Actually... I know of model aircraft flyers that are left-handed and have a personalized transmitter setup. A RC transmitter basically has 2 sticks. Each stick controls 2 channels. If, for instance, you want the ailerons to be controlled by channel 4 instead of 2, you just switch the servo leads at the receiver. Most new computer transmitters can do this in the software as well.

But, as far as full-scale flying goes, this isn't quite as simple. If I fly from the right seat, I have my right hand on the yoke and the left on the throttle quadrant. If I'm in the left seat I switch to flying with my left hand on the yoke and my right hand on the TQ.
On the other hand (no pun intended ;-)) when I got my aerobatic license I trained on an aircraft with side by side cockpit and the throttle in the middle. It also had a throttle repeater on the left side console of the left seat. I actually preferred to fly right hand on stick and left on throttle in that one...

But I agree, it's not a big deal. You adapt to the options of the airplane.

This brings up an interesting related discussion: in the Bristol Fighter, the throttle is on the right-hand side of the plane, yet the trigger on the control column is obviously designed to be squeezed by the right hand. Did they typically just set the throttle at a particular setting with their right hand and then manipulate the control column with their right hand?

Basically you adapt. And that goes to both sides; left or right hand dominant.


Example; look at this picture. Copilot seats on a right side and captain seats on a left side. Caption uses left hand to fly and right hand to change throttle while co-pilot does opposite. And both can switch...at least in military world.

First off, I never said your brain would know the difference, your level of manual dexterity would be the evidence. It's obviously not a percieved or conscious thought process by the pilot, it's his demonstrated ability. I will agree wholeheartedly with the sight picture comment though. My company does full touchdown autorotations in its single engine helo's and the first thing we do when training a new instructor pilot is put him in the left seat to get the proper sight picture during the touchdown phase of the auto. P.S. best part of the job-touchdown auto's in BH206, BH407 and the AS 350

Yeah you're right about flying with both hands in a helo-big difference is if you're an equipment operator instead of a pilot, your passengers sure as hell will know which hand you're flying with!!!!

Spent two years as an Instructor Pilot in the military and the last 14 years as an Instructor Pilot/ Check Airman as a civilian so I've spent lots of time evaluating "professional" pilots -in fact alot of what I do is grade them on how well they "wiggle the sticks" during standard and non-standard flight maneuvers.

It really breaks down into two destinct groups-pilots and equipment operators. About 70 percent of the pilots are equipment operators and 30 percent of them are aviators...... Funny thing is that after doing this a while, it takes about 3 minutes to figure out what group they belong to.

I'm not a 'real' pilot so my observations don't hold any water with some of the more elite around here... but I have always said nearly the same thing as what Copter said here.

Especially when CAPTAIN Chesley Sullenbuger put his A320, with both engines out, safely down in the Hudson River with no loss of life or serious injury. Had he followed the ATC guidance he was given (to divert to some field in New Jersey), he, his crew, and all of his passengers would be dead now.

Fortunately, Sully is a PILOT. He had the nads to ignore ATC directives and FLY HIS PLANE, outside of any training or procedures, because there was no training or procedure for ditching an A320 with both engines out in a river. Everyone on that plane was damned lucky that there was a PILOT on the flight deck, not a 'systems operator.'

In my lay opinion, far too many commercial "pilots" are actually systems operators. They push buttons and moves controls in accordance to the manual and rote procedural memorization. Depart from predictable conditions and procedures, and they crash. Literally.

Examples:

Colgan Air 3407 in Feb, 2009. Aerodynamic stall due to presumed icing. But it wasn't the stall that killed all onboard. It was what the systems operators who were sitting in the pilot/first officer seats did about the stall. They did exactly what you're not supposed to do, and crashed their plane.

Air France 447 in July 2011. Apparent failure of an airspeed indicator caused autopilot failure. Fine. The autopilot can fail. That's why we put real pilots in the cockpit. Unfortunately, yet again, there were no pilots in the cockpit that night, only systems operators wearing pilot uniforms. And when the airspeed indicator failed, so did they. Not able to evaluate what was really happening to their aircraft, they (again) did exactly the wrong thing and kept pulling the nose up, worsening the stall and departure from controlled flight. There was no procedure for what was happening, so they couldn't simply follow a memorized procedure. They needed some pilot sense, and, sadly, they were fresh out.

Yeah, I know I've hijacked the thread, but I started it, so there.

Plus, as has been pointed out by a real pilot, the very concept of a left-handed pilot is:

UTTER NONSENSE!

I'll answer it this way: In the last F-4 squadron I was in, just under 50% were left handed, including me.
That was an unusually high percentage, but...
It seems that righties are almost always less ambidextrous -- I'd like to think of righties as the less capable majority.