Yes, allowing hands-on takeoffs and landings is SOP for intro flights... but you probably didn't notice that the instructor's fingertips were resting on his yoke the whole time
I didn't expect to do either the take-off or landing, & even after doing the take-off, I still didn't even consider being allowed to do the landing. I assumed that the instructor had a good hold on the yoke during the landing - it was only when I got home & looked at the pictures that I noticed he wasn't holding it (with his left hand at least) - but your right, his hands wouldn't have been very far away.
Nice of him to tolerate all the phot-shooting, but again I'm not too surprised.
Yeah, he was really good about, in fact he encouraged us to take as many photo's as we liked (he even took that 6th shot himself). He was really relaxed about everything - "we'll go where you like, if you want to go higher, we'll go higher, if you want to go lower, then we'll go lower - just do what you like" - a cool guy!!
Did he let you use the rudder? That's usually not done until a little later.
No, I didn't use the rudder (& I didn't ask either), the only time I used the pedals was for the nose wheel steering during the taxi.
Cheers,
TSC.
