TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Thank you for the correction.
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VI
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Not a pilot but I never quite understood the appeal of the side stick. Isn't the centrally aligned stick going to feel more intuitive and balanced? Is it an ergonomic thing? I'm sure centre sticks can be as sensitive or whatever as side sticks but they promote different body movements and positions. It just feels weird imagining steering a sensitive control using a little knob on my side. I'd feel like I need some sense of balance. Anyway I'm sure it's an improvement over the centre stick overall since all the controls are changing over in just about all airforces and manufacturers.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
It’s Ergonomics really. The reason the stick was in the center was because back when aircraft used wires and pulleys to control flight you needed the control in the center.
It’s fine in theory but once fly by wire came about totally unnecessary. Putting the stick to the side where your hands fall naturally makes sense especially since most of flights aren’t pulling insane G forces but patrol or just flying from base to base.
Also it may have some pay off in pulling Gs remember that the arm on a side stick is supported by the arm rest. Where the center stick is the arm holding on to it. Your arm doesn’t weight much in 1 G but crank it up to 9 and it’s a lot heavier.
It’s fine in theory but once fly by wire came about totally unnecessary. Putting the stick to the side where your hands fall naturally makes sense especially since most of flights aren’t pulling insane G forces but patrol or just flying from base to base.
Also it may have some pay off in pulling Gs remember that the arm on a side stick is supported by the arm rest. Where the center stick is the arm holding on to it. Your arm doesn’t weight much in 1 G but crank it up to 9 and it’s a lot heavier.
A traditional center stick requires much larger control deflections in order to achieve the same control deflection. In any aircraft with mechanical control linkage it may require considerable muscle to get the aircraft to respond as you desire, so the J-20 FCS with side stick is a tremendous improvement and allows full control deflection with very little effort.
As the PLAAF pilot mentioned, it is far more sensitive, and doing very fine work such as "maintaining formation" requires a great deal more finesse.
The side stick is surprisingly intuitive and pilots adapt to the side stick easily, Airbus has been flying a side stick for a long time on all their aircraft.
Jura The idiot
General
OK Rick the chart you posted 12 minutes ago
might look like my misuse of the SDF (which is not my blog or nothing), and I'll consider that in my future posts
oops I apologize to
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VI
I thought I was in Hong Kong Thread and wouldn't quote a moderation
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The downside is: what if you're left-handed? Does the J-20 pilot recruitment office only select right-handed people then? Honest question. I have no idea how it works.
If they show they can do everything well during training why not let them fly?
Jura The idiot
General
something I wanted to know, but was afraid to ask LOL!
(I have a kid who's left-handed and it's actually interesting to watch stirring a cup of tea)
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