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I learn to fly right seat!

SVTPete83

Well Known Member
My wife has aspirations of flying the RV9A we own together. She worked for over a year on her PPL and got it a few months ago. So now its nearing that time I need to teach her how to fly our plane from the right seat. So I am learning to fly from the right seat. This is a video of my first flight and it was a bit of a struggle!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKarWBJuHaI
 
It gets easier with time and the development of muscle memory. "Chair flying" helps building that muscle memory without burning expensive avgas!
 
There’s a lot more to teaching someone to fly than you being comfortable in the right seat.. you need to know when to allow someone to have the controls, and to be able to allow them to fly but know where the limits are, so you can gently keep them safe. Recently an experienced (non CFI) pilot took up a student and allowed them to crash the plane. Actually I have several stories like that that I personally know of. Not that being a CFI means they are good, but just keep learning and be careful with allowing someone to operate the controls on takeoff and landings.. Students do weird and unexpected things!!

Good point about keeping the shoulder harness loose.. the important switches and things are often hard to reach from the right seat. I keep the shoulder harness loose and usually slip my arm out to be able to lean across to manipulate things.

Sweet takeoff by the way.. nice job getting that nosewheel just off the ground early.

On most planes, the copilot brake lines being nylon, feed into the pilot side before they head to the wheels. That gives extra points of failure, and losing a brake on one side in a -A model could be really bad on a short, paved runway. Give them a good look and consider TS flightline Teflon braided lines throughout the system. I’ve also seen air bubbles migrate in the crossover lines, reducing the copilot brakes effectiveness… just another thing to check for and reason to upgrade away from the nylon ones.
 
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+1. The instructor for my cfi told me the most important thing to learn wasn’t on the FAA test, and that was how far wrong you could let a student go, before you had to step in.
 
+1. The instructor for my cfi told me the most important thing to learn wasn’t on the FAA test, and that was how far wrong you could let a student go, before you had to step in.

+1 on that. Best (and safest) way to get the wife checked out in your RV is to find an experienced instructor (with lots of RV time) to do the checkout and signoff (if the insurance requires it). Your marriage will survive it better if there is airplane damage during the process. If you decide to do the checkout then approaching it incrementally may have some benefit. Go rent a Cessna 150 with her in the left seat you in the right and do a couple of hours of pattern work getting comfortable with transferring control back and forth between yourselves at critical times in the circuit. A 152 is much more forgiving and much lower risk of damage or injury. This is a skill you need to develop anyway if you are going to fly together.
Flying from the right seat is a lot different than making a late decision to take control of the airplane when things are all cross threaded and you have to straighten it out while fighting the left seat pilot.

KT
 
BTW: Have you spoken with your insurance agent? Depending on what the policy says, there is a good chance it doesn’t cover her flying. There is a fair chance it doesn’t cover you instructing. And if you do talk with your agent, there’s a good chance that they’ll require some hours of dual from a cfi to add her to the named pilot section.
 
Hey all, thanks for all the feedback on the video. Just a couple of notes. My wife is now a fully certified private pilot. I initially learned to fly right seat so she could be PIC in the left seat for flights in the trainer archer she was learning in. After she hit the 100 hour mark it was time to start teaching her how to fly our RV9A. My insurance covered her with 0 hours of transition training required. We went up 3 times and she did about 20 laps in the pattern with me helping her from the right seat. The next video coming out is of some of these flights. The video after that will be about how we went up to Oregon and she got some transition training from Mike himself. He was awesome! A few more rounds down here and she will be ready to solo our plane for the first time! Thanks again for all the support, kind words, and advice! I hope people continue to enjoy these videos and I really love to share my passion for aviation as well as the Vans Aircraft with the masses!
 
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