The 4 to 1 Controls Advantage of the Cobra PIC
Tom Dooling is thankful for the Back Seat Cobra Pilot's 4 to 1 controls advantage. See his video
Bruce Powell (SIP): Where this 4 to 1 advantage really came into play was in the Cobra Transition Course at Cobra Hall, Hunter Army Airfield, Savannah, GA. What the advantage really meant was that if you had a student in the back seat, and that pilot froze in a complicated emergency, the front seat IP could only yell at him.
What this brought about was the IP Dollar Ride. Each new student was given this wild ride, in the front seat, so that the IP could evaluate if he could trust this student when in the backseat. If a student panicked and froze on the controls or had real bad reactions, the IP could flunk him out of the program, or at least pass him to another instructor. It did not happen often, however there may have also been a few that just dropped out and stayed with the Huey.
This is a proposed weapon that could be issued to the Instructor Pilots for when they were in the front seat.
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