The International Cessna 170 Association

I dont think it would be that difficult to convert to sticks and it'd be a really cool mod.
It would make those center stack radios a lot easier.

Approval would be a nightmare the likes of which Steven King writes about.

I currently fly a helicopter with a force trim which can be defeated. When I'm stick flying it I release the force trim most of the time so the stick can be moved easily and movements are no more than slightly flexing your finger tips or knuckles. With the force trim on there is must more force required. Normal flight is right hand on the cyclic but I can fly equally as well with my left hand because if I was seated in the left seat, all the radios I have to switch are in the middle. I tell you this because my Cub with a stick is different. You can't really fly it with your finger tips. You grab the stick and flex your wrist. Of course throttle is left hand in the Cub.

Most of the time I'm flying my 170 I grab the yoke at the shaft over the top middle. Pull or push straight fore or aft and twist for roll. I use my left hand for this most of the time freeing my right up for throttle. However, on long cruising flights, with no one or my wife in the right seat I often fly the plane in the same manner with my right hand on the right yoke.

Of course I fly from the right in others airplanes or acting as CFI and have no problem with the yoke in my right hand and throttle in my left.

I've also got a few tenths of an hour flying side stick and it really didn't bother me or feel weird.

Now flying a helicopter with a yoke would be a treat to try. I've already flown a helicopter with more of a throttle quadrant for the collective that is normally found. I thought that might be a bigger deal but it really was not.

I guess at this point in my flying career, I pretty much don't care what controls are installed and really have no preference so long as it is fairly easy to get into the pilots seat. For this a yoke beats a stick, helicopter or airplane. But I don't spend a moment thinking about converting a stick to a yoke or visa versa.

With me, a stickalways felt more normal on a airplane where the pilot sat on the center line of the airplane, but a yoke seems more normal where the pilot is off center. One of the wierdest feeling airplanes I ever flew was one of those Aeronca champs that had a wheel instead of a stick. To me, an of centerline stick does not feel nearly a queer as a centerline wheel.

Guess they worked on the P-38's.

170C wrote:Guess they worked on the P-38's.

Anything works on a P-38. They're much cooler than Champs.

Maybe the guy that has the world's only Champ with a yoke is working on the world's only 170 with sticks.

I would suppose it would feel more natural with a centerline seat and a wheel if there was no engine out in front.
Having worked for Lockheed before the wat, I had always wanted to fly the P-38. But alas, after graduating from single engine school at Luke Field, they sent me to Marher Field for multi engine school in the B-25. From there I went to four engine school in the B-17 at Hobbs,N.M. They kept moving me up and up until I wound up in the Boeing B-29 in Gulfport, Ms.

Life is not always fair, but, fortunately for me, they had not yet yet developed the B-36 with it's six engines

Actually there was a Champ with a control yoke in the front. Sometime in the 1950's probably and built by Champion, not Aeronca. Champion made lots of variants on the basic 7AC airframe. A nose wheel version, of course. One with the tailwheel amidships, about under the baggage compartment as I remember. Even the twin engine Lancer version. Must have been the marketing department at work there. Pretty tough to improve on the original design in real life.

Then there is the Champion Lancer This is a twin-engine, fixed gear, high wing multi engine trainer for pilots with little money. You could retract the gear, but it never moved as it was welded down, you could feather the prop which never moved because they were solid aluminum but the phantom do nothing controls produced the necessary reactions for future multi-engine pilots. (The FAA did not buy into it)
I did a pre purchase evaluation on one of these many years ago that had been sitting in a hangar for years. The whole purpose of which was to convince him it would not help get his High performance twin rating even though it had phony controls for a feathering prop which was actually a fixed pitch and retractable gear that did not retract. It had two O-200 engines and tandem seating with one control stick in back and a control yoke in front. This Wiki article makes comments about the performance and FAA's position. My recollection was that only 18 were built but this was information are from my recollection. The other recollection I had is that the 18 were built here in the pacific northwest. It may be that follow on production were moved elsewhere. I remember that I did not know it had the phony controls in it until I was doing the inspection of the aircraft. And could not believe someone would actually do that or be able to get it certified, way but they did. This wiki article explains it better but is different than my recollections because in my faded memory I thought it had two control sticks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champion_Lancer

Fun conversation! I did like flying the stick when training in the Citabria. I was concerned that it would take a bit to get used to flying with my right hand . Funny thing was, it was very natural and I was flying with the stick as easily as the yoke in my left. I think the stick is more intuitive and natural. I don't believe I would adjust to the right seat with a yoke as easily as I adjusted to the stick.

When I was working for World Airways, back in about '65, there was a school at the Oakland airport that had a couple of those Laancers. Some of us went down to look at them one noontime. We all wondered if they were really serious about multi engine training in them.

Those Lancers were not designed to teach multi-engine flying... but assymetric, single-engine flying to an emergency crash-site.

Going from a Cessna150 yoke in the left hand to a J-3 stick in the right hand was a piece of cake compared to going from a Cessna 170 yoke in the left hand to an RV-6A stick in the left hand. After about 4 hours in the left seat of a friend's RV-6A I'm finally getting over the urge to fly it cross-handed...

Or do like Charlie Beyer and fly from the right seat.