Aircraft question

[RobertSubnet]

Greetings all, first time poster.

Something I have often wondered, is there a particular reason why the door for low wing aircraft (Piper, Mooney, Beech) is on the passenger side? It seems like an odd design decision to make the pilot/owner slide across the seats.

~Robert

[MrJ]

My guess... the airplane manufacturers wanted to enter and exit on the right side of the airplane for some reason..

In the airline world... the convention is to have the people exit/enter on the left side because some operators leave the right engine running (to power airplane systems/ elec./ airconditoning) You often have airliners come to the gate, unload and load people and push off w/ the right engine running (called a single engine turn)

The DC-3 has the door on the left side. I think operators of DC-3s used to do single engine turns also.

GA airplanes have the door on the right.. which goes against this convention.

I do know that many older GA-twins power electrical/hydraulic systems off of the left engine... (the Piper Apachee and older Aztec comes to mind) In theory, you would want to run keep the left engine running in these airplanes if you were to do some kind of single engine turn at an airport.... so that could explain why the door is on the right side of these airplanes... but why the door is on the right on single engine airplanes is curious...

Sorry if I made the situation more confusing.....

Mr. J.

[RobertSubnet]

Actually Mr.J that does shed some light on the question. If the left engine in a twin is used to power various systems, it makes sense that the door would be on the right side.

Perhaps for standardization, tooling, ease of manufacturing, the door is kept on the right side as well for single engine aircraft...?

Thanks for the reply though. I was surprised to see that no one seemed to know the answer.

~Robert

[MrJ]

Standardization.. ease of manufacturing... etc... Sure... The piper comanchee and twin comanchee have the same fuselage... the only difference btwn them are the engine configuratons...