Tandem or Side By Side
The two seating configurations for trainer aircraft are pilot and instructor side by side or in tandem, usually with the pilot in front and the instructor behind. The side-by-side seating configuration has the advantage that pilot and instructor can see each other's actions, allowing the pilot to learn from the instructor and the instructor to correct the student pilot. The tandem configuration has the advantage of being closer to the normal working environment that a fast jet pilot is likely to encounter.
It is now the norm for pilots to begin their flight training in an aircraft with side by side seating and to progress to aircraft with tandem seating. This however has not always been the case. For example, it was usual to find tandem seating in biplane basic trainers such as the Tiger Moth and the Jungmann, and the British used side by side seating in the operational conversion of some of its fast jets such as the English Electric Lightning.
Read more about this topic: Trainer (aircraft)
Famous quotes containing the words side by side, tandem and/or side:
“All the heavy days are over;
Leave the body’s coloured pride
Underneath the grass and clover,
With the feet laid side by side.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“We are bare. We are stripped to the bone
and we swim in tandem and go up and up
the river, the identical river called Mine
and we enter together. No one’s alone.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“If I were tickled by the rub of love,
A rooking girl who stole me for her side ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)