Learning to fly from the right seat

RalphInCA

RalphInCA

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RalphInCA
I'm about to start training for my CFI.

Any suggestions on how to quickly learn to fly from the right seat? I've heard that some people adapt almost immediately, others struggle. I want to be the former.
 
Repetition. I wasn’t really comfortable until about 10 hours into it. Good luck on the CFI! It’s a tough rating but we’ll worth it.
 
Oddly, the less familiar you are with the plane, the easier it becomes. I had no problem flying the Navion from the right at first as I hadn't flown it from the left. Landed just fine. Suggest you try learning right seat work in a different plane than the one you spend most of your time in. After that you should be able to move around plane-to-plane without a problem.
 
Practice is necessary. Flying from the right seat isn’t hard but when you’ve never flown with that sight picture before you’ll have to get used to it. Some people take longer than others to figure it out but most have it figured out well enough to do ok in a few hours. I think the average CFI applicant flight time at the local flight school is 6ish hours prior to taking the checkride, and that time is including practicing all the maneuvers they will be required to fly on the checkride.
 
How to make it easier? Fly a taildragger with a stick first.

Aside from that, sit in the plane and dry fly it from the right. Just get used to the feel and then go fly. Don't expect your first few landings to be as smooth as when flying from the left, but you'll adjust fairly quickly.
 
It will take some getting used to. Having the throttles on the left, flying with the right hand and looking at the gauges from a different angle is a little odd at first. You will also probably notice that you’ll have a little trouble keeping the airplane on centerline during the first few landings. Give it a few hours and it will become natural.

I’m not a CFI Btw, just have flown a few times from the right.

Good luck!
 
It's not too hard. Just fly the airplane. Taxiing is a bit different. The stripe aligns with the MIDDLE of the airplane!
 
It felt a little weird to me at first so I stopped flying from the left seat for several flights. By myself I just flew right seat until it felt natural. Probably around 10 hours.
 
Something I've always wanted to do but never had someone I would trust in the left seat of my plane to go with me the first few times. Now that I'm looking for a non-equity partner the ability to fly from the right seat would come in handy - it's not really possible for a candidate to get a good sense of my panel's capabilities flying from the right seat. Two of the instruments are completely unreadable to a right seater: the JPI and the Sandel. The JPI is hidden by the yoke and the Sandel's display is unreadable from more than about a 30 degree angle.

(The Sandel issue would definitely keep me from flying from the right seat in actual, but for VFR flying it shouldn't be a problem.)
 
I tried once with a CFI in the left seat at night with my first real soft field take off. After take off my left hand on the throttle wanted to move to control aileron, and my right hand wanted to adjust trim. Had a tough time controlling airspeed with elevator and staying level. I said "your airplane" before turning crosswind. I've got other things I need to fine-tune flying from the left, I don't need to try that again, but it gave a good appreciation.
 
After taking a few hours flying in the right seat, my landings improved from both seats.
 
For one of my flight reviews I flew it all from the right seat so I would be a better safety pilot.
 
We switch sides in helos a lot. Only problem I've seen is some will misalign the nose of the aircraft with the runway centerline because of the different sight picture. Doesn't take long to adapt to that though.
 
Takes practice,just like any other flying,after a few times,should be no big deal.If your moving up,you’ll spend a lot of time flying from the right seat.
 
Just get your arse over there and try it. Might pick it up quicker than you think or could take more practice.

Or you could crash.

Oh c'mon I'm kidding!

Maybe.
 
Took me about 6-7 hours to feel comfortable flying in the right seat, mock instructing though is a whole different story, I still say "right rudder" when my instructor is landing as my student when he is sometimes lined up perfectly (according to him)
 
I've done some flying from the right seat and did not find it that difficult to adapt. However while I did do a couple of landings, I didn't do any steep turns or other ground reference maneuvers which I would guess is where the difficulty is likely to present itself.
 
I tried it once, a long time ago...didn't go well... that said, I think the key is to retrain your brain and sever the muscle memory-link. It appears to require a conscious effort to obtain a desired result, unlike the passive actions associated with muscle memory. Furthermore, I would think once you have done that, flying from either seat would require the same muscle-memory disconnect.

( I think I said what I was thinking, I think)
 
FlySince9 said:
I tried it once, a long time ago...didn't go well... that said, I think the key is to retrain your brain and sever the muscle memory-link. It appears to require a conscious effort to obtain a desired result, unlike the passive actions associated with muscle memory. Furthermore, I would think once you have done that, flying from either seat would require the same muscle-memory disconnect.

( I think I said what I was thinking, I think)
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I can switch seats without any issues. After giving 1000+ hours of dual as well as doing 91 flights from the left seat, I was switching seats on a weekly basis. It was definitely weird for the first few hours in the right seat though.
 
In the right seat, do you always use the right hand on the yoke, to keep the left hand free for the throttle?
 
^^^ Depends where the PTT switch is, but usually right hand on the steering thing.
 
NoHeat said:
In the right seat, do you always use the right hand on the yoke, to keep the left hand free for the throttle?
Click to expand...

Yep. Like everyone has said - it's just practice. After awhile it makes no difference which hand does what. I think I might still be a tad more comfortable in the left seat from a stick and rudder perspective (most of my time is on that side), but it's not enough to really matter.
 
Zeldman said:
Drive a right hand drive car for a while....;)
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Heh! I drove around with only my right hand on the steering wheel while working on my CFI. I think it helped! :)
 
kayoh190 said:
Heh! I drove around with only my right hand on the steering wheel while working on my CFI. I think it helped! :)
Click to expand...

Uh, where was that left hand....huh.

_46333221_drive_left_rights_signs2_466.gif
 
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