Yoke (aircraft) - Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages

Side-sticks and centre-sticks are better for making rapid control inputs and dealing with high g-forces, hence their use in military, sport, and aerobatic aircraft. However, yokes are less sensitive (i.e., more precise) thanks to a larger range of motion and provide more visual feedback to the pilot.

Most Yokes are connected, and provide instant indication to the other pilot when one makes a control input. This is in contrast to fly by wire control sticks that allows each pilot to send different, and sometimes greatly conflicting inputs such as was experienced on Air France Flight 447.

Yokes take up more room than sidesticks in the cockpit, and may even obscure some instruments; by comparison, side-sticks have minimal cockpit intrusion, allowing for the inclusion of retractable tray-tables and making it easier to enter/leave small cockpits.

A yoke, unlike a side-stick, may be used comfortably with either hand. This can be useful if one needs to write or manipulate other controls in the cockpit. This advantage is shared with the centre-stick.