Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

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blackbird7
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Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by blackbird7 »

I was watching some general aviation videos on YouTube recently and noticed that in all of the videos, the pilots had one hand on the yoke and one hand on the throttle during takeoffs and landings. This was a bit of a surprise to me not having thought much about it before, but I think it makes sense if you need to quickly adjust power.

This had me curious. Do any flight simmers perform takeoffs and landings with only one hand on the yoke, or is it just one of those things that's better left to real world flying?

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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by Oracle427 »

One of the hardest things about the earliest flight lessons was learning to fly with my left hand after an entire lifetime of flying with my right hand. I started flight simming in the early 80's and started flight training in 2010. I struggled for many hours before I was able to relax enough to feel the plane and use fine control.

I now sim fly with my left hand on the stick or yoke in aircraft that fly left handed, and use my right hand on aircraft that are right handed to try and mimic RL. :)
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DHenriques_
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by DHenriques_ »

In real world flying the first thing I did as an instructor with a new student was to wean them off the two handed yoke syndrome.
New students will usually assume that the more hands on the yoke the more control over the airplane where in actuality this is a false notion. The correct way to fly an airplane is to ALWAYS have a hand on the throttle when taking off AND when landing. The reason for this is really quite simple. On takeoff you want to guarantee that the throttle doesn't creep back on you resulting in a power loss at a critical time. On landing, if you need power you need it NOW, not after the time it takes you to reach for it.
Naturally as a real world pilot I fly the sim the same way I flew real airplanes, with one hand on the yoke and the other on the power controls.
I highly recommend that our A2A sim pilots fly this way as well as our A2A planes are as close to real as we can make them and that being the case we like our sim pilots to fly as close to the real thing as well. (Most of our pilots do this anyway as they are a class above the average sim pilot.)

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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by Killratio »

In normal flying lessons any student at our club expected a "talking too" if they were using more than two fingers and a thumb to hold a yoke. If doing steep turns, takeoff or landing, stalls etc, different but any normal flying it was invariably picked up.

Flying the Tigermoth, I was taught palm of hand, thumb and index and fingers, leaving third and little fingers relaxed.
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by Tobus75 »

One handed. IRL I fly with left hand on either yoke or stick aircraft, using right on throttle and near levers and switches.
I also fly a Scheibe SF25 IRL, which has a stick instead of yoke and is landed like a glider using spoilers instead of flaps. As this lever is not a set but a hold in position kind of lever on the left hand side of the cockpit, I land using my right hand. Bit of getting used to but like any vehicle, it's all just a basic of getting into it.
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by DHenriques_ »

We have an axiom in professional aviation about hand placement during takeoffs and landings;
" In the time it takes you to reach for a throttle on a takeoff and landing, the need to do that might very well no longer exist".

One hand on the throttle(s) at ALL times during a takeoff and a landing. Fly in the sim that way and you're flying like a good pilot. Any other way.........enjoy the game. You're a gamer !
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ilya1502
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by ilya1502 »

Left hand on the yoke, right hand on the throttle / right hand on the stick, left hand on the throttle depending on arrangement, but always one hand on the throttle at all times. I find it difficult to control when holding the yoke with both hands since it's very easy to overcontrol. When I was starting, many instructors offered to take control of power in my stead and leave the yoke to me in a good will of reducing my workload, but I've never felt I could positively maintain control this way, for an aircraft doesn't have a separate up/down and a separate fast/slow control. Throttle (power) is just another flight control that you have to be aware of at all times.

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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by TatoBean »

This has ingrained itself so deeply I still do it when I have autothrottles (sort of.) So at my company when we reach V1 there's no need to touch the thrust levers, since a.) autothrottle is controlling it and b.) it's V1 you're going flying period end of story and you're already at max power so remove the temptation to do anything and take your hand off the thrust levers. Most people put their other hand on the yoke, but that feels weird to me so I just rest my hand in my lap and fly with one hand again.

Landing, I actually have to get the reversers out and stuff, and sometimes the AT doesn't react quick enough to wind gusts so you kinda have to coax it into position so then I'm back to the traditional form of flying. But yeah I can hear the voice of my private pilot instructor to this day "we fly with one hand cause we only got two.)
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by MrMe85 »

Where I work, once hitting V1, it's procedure to take the hand off the throttles on the takeoff. I guess it's partially to prevent people from pulling back the thrust after V1, but that's just SOP. Hands to go back to the thrust levers when needed though, like turbulence, or even step climbs. It's definitely there during approach.

In the flight sim world though, I don't even use a yoke or joystick. My mouse is my yoke haha, so it's naturally one handed all the time.
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by wblackret »

Yep, left hand on the yoke, right hand for trim wheel and throttle and for scratching an itch if one developes, sim or RW.
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by ThreeGreenGaming »

I typically always teach my students (in single engine operations) to keep their right hand on the throttle at all times during takeoff and landing. In a lot of these single engine planes your throttle can vibrate back if the friction lock isn't working great, etc. , so best for that not to happen during takeoff. Also if you encounter a problem on a lower performance airplane like a 172, it is very possible to snatch the throttle back and land it right back down on the runway straight ahead. Out in the practice area doing manuevers, etc. I am not as much of a stickler about requiring folks to keep their hand on the throttle at all times.
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by DHenriques_ »

I would add as an instructor that I always flew with my right hand on the yoke and my left on the throttle(s) at ALL times durning takeoffs and landings. It took a bit of "getting used to" after doing it in reverse from the left seat.
I consider the habit of flying with one hand on the throttle(s) during these two phases of flight important enough that I have always placed IMPORTANT and SPECIFIC emphasis on doing it this way and teaching it this way to every new instructor who has ever come into the range of my opinion.
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by CAPFlyer »

Interesting rolling back to this thread today. I didn't contribute originally because I felt others answered the questions quite well, but there was something interesting that happened today that makes seeing this (thanks Dudley for adding to it and reminding me of this thread). That thing that happened? One of the YouTube channels I follow made a really good, and really sobering summary of the NTSB's release of the info docket in the King Air 350 crash in Addison last July. Within it, the topic of keeping a hand on the throttle(s) came up. The pilot of the King Air was apparently known to use both hands, heavily, during departure. It's not known if the right seat pilot (not co-pilot or SIC because he wasn't rated in the plane nor did he need to be since the pilot was Single Pilot authorized for the King Air 350) was guarding the throttles or not. This is pertinent because the King Air is known for having a problem known as "rollback" where the engine throttles will drift toward idle during takeoff, even with the throttle friction applied pretty tightly. Having spoken with one of our tenants who flies a King Air 350 shortly after the accident, this was something he brought up and is a major emphasis point in King Air training. He and his co-pilot both have their hands on the throttles during every takeoff for this reason. The Pilot Flying makes the initial advance, the Pilot Not Flying trims them to takeoff power, then they both guard the throttles until after they're established in climb and the PNF has to take his hands away to raise the gear and flaps.

Here's the video -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WZeSE4 ... dex=5&t=0s
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by Styggron »

Yep 1 hand on the yoke only.
I use a lefthanded joystick and other hand on keyboard as needed.
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Re: Do you fly with only one hand on the yoke?

Post by GaryRR »

Drove standard trans half my life. I'm used to controlling one handed. Therefore fly one handed with left and right on throttles is natural.

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