Rudder control question

[Brassbud]

When flying Black Shark today I noticed something I don't think I've ever noticed before in 20 years of flight simming: When you yaw to the left using rudder (as in, the nose points to the left of original heading) the left rudder pedal is pushed forward in the cockpit.

 

Having no flight experience, is it really like this? I'm shocked at how totally backwards this seems. I've always setup controls so that I would push the right pedal to yaw left and vice versa.

 

Is there some reason the opposite is true that I'm not seeing? Do aircraft allow this to be reversed with a gear or something? How much would I have to pay Cessna for a custom pedal action?

 

Sorry if these seem like stupid questions, but it's like someone just told me I'd been steering my car in the wrong direction all these years.

[GGTharos]

... what? You're the backwards one ;) ... why would you push the pedal to the OPPOSITE of where you want to point? That's completely counter-intuitive!

 

And yes, it's really like this!

[deadsmell]

You have been steering your car wrong all of these years.

[einar-st]

hahahahahaha... :D... the way the rudder works feels and has always seemed very natural to me... (and yes I drive a car, too)

Edited March 27, 2009 by einar-st

[EtherealN]

That's hilarious man. You had me re-reading your post like 5 times while a buzzing voice in the back of my head said "does not compute". :P

 

I think I can see how you think of it though - do you imagine the pedals as the wingtips, and you then move your "wingtips" in the direction that you want your real wingtips to move?

 

What my instructor always was hammering into my head was "step on the ball! STEP ON THE BALL! ...oh bloo... I'll do it, I have the controls." The ball in question is the ball in the turn coordinator, ofc, and this logic basically lets you adjust yourself to a clean flight through pushing the pedal on the same side as the ball is from it's centrepoint.

[GGTharos]

A friend suggested that he might be thinking of it as a bicycle/motorcycle.

[blitz-hawk]

A friend suggested that he might be thinking of it as a bicycle/motorcycle.

 

Actually, in a motorcycle you "push to turn" at speeds any higher than a slow crawl... ie. push on the left handlebar to lean the bike over to the left. So that doesn't even work :P

 

In all honesty though, I always thought the OP's way of doing it seemed more natural too. As soon as I got rudder pedals though I snapped myself out of that habit as quickly as possible.

[GGTharos]

I guess the difference is that in one case you're dealing with a 'this is how you operate this steering mechanism' vs. the helicopter's and aircraft's conceptual setup which is 'push this way to go in that same direction'.

[mvsgas]

When flying Black Shark today I noticed something I don't think I've ever noticed before in 20 years of flight simming: When you yaw to the left using rudder (as in, the nose points to the left of original heading) the left rudder pedal is pushed forward in the cockpit.

 

Having no flight experience, is it really like this? I'm shocked at how totally backwards this seems. I've always setup controls so that I would push the right pedal to yaw left and vice versa.

 

Is there some reason the opposite is true that I'm not seeing? Do aircraft allow this to be reversed with a gear or something? How much would I have to pay Cessna for a custom pedal action?

 

Sorry if these seem like stupid questions, but it's like someone just told me I'd been steering my car in the wrong direction all these years.

 

Brassbud, I agree with EtherealN, sound to me that you are thinking the rudder works in the same way or manner as ailerons, is that what you are thinking? Obviously , they do not. I am not aerodynamics expert but the way that it was explain to me, rudders work the same way as a rudder on a sail boat. Rudder are one of the most basic flight control surfaces because people base them on boat rudders. If you press on the left pedal it would pulled the rudder on that side and turn the nose left.

[nemises]

...I also always flew with rudders in "steering wheel" mode before Blackshark, because I didn't know any better and it seemd more logical to me (ie its like a steering wheel on your feet!)! ... have now modified all of my profiles for various sims to use the step-on-the-ball , aka correct setup..lol

[192nd_Erdem]

OP you made my day :D

[ZaltysZ]

I think the confusion comes from the fact that people always tend to use leg, which is opposite to turning direction, as support for not flying out of their seat. For example, passenger sitting in the car slightly extends his right leg and puts almost all his weight on it when car is in hard left turn. Although it looks natural, its not how rudder works in aircraft.

[DragonRR]

I would say that the reason why I personally ocassionally get confused is because I find myself "pushing" the right side of the craft to the left with my right foot and vica versa. Exactly why I think like this at all must relate to something in the real world.. what that is, exactly, is beyond me :)

 

EDIT:

 

Just realised. When I didn't have the rudder pedals I used the joystick twist left twist - turn left which means "pushing" right.. well it makes sense to me anyway LOL

Edited March 27, 2009 by DragonRR

[Shrubbo]

My money is on billy cart steering being the root of the problem ;)

[EtherealN]

DragonRR, that struck me as well, on the stick twist.

 

I gave that up when I started flying real aircraft and just dished out the money for a pedal set since my instructor was bitching about me holding the stick too hard. (Which one kinda has to do on a twist stick to be able to twist it...) But with those you really are moving the "wrong" side forward.

Edited March 27, 2009 by EtherealN

[deadsmell]

Yeah, I think When I was a kid, they used to make a snow sled that had those kind of backwards steering controls, push right to turn left and push left to turn right and all the what not. It's kind of a fuzzy memory, anyone else remember anything like that?

 

 

could it be some buried childhood memory of some twisted controls to some slide down the hill and hope for the best contraption is what has so many people confused? lol.

[EtherealN]

For that matter, it's the same thing on a regular bicycle. :P