Pilot With No Arms

This seems like a very appropriate application for Google Glass type eye directed interface for many of the digital controls in a flying machine. The learning curve for fast and decisive action in an emergency would be difficult, at best.

It seems to me that an upper body tactile sensor array could be deployed that would decouple aircraft movement using gyros, inertial sensors or something like that, and would be intuitive for people who were trained for airplane flight with arms.

Certainly not an out of the box solution, and not intuitive for someone who never had arms, but it could speed development and perhaps have applications for pilots who lost the ability to use arms and hands.

Certainly a worthy undertaking, with possible aircraft safety implications for all pilots. Undoubtedly, the military has deep experience with these sorts of control environments.

This seems like a very appropriate application for Google Glass type eye directed interface for many of the digital controls in a flying machine. The learning curve for fast and decisive action in an emergency would be difficult, at best.

It seems to me that an upper body tactile sensor array could be deployed that would decouple aircraft movement using gyros, inertial sensors or something like that, and would be intuitive for people who were trained for airplane flight with arms.

Certainly not an out of the box solution, and not intuitive for someone who never had arms, but it could speed development and perhaps have applications for pilots who lost the ability to use arms and hands.

Certainly a worthy undertaking, with possible aircraft safety implications for all pilots. Undoubtedly, the military has deep experience with these sorts of control environments.

... welcome to new ideas--especially from engineers.

You could relocate the yoke to a more comfortable position so that pitch control could be done by moving the foot up and down and aileron control done by rotating the foot. You would need a shoe mounted on the wheel so that you could pull with your foot.

I would keep the coupled aileron-rudder control of the Ercoupe, but maneuvers such as crosswind landings require crossing the controls. Maybe the same foot can be twisted to override the aileron-rudder coupling. Coordination of the aileron/pitch/rudder controls with one foot might be easier to learn, and the other foot can take care of throttle control and other functions.

Just some ideas...

She flies from the left seat. I would suppose this is a mix of personal preference and layout of common flight controls and her ability to manipulate them.

So modifications to the yoke and pedals of the left seat would not seem to create any new problems.

Console (pedestal) or common controls… comms, flaps, navigation gear, fuel tank switchover, throttle/choke/fuel mix/cruise control, roll/yaw/pitch trim, cabin comfort… I would think these sorts of things would be more problematic.

It has been decades since I piloted a plane. IIRC, the engine start/stop is only accessible from the right seat. Does anyone know if this is still the case? I do not recall this being stated in any of the articles I read, but I glean that she always flies with (also licensed pilot) husband in the right seat. If this is so, this alone might negate the necessity of altering the pedestal controls.

Interesting and worthwhile project. There are several articles out there on the inter web about this, should anyone wish to dig for more.

I read about her a while back. Glad to see she's moving along with her dream.

Regarding the "Coupe", I took care of and flew a friend's Ercoupe for 20 or 30 hours. I can't imagine trying to fly that little brick with wings without arms. It's a fun toy for some local zipping around but quickly gets tiring even for those of us with all our appendages. It's certainly not something I'd want to use for an extended tour.

And I really missed being able to cross-control the airplane in cross wind landings to keep wings level or to lose altitude quickly. Thus why the Coupe had rather strict cross-wind landing restrictions compared to airplanes with regular yaw controls.

I think the only suggestion I would have is to use a twist grip stick for yaw like many computer joy sticks and HOTAS's (hands on throttle and stick) used on systems without pedals for flight sim's and flying games.

My first airplane was an Ercoupe with rudder pedals. They would only give about 1/2 a ball of skid-slip, but the plane didn't seem to have any trouble decending. I put about 800 hours on mine and flew a lot of X-countries in it.

I slept in it once. My plan was to camp out near the beach, but the mosquitoes were so bad I spent the night in the plane with the windows up. Most miserable night of my life!

OMG, I can't imagine trying to sleep in that cockpit. Especially with the windows up. It must've been soaking wet in there by morning from condensation.

On approaches I had a tendency to fly it high with power, just in case of something like engine failure on final. I found it was very easy to lose extra altitude just by sticking an arm out into the airstream.