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Left side throttle?

I have a buddy who flys helos in the Marines (CH-46). Initially he wanted to fly with the right hand in fixed wing too, but has since found flying from the left with the left hand just as easy.
 
A non issue

Attack guy,

I too have lots of helicopter time. After doing night search and rescue in the mountains I thought flying "left" handed would be tough. After the Transition Training and about 3 additional hours I found it was a non issue. You will too. Bottom line, built it how you want.
 
My 6A is set up for PIC to fly from the right. Stick in right hand, throttle in left like a military fighter. I have no regrets and any pilot/passengers feel right at home because they get to fly left seat. It's really just a matter of installing the flight instruments on the other side of the panel.
 
Throttle on left, RV7

Well, I'm helping a friend with his RV7, and he wants a throttle only on the left, and a quardent in the center. I've seen that configeration somewhere, but I'm having trouble finding it. Has anyone else seen that?
 
I go from my RV4 to my RV7 and back with no second thought. I also thought it would be difficult however it wasn't.
 
I fly airbus. Nobody I know has an issue with left hand stick and right hand thrust. Lots of decisions to make in the build process, but I don't think this is one of them. BTW I have flown 1&2 engine piston, 1&2 engine turboprop, 1,2,3&4 engine jet all of them from all available control seats (left, right, front, back). As much as I thought swapping hands would be a problem before the first time I did it, it never was an issue. If, for some odd reason, flying with stick left handed is a problem, just fly from the right seat. Not a problem for helo drivers or the first officers of commercial jets who do it every day ;)
 
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Left Side Throttle

I have a RV6 , had a Starduster before , I like the Throttle on the left . Seems my right hand is for Acro my left hand is for IFR lol
I used a Tracy Saylor Quadrant, nice and flat. In retrospect I would have used a vernier for the mixture instead of a lever

Cheers

Peter
 
Here's what I did. 2000 hrs and would do the same.
L
 

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Both seats

My wife and I are both pilots. She flies solo in the -7 from the right seat. I solo it from either seat, but prefer to fly IFR in the left seat because my right hand does better with the touch screens and buttons on avionics when solo.

I’m unique in that I fly many different airplanes as a CFI and have learned to adapt in side by side, tandem, front seat, back seat, wherever flying.

Good luck. You can build it any way you’d like!
 
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Either hand is very trainable to do any task. You just need to give it the opportunity.

Side question, does anyone that flies their side by side from the right side get a comment from their passenger that it is weird for them sitting on left?
 
Either hand is very trainable to do any task. You just need to give it the opportunity.

True. Personally I can’t see the difference between using a control wheel with my left hand and using a stick with the same hand. But some people’s brains are more capable of processing ambidextrous input/output signals than others, and even if they aren’t, personal preference plays a role.
 
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Easier than you think

I learned to fly in helicopters then after ten years of flying I learned to fly airplanes. After thirty years in helicopters flying with my right hand seems the only way to fly. But my brain managed to transition to flying my RV-7 just fine.
 
Left side/hand or right side/hand, it just doesn't matter for me it seems. I flew the -9 from the left seat for a couple of years, then got tired of always having to mess with the seat. So I moved to the right seat and almost never went back for the remainder of time that I flew it. There were no special considerations in the -9. Center throttle and radio stack, most of the switches were even on the far left of the instrument panel which never even bothered me whilst sitting on the right. Of course the -8 makes the decision for you, as does the super decathlon that I'm flying.

Fast forward to today and I'm flying various stuff side by side and tandem, they're all just airplanes.
 
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Changing throttle/stick hands doesn’t take long to get used to. The first plane I had to swap hands in was a Grob 109B motor glider. It was odd in that you swapped hands in flight depending on your mode of flight. Takeoff with the engine it was stick in the left hand throttle in the right. Landing (Glider mode with the prop feathered) it was stick right and spoilers in Left. Landing with the engine running its back to stick left hand, throttle in the right.

Build the plane the way you will like it.
 
Out of interest, Van produced a drawing for a left hand throttle installation in an -6, that was published in the RVator.
 

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