with at least one awkward feature: Its ailerons were large and powerful, which added greatly to the fighter’s low-speed maneuverability and spectacular roll rate, but they were very difficult to deflect at high speeds. American pilots soon learned to dive and turn sharply—especially to the right, which substantial prop-induced torque made particularly difficult for the Zero—when they had a Zero on their tail.
 
SkyChaser said:
Maybe it's individual. Or maybe it's based on which direction you have to turn most? I'm a rightie, and I prefer right turns, on the ground or in the air. My left steep turn sucks. My right was decent. (Turns both ways will suck, I am sure, when I get back in a plane again.)
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Oddly enough, when I have pilots do steep turns and tell them to roll straight from one direction to the other, most pilots start with the left turn. Of the ones that start with the right turn, the overwhelming majority are left handed.
 
Have you tried a steep turn with your eyes closed?
 
Just like doing rolls, most people do them to the left if they’re right handed. Sitting right seat in a helicopter, I prefer right turns.
 
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denverpilot said:
You have to use your right foot in a right turn.

This feels awkward for people who never move their feet.
Click to expand...

Feet? What are those for? I usually just have them resting on those two footrest-thingies that stick up at angles from the floorboard.

:)
 
I like right turns, my reasoning is, when the door pops open in the turn, it’s my CFII that gonna fall out, not me.

Wait, I don’t have a door on my left. Never mind. Well, I still like right turns
 
Salty said:
There are 4 left turn tendencies in an aircraft. Basic PPL knowledge.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media...g-magazine/technique--left-turning-tendencies
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I think this human favoring of left turns predates the airplane. Wasn’t the chariot race in Ben Hur all left turns? Hmmm...maybe we subconsciously purposely engineered those left turn tendencies into the aircraft when we invented it. I think it was the Spad that it was almost impossible to make a right turn in so you just did a left 270.
 
Silvaire said:
I think this human favoring of left turns predates the airplane. Wasn’t the chariot race in Ben Hur all left turns? Hmmm...maybe we subconsciously purposely engineered those left turn tendencies into the aircraft when we invented it. I think it was the Spad that it was almost impossible to make a right turn in so you just did a left 270.
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I don’t know about the Spad, but I can just about guarantee the roll at the top of the first Immelmann was done opposite the direction of prop (and engine) rotation...wing warping just wouldn’t overcome that at slow speed.:eek:
 
Yet almost all holding patterns are to the right. Does the group have idea why? Left turns seem so much more natural.
 
denverpilot said:
Could always do it inverted if the bank direction bothers you. :)
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I tried that once. Good thing the airplane was an indestructible Stearman...most anything else I’d have propbably pulled the wings off of before I got to the bottom of the half-loop.:eek:
 
Occam’s Razor would suggest that since many pilots do left hand patterns repeatedly during their primary they may feel more comfortable with them from that point on.

I first learned to fly RC and my graduation from instruction was entirely based on making left hand patterns to land.

Then I flew tandem and single seat gliders (no torque effects there). But the LH pattern was part of every flight.

Racing sailplanes logic says the next thermal will raise the left or right wing 50:50 but I entered 90% of thermals to the left. And my right hand entries were sloppy. I always considered that a competitive disadvantage but I never did overcome my love of left hand turns.


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Having sparked my own curiosity I did some research. It's definitely a brain thing, goes way back long before we even had a concept of a flying machine. So what we need here is input from any southpaws in the group. Are right turns easier for you folks?
 
Due to the arrangement of muscles and skeleton, it's easier to push the stick to the left than pull it to the right, this seems to apply to R/C transmitters too. If you have a wheel instead of a stick, it's also easier to push it down than up.

I find I'm more comfortable slipping to the left, too.
 
Dana said:
Due to the arrangement of muscles and skeleton, it's easier to push the stick to the left than pull it to the right, this seems to apply to R/C transmitters too. If you have a wheel instead of a stick, it's also easier to push it down than up.
Click to expand...

But then so many learn to fly with their left hand on a yoke.


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This is because you are in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, right turns are easier. SCIENCE!!!!
 
I find left turns easier in an airplane but right turns on a motorcycle. Don’t ask me why.
 
For me, the horizon has a lot to do with it. In a left turn, it seems easier to look out the front and track the horizon to help coordinate my turn. Right turns, my gaze tends to wander through the plane, out the right window, and the ball is all over the place before I know it.
 
I believe, left turns will be more natural after flying for some time due to the fact that a majority of the turns we make as pilots end up being left turns, especially as a student pilot. If you do a lot of pattern work, you normally fly a left traffic pattern so you get used to it. I think if you were to train out of a field that utilized a right traffic pattern, you would probably not have the same feeling of being more comfortable in a left turn. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to make sense.
 
It's kind of subtle but the more I think of it, at least for me, it seems to be true in a car and on a bicycle as well. I really do think it's a port/starboard brain function thing.
 
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