Rudder Pedals are backwards!

[mcurcio1989]

Its not so much that I am saying that it is a barrier for me. Flying is not really the most intuitive of processes anyways so your going to have to build some muscle memory up. When people do something all the time they become accustomed to nuances and sometimes an outsiders point of view lends some perspective.

Did you guys get what I was saying about the axis of rotation? The more I think about it is undeniable that a rudder is backwards. Well designed controls apply a force to the the vehicle corresponding to the same direction of the force applied by the operator. This makes them natural for the operator.

Yoke - You want to pull the front of the plane up towards you well then pull the yoke up towards you. push the left wing down then push the left side of the yoke down.

Stick - You want to pull the front of the plane up towards you well then pull the stick up towards you. push the left wing down then push the stick down to the left.

Hovercraft - want to pull the right side of the craft to rotate it clockwise, then pull the right side of the handlebar and the craft rotates clockwise in the same manner as you moved the control.

Same thing with an atv, same thing with a bike. etc. Of course, gyroscopic procession comes into play with bikes at speed but i would say that most people are really just leaning the direction the want to go and then the handlebars just end up there. If you try to use the handlebars on a bike at high speed to force a turn and then lean your gonna end up turning way harder than you want. Kind of interesting though because this actually corresponds well to the way you turn a plane.

Nobody really needs to be told how to use a stick because you sit in the seat and just push and pull the plane how you want it to go. Rudders pedals aren't so. It's easy to say well your just doing it wrong because your not accustomed to a coordinated turn but I'm going to argue that your comfortable with doing it wrong because you are accustomed to a coordinated turn.

[FastEddieB]

I think from our posts we've made it clear we get what you're saying.

But don't overthink it - it is what it is and takes very little time to adjust.

[3Dreaming]

Just roll the airplane upside down and that will fix it. All joking aside I think it would feel unnatural to move the stick to the left and have to push the pedal to the right.

[Merlinspop]

We understand what you're saying, and some of us saw it your way initially, too. But since you're not going to change how the rudder is rigged, we offered a different way to think about rudder and brake operation.

Yoke - You want to pull the front of the plane up towards you well then pull the yoke up towards you. push the left wing down then push the left side of the yoke down.

Stick - You want to pull the front of the plane up towards you well then pull the stick up towards you. push the left wing down then push the stick down to the left.

Rudders pedals aren't so.

Yes, they are, if you think in terms of the result of the control input.

Rudder - You want the front of the plane to move towards the left, you press the left rudder (or brake, when taxiing).

That's absolutely consistent from an Input => Result perspective.

[MovingOn]

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[jandras]

Sled, soap box racer,... Shopping cart.

My mind's eye image of the occasional mental problem I had with the rudder pedals during cross-wind takeoffs and landings was pushing a shopping cart around. For a short while, if the nose began going left at the start of the roll, I tried to "push" it back to the centerline with left rudder - making it worse.

I had a little training hump because of that.

[FastEddieB]

Just roll the airplane upside down and that will fix it. All joking aside I think it would feel unnatural to move the stick to the left and have to push the pedal to the right.

I think it would feel at least as natural as what we have now, had they been that way from the beginning

[FastEddieB]

These are airplanes, not sleds. There is nothing backwards or wrong about it. In 50+ years of flying, you are the first person I have every heard that thinks the rudder pedals are backwards.

Well, mark me down as the second. It felt "off" to me the first time I had to steer a plane with my feet.

[Merlinspop]

These are airplanes, not sleds. There is nothing backwards or wrong about it. In 50+ years of flying, you are the first person I have every heard that thinks the rudder pedals are backwards.

Well, mark me down as the second. It felt "off" to me the first time I had to steer a plane with my feet.

Third. When I get rusty, my feet are the first to go. Not good in a TW plane.

[MovingOn]

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[jandras]

How would you reconcile that with the brakes? Let's see, push right rudder pedal and left brake to turn left??

If directed at me, this cranial inversion was happening to me precisely when I didn't have time to reconcile such matters. It was just an instinctive response, albeit the incorrect one, based on non-aviation experience and having not noodled on it enough.

I ultimately realized that if I simply imagined the rotations that are pitch, roll, and yaw with my eye's looking straight down the axis of rotation for each one and with the controls in view, then the required direction of control movement is pretty obvious. In other words, stick fore or aft to pitch down or up about the transverse asix, stick left or right to roll left or right about the longitudinal axis, and of significance to this thread, rudder pedals left or right in order to yaw or taxi left or right about the vertical axis. Add to that, as you point out, differential breaking with the left or right pedal conveniently causes taxi turns to the left or right too.

It all makes instinctive sense now, but there were a few bends in the road for me.

[MovingOn]

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[jandras]

Seems like you may be over-complicating this by using terms that sound knowledgeable. Just push left to go left. Push right to go right. Pull back to go up. Push forward to go down. Bank left to turn left. Bank right to turn right.

Maybe, but that's the way my brain works. And, as pointed out, there are some moving things in our non-aviation life where pushing on the left side causes that thing to go right. I simply had to work a little bit to banish that experience from my auto-response. My approach may be a little different than your approach, that's all. Don't forget, I'm where you were 48-1/2 years ago...

[MovingOn]

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[Jim Stewart]

Sled, soapbox racer. Primacy of Learning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_learning

I had the same problem bad.