There is a standard practice of looping the pilot's seatbelt through
the yoke and latching it on non-cessna aircraft (or any plane that does
not have a built-in controll locking mechanism), this pulls the yoke
all the way back and over, and might be what you're describing.

It actually isn't the best practice, its hard on the yoke... There are
several after-market control locks for airplanes that don't have them
built in, but they can be hard to find.

A Control lock is a device which holds the controls of the aircraft so
they do not bang around if winds gusts. The practice above is
essentially using the seatbelt to do the same thing.

Cessna's have a hole in the pilot's side yoke shaft in which you put a
peg that bends around and covers the magneto switch (so you can't
accidentally start with the control lock in place). Its a very simple,
functional system... not sure why other aircraft makers didn't use it
too (I'm sure other AC makers use other systems as well I dont' know
about).


Mxsmanic wrote:
Why does it seem that the control yokes of small aircraft are always
turned completely to one side or the other in photographs? Is there
some sort of convention about doing this? A safety reason? Why is it
so common?

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