B757 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical
Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport
Aircraft
During the control check; the captain tested the elevator twice because it didn't feel right. I queried him about it but he said it was fine. As it was my takeoff; when he handed me the aircraft on the runway I didn't feel anything strange until rotation when I realized that it felt like the aircraft was way out of trim. It was not out of trim; but it felt VERY VERY heavy to rotate. We rotated and I remarked that there was something wrong with the flight controls and that it didn't feel right. We continued the climb out of ZZZ and I asked the captain to fly to make sure I wasn't imagining it. He took the controls and remarked that it felt stiffer than normal but that he felt we could probably continue. He gave me the aircraft back and as we made the left hand turn it took a lot of effort to make the left turn and keep climbing. I have been on this aircraft for 10 years and it has never felt as heavy or difficult to control as this. I told the captain that I did not want to return to base but I really didn't want to fly it for five hours in this condition and that I felt uncomfortable continuing. He immediately agreed to return to ZZZ and we asked for clearance to land and [advised ATC]. Even though I was the pilot flying; I asked the captain to fly the approach and land. He has 20 years more experience than I do and I felt that there was a bit of confusion as to the roles we were trying to fulfill. I felt more comfortable letting him do that as our roles were getting slightly 'cross pollinated' and allowing me to concentrate on the pilot monitoring stuff and that worked out fine. The captain; on the approach; had to start entering a lot of aileron trim to keep the aircraft comfortably under control. He remarked that it was a lot of trim; which I agreed. Almost 3 units of aileron trim which we had not needed on takeoff or climb; which indicated to us; that perhaps the situation was deteriorating. We made an overweight landing to Runway XXL and taxied to the gate. After we returned to the gate area; we called the Operations Manager because the gate agents were telling us we had to go to another gate to fly the replacement aircraft to ZZZ1. We explained to the Operations Manager that we were finished flying for the day; due to the stressful nature of the last 45 minutes and we both felt some slight pushback and exasperation from the Operations Manager. The captain was the one talking to the Operations Manager but he was very frustrated with what he considered a lack of support from the Operations Manager at that particular moment in time. We were told to go downstairs to the flight ops area and wait for a call back. Upon reflection I think the Operations Manager probably had some hoops to jump through and perhaps that is where the confusion is coming from; but from both mine and the Captain's point of view; we did not feel as supported as we probably should have been right after getting off the aircraft which added to the stress we were experiencing at that time. I must admit; once the Operations Manager called us back; he ran through a human factors checklist and asked us both some questions with number values and he stated this was to help provide us support and I will admit that there was no question or pushback after that point that we would be flying again. It's possible that there was not any pushback to begin with and we were both misinterpreting what the Operations Manager was trying to do but I do think that it didn't feel quite right on that initial phone call that the Captain made (I never spoke to the Operations Manager initially; I just did the checklist with him on the phone where he was fine) but the Captain expressed a great deal of frustration after the initial call and that definitely passed onto me for a short time. I'm not really sure what I expected to happen; I certainly didn't expect a warm blanket and a hot cup of tea waiting for me at the gate; but I also didn't expect the almost cold shoulder reaction that we initially got along with the instructions from the gate agent to march down to another gate. It put us in the position of feeling like we were going to disappoint quite a lot of people which didn't help with the 'cool down period' which I think was quite important after we got off the plane. My wife wanted to know what had happened; and even 45 minutes later; I had a hard time describing it to her because I felt I still needed some time to 'process' the large amount of stress I was feeling when we realized that the controllability might be degrading as the flight continued. We may have been imagining it; it may have been due to configuration changes as we slowed down for landing; but either way I think we were both a lot more comfortable when we got on the ground. I also understand that really the only two people on Earth who knew what exactly was going on were the Captain and myself so it is hard to expect all the other personnel in the company to see things from our point of view the moment we stepped off the plane. Unfortunately; what I felt we needed at that moment in time; was a slightly more empathetic tone; both from the Operations Manager and the gate agents with regards to our mental and physical condition and we didn't get it straight away; which might be an overreaction on our part.  Regardless; we were assigned to deadhead back and that satisfied us both.
B757 First Officer reported a control problem during climbout and a successful return to the departure airport.