Stick Shtick

"Wait a minute, I can't fly this! Where's the control yoke? And how can I fly with the throttle and control in the wrong hands?"

When you take someone out of what has become the traditional flight-control environment--the throttle in the right hand, control yoke in the left--it sometimes comes as a shock. The pilot is being asked to do something that seems unnatural. Of course, when you take someone trained in a Champ or Citabria, where the throttle is on the opposite side of what you find in a Cessna, Piper, or Beechcraft--and which has a control stick rather than a yoke--a similar shock occurs. As the two systems appear to be so different, student pilots may wonder why two different systems exist. Consider that the control stick is making a resurgence--Diamond's aircraft employ control sticks mounted in the forward section of the seat cushion; Cirrus uses sidesticks, short control sticks mounted on the armrests; and Cessna's recently announced Light Sport airplane also will feature control sticks instead of the conventional Cessna yoke.

Which is better, the control stick or control yoke? That question can't be answered qualitatively because there's no clear definition of "better" as it applies to this situation.

Some would argue that the control yoke is more "car like," and therefore more familiar to the new pilot. That may be true for the first few minutes of flight, but since a gadget like a control stick isn't unique in its lack of familiarity to new pilots, the lack of a yoke isn't going to overburden them. New pilots have nothing to compare a cockpit to, so there's zero acclimation for them. It's the pilot who has been flying for some time who may have problems and does the complaining.

Some members of the aviation community look upon the joystick, like the tailwheel, as a quaint holdover from another time. For that reason, it's interesting to look back to the dawn of aviation and see that by far, most of those early flying bundles of wire and fabric had a control wheel. And the Wright brothers' contemporaries had a thing for manly sized wheels, rather than an abbreviated yoke. Still, then--as now--there was the occasional joystick, which grew in popularity along with the airplane.

Eventually a pattern evolved that, while changing today, generally still holds true: tandem and single-seat airplanes usually have control sticks and left-hand throttles, while side-by-side airplanes usually have control yokes and a center-mounted throttle that falls to the pilot's right hand.

Although each type of control system has its devotees, each claiming their style of control system is more intuitive and precise, the reason two types of control system exists may be nothing more romantic than trying to make it easier to get in and out of airplanes.

If a side-by-side airplane is equipped with dual control sticks, just boarding it requires a certain amount of careful dancing to keep from being skewered. With a control yoke, however, you just slide in with no obstructions for your legs. If a tandem airplane is equipped with control sticks, getting in is much easier. You either descend into the cockpit, as with a Stearman or a Curtiss Jenny, or easily step around the stick to fall into the seat, as with a Piper Cub.

Marketing, rather than engineering, also undoubtedly played a role in going to control yokes versus sticks. Engineers don't like a control system utilizing yokes because it is both heavier and more complex than one using sticks. In addition, the control system connected to a yoke can take up part of the instrument panel. However, as side-by-side design concepts began to filter down to smaller aircraft--like Taylorcrafts, Ercoupes, and Cessna 120/140s--the ease of ingress and egress provided by control wheels became a selling point.

Today, the majority of pilots can fly an entire career and never have their hands on a control stick and, unless they become instructors, never have a throttle in their left hand. But, what happens when they are introduced to an airplane that uses a joystick? And what if they find themselves with the throttle in the left hand and the flight control in the right? Are catastrophes just around the corner? Will they develop migraine headaches from the internal struggle? No, and no.

A pilot's head will not explode from trying to acclimate to swapping hands on the controls. The human mind is much more flexible than that. It may get bent just a little bit at the beginning, but the effort isn't going to be overwhelming; in fact, after a few minutes of adjustment, most pilots find the control stick--or yoke, if transitioning from a stick--to be pretty intuitive.

One thing it's not is a matter of right-handed or left-handed operation. The majority of pilots are right-handed but the physical control of the airplane usually is with their left hand. The precision required while controlling the airplane is much more demanding than that associated with the throttle. Yet, the most common control setup has the pilot controlling the airplane with his "off" hand (unless he's left-handed to begin with). You'd think that, if the left hand had a learning deficit disorder that is strong enough to compromise safety, there would never have been an airplane built with a left-hand control and right-hand throttle in the first place.

Here's another question concerning the precision of control: Can anyone name a significant military fighter aircraft that had a left-hand stick and right-hand throttle? There had to have been some, but the right-hand stick/left-hand throttle combination has been the norm for generations. (Yeah, we know, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning had a yoke, not a stick, but it still had left-hand throttles.)

Fighters require the maximum in aggressive precision. If there were no difference between left and right, there would have been more left-command fighters. This leads one to believe that, when the stakes are high, the nod for control goes to the right hand. Don't, however, tell that to bomber crews, the airlines, or anyone flying some of the newer business jets.

Aerobatic pilots and many bush pilots scoff at the idea of a control yoke. Given a choice, they'll opt for the control stick because they sense the movement of a joystick to be more in harmony with what they are trying to accomplish. With a joystick moving straight back, for instance, there is minimal change in the way the stick relates to the pilot's hand and arm. The same thing is true when rolling the airplane; right and left seem more symmetrical. When the control yoke comes back on many airplanes, it also translates upward--or at the very least becomes awkward to hold at the aft limits because our arms are bent inward at an unnatural angle.

If this sounds as if hairs are being split, that's because that's exactly what's happening. In most of our flying, the stick could easily substitute for the yoke, although there seems to be just a little more trouble transitioning from a stick to a yoke than from a yoke to a stick, perhaps because some perceive the yoke as feeling a little artificial.

What about right-hand operation of the throttle, compared to left-hand use? Ask anyone who has just started flying from the right seat as part of flight instructor training how it feels, and they may admit that it feels a little easier. The hardest part of that transition is looking across the panel to see the instruments. Ask any flight instructor how it feels to be flying from the left seat with the controls in the other hand, and they'll say it initially feels awkward and then almost instantly forget about it, which is the way everyone eventually reacts.

The truth is that you feel the most comfortable doing what you've been doing. That's a natural reaction. Change always brings a little uneasiness. So, if you're asked to fly an airplane that tasks your hands with different missions, rise above it and concentrate on what's important: controlling the airplane.

Once your mind has decided what direction it wants the airplane to go, it'll automatically move what needs to be moved to accomplish it. At first, the unfamiliar controls may feel odd, but in terms of your performance, nothing will be noticed. So, don't make a big deal out of nothing. Just fly the airplane.

Budd Davisson is an aviation writer/photographer and magazine editor who has written approximately 2,200 articles and has flown more than 300 different types of aircraft. A CFI since 1967, he teaches about 30 hours a month in his Pitts S-2A Special. Visit his Web site.

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