MD 500 Pilot placement?

   Actually, I preferred the back seat; with a very stout peter-pilot in the front wearing front and back sections of his "chicken plate". Sorry, I couldn't resist getting my two cents worth!

Offically the right seat is for the A/C(pilot), when flying singlely a pilot will set in whichevery seat he feels more comfortable used. That is sometimes dictated by the mission he is flying(usually the rught seat though)

Back in the late early 1940's, when Igor Sikorsky was developing his helo and training pilots for the USCG, he sat in the left seat and the student pilot sat in the right seat.   The U.S. Army only wanted the helo for reconaissance or observation duties..  The USN say the potential ASW use, but didn't want to tell the Army how to develop the flying machine.  Eventually most of  the  military testing and development went to the USCG.  Since the first military (USCG) helo pilots learned to fly from the right side, that became the PIC position.  The early USCG helo pilots eventually taught the USN and Army pilots how to fly.

Well, there are many theorys about the left/right seating. One is reaching the center pedestal and other switches&instruments, others are view, and my favorite the physics point of view. As all western helos are counter clockwise spining main rotors, the tail rotor is pushing (or towing) the helo to the right (if looking into the tail). In many cases the C.G. is relatively higher than the T/R direction of force, thus the helo is always "hangin" a bit to the left. You can clearly see this as the helo touches down left skid or wheel first. So, when single pilot, the pilot counteracts this phenomena with the weight on the right. To prove thi even more... the eastern helos+some french, clockwise main rotor, have SP and PIC on left.

It's generally easier to work radios and manage your cockpit sitting in the right seat. You can usually leave the collective frictioned in place or briefly unattended to utilize the left hand for whatever needs attention, thus the pilot-in-command is seated on the right. Interesting that the PC sits aft in tandem cockpit gunships.

      This makes alot of sense.As you said it would be hard to lean out and keep the collective in your hand. Thanks for your reply...

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                                                   DAVEY5

Most western helos have the pilot in command on the right. If single - on the right. The only thing that is done better from the left is when working with a long line. Becouse the collective is on the left from pilots perspective, it is easyer for him to work with the collective and lean outside the helicopter to see what's going on with the load and place it pinpoint. That is the only case of a western helo, to have a single pilot on the left - as far as i can remember.