Pretty Cool!!

Really is a odd way to fly, makes me wonder if it more difficult to fly that way?
I always wondered what it would be like to fly with your throttle control set much like a car?
This aircraft would be suitable for a set-up like that, gas and brake on the floor.

By the way all your photos are great!!!! Looks like you had a blast! Many aircraft there I have never seen nor heard of! And a few that son't even look airworthy! I like them the best

Definitely Different Doug

However there have been many commercial and military designs without the standard rudder configuration but can't seem to recall any other aircraft that used those controls for the lateral axis.

Now you got me thinking again damit....the old girl says she can smell the rubber burning LOL

Will ask around as I find this post very interesting.

Thanks for posting it Doug!

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug
P.S. If you have any further information on that concept of flight control would you kindly post...THANKS

Hi Doug. Your questions & comments are welcome. I know very little about this aircraft or the concept behind it. The whole thing seems a little misguided to me. My own comments are based on a chat with the owner of one at a previous G-VFWE 2 or 3 years ago. I was hoping that Felix might spot this & add more info.

Here's what I do know. The 2 existing examples in my photos are the Chrislea CH3 Super Ace Series 2 - fitted with a DH Gipsy Major 10 engine. The original Chrislea CH3 Ace was advertised with a 90 hp Franklin & single fin/rudder.

That artificial horizon does look oversized & might well be an afterthought. I hadn't thought about it before but moving the whole yoke assembly sideways would possibly hide some of the instruments at an inconvenient time. The throttle might well be from a Land Rover for all I know. Most aircraft had a throttle control lever in the 1940s when these were produced. (I'm not sure when the modern push-pull throttle was first introduced.) I seem to remember that the original was floor-mounted as Fret suggested. The whole idea seems to have been to make flying more like driving a car. It seems strange to me that anyone would attempt to introduce a new method of control after the conventional method had been accepted & in use for many decades. This would mean that anyone trained on this type of aircraft wouldn't be able to fly a conventional type. It sounds confusing & dangerous idea to me.

Now that is an interesting control arrangement

Mark

Well now, its time for me to put in my bit.......I have always thought that the "conventional" rudder control arrangment was not the way it should have been......in fact, an aircraft is the only vehicle in which this type of control input is backwards to the way most other vehicles turn.  If you consider that when one foot moves forward and the other moves backwards at the same time, the perpendicular of the angle between the feet is in the opposite direction to the way you want the nose to move.....consider a bicycle, a bus or car, or even a tiller on a boat rudder...  You always move your input in the opposite direction to the way you want the nose to move.......this to me, makes the aircraft the only one which goes against this established procedure.....I understand that if you want to go left, you push on the left pedal, but there is no other vehicle I know of which does this?.....when I turn a car, to go left, I push with my right hand, in a boat to go left, I move the tiller to the right, etc......

Any thoughts ?.......

I'm really not trying to move the direction of the thread, so we can move to a new one if so desired, to take up this interesting anomoly of aircraft control .....well, anomoly in my mind, at least .....

Quote:

Interesting Ken. I've come across this argument before. (Also had many arguments on Mode 1 & Mode 2 R/C transmitters.   )
I've always found the "conventional" aircraft controls perfectly natural. Maybe this is because I've been associated with aircraft from a very early age. I could fly long before I ever drove a car & don't remember ever being confused. I look on it as pushing your foot in the direction you wish to go rather than using the rudder pedals as a tiller or bicycle handlebars. The same can be said for the other controls.

Quote:

I agree up to a point Felix. This would be fine with the stick mounted on the floor. I think it would be different with it mounted on the panel.  In my photo the elevators are in the full Down position. You could simulate this with a joystick with a twist rudder like the MS Sidewinder. Stick it on the wall & swap the rudder & aileron assignments.

The owner I spoke to admitted that he sometimes gets confused when he's not concentrating or his attention is distracted. (I think his must be the other example as I seem to remember that the yokes are fitted the other way up.) To overcome the problem he bolted a small "joystick" to the hub. It's mounted vertically & when held between finger & thumb makes it far more natural, much the same as a conventional joystick. The same could be said for holding the central (vertical) spoke of the yokes in my shot. Apart from keeping an interesting vintage aircraft as authentic as possible I thought he might as well have gone the whole hog & replaced the whole thing with a standard joystick or yoke.

PS. I rather like the look of the original Ace. With the tricycle gear & nicely cowled flat four it looks very advanced for its time. Much like the later Cessnas.