The E6B mechanical flight computer.

[Mafoo]

When I had my checkride last winter (not long after you, Doc), there were a whole bunch of people trying it with I-Pads. At least a few of them had the DPE declare their batteries dead once underway.

That's completely reasonable, as it's a very possible senario that once in flight, your piece of consumer electronics fails.

For me, I would then reach for my iPhone. If that failed, I would then reach for my Garmin ruggedized GPS.

If he said all three of those things have failed, he is not doing his job very well.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many who would do that, would also say to the person with an iPad, who chose not to use it "You dropped your E6B and it got jammed under the seat, your attempts to retrieve it have failed. What do you do now?"

My guess is zero.

 

[MAKG1]

It IS possible for all three of those to fail, as they all depend upon a reliable GPS signal. Those are NOTAMed down multiple times per month, over hundreds of thousands of square miles at a time.

But I've never heard of someone pulling that at a checkride.

 

[darrell]

It IS possible for all three of those to fail, as they all depend upon a reliable GPS signal.

They only rely on a GPS signal in order to reference your aircraft on a chart...the devices still show the charts themselves even without a GPS signal.

And while you can't (shouldn't?) write on your electronic device, it most cases (Foreflight, for example) it's trivial to use two fingers to determine distances, headings, and notional fuel burn.

 

[MBDiagMan]

That's completely reasonable, as it's a very possible senario that once in flight, your piece of consumer electronics fails.

For me, I would then reach for my iPhone. If that failed, I would then reach for my Garmin ruggedized GPS.

If he said all three of those things have failed, he is not doing his job very well.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many who would do that, would also say to the person with an iPad, who chose not to use it "You dropped your E6B and it got jammed under the seat, your attempts to retrieve it have failed. What do you do now?"

My guess is zero.

I guess I'm just an onery old fart, but declaring the batteries dead in all of them is EXACTLY what I would do if I were the DPE.

 

[ainokea]

Thanks for the link.

I bought a watch. Went with this one:

http://www.citizenwatch.com/en-us/watches/watch-detail/?model=JY0050-55L

Got it for $475 with 3% back if you go through Mr Rebates from here:

http://www.jomashop.com/citizen-skyhawk-jy0050-55l.html

Might be a little overkill, but it looks nice

I bought the titanium version from jomashop. They have a $20 off coupon. Got it for $395 shipped.

http://www.jomashop.com/citizen-skyhawk-mens-watch-jy0010-50e.html

 

[MBDiagMan]

I bought the titanium version from jomashop. They have a $20 off coupon. Got it for $395 shipped.

http://www.jomashop.com/citizen-skyhawk-mens-watch-jy0010-50e.html

MAN! My plane has a timer and an analog clock. There's an E6B at hand all the time. That $400 would keep me in the air for quite a few hours.

 

[Ghery]

I'm going to admit, while I know how to use an E6-B, I don't. On the ground, I just use a standard calculator. In the air, I rarely if at all have to do calculations (time, fuel burn) that I can't do in my head accurately enough for the purpose of the flight.

An E6-B is just a circular slide rule, that's all. There is a reason why I have an HP 48gx sitting on my work desk, and not a Pickett N600 slide rule.

HP-41CV and Pickett N4-ES for me.

I have an E6-B on my watch

I'll bet it's only the slide rule side, not the wind side, too.

My thought, exactly. My watch has the slide rule, but for wind problems, dig out the E6-B.

It is rarely necessary these days to have to calculate much of anything while your flying, your GPS pretty much does it all for you. However, there is a great amount of comfort provided by redundancy.

When traveling cross country, following the magenta line, after a while it starts becoming pretty boring or tedious just sitting there. I usually start looking for something to fiddle with on my panel after I have the trim and all the air vents adjusted to perfection.

My first target is my VORs and my charts, I like to see if I can catch my GPS lying to me, so I triangulate my position with the VORs. Then it is finding a reference point and getting my ground speed, out comes the E-6B. Now I can check and see if my GPS is lying to me about when I'm going to get there.

All this nonsense gives me something to do, it creates the illusion that I know stuff, thereby throughly wowing my passenger/s, and lastly, it gives me a positive and constant situational awareness should my little yoke mounted GPS crap out on me.

Use everything at your disposal, including your paper charts. This keeps you from becoming so bored you just want to nose dive it into the ground to get it over with.

-John

This assumes, of course, that you have a GPS aboard. The plane I flew this weekend did, and it was nice to have it for backup when flying the V airways using the VOR receivers. And it was nice with SEA Center gave me direct PUW just after passing YKM. Saved some time and couldn't have accepted the clearance without it (and probably wouldn't have been offered it without being /G). The other planes in the club lack an approach certified GPS, so I'm dependent on the old school nav systems when flying them.

Thanks for the link.

I bought a watch. Went with this one:

http://www.citizenwatch.com/en-us/watches/watch-detail/?model=JY0050-55L

Got it for $475 with 3% back if you go through Mr Rebates from here:

http://www.jomashop.com/citizen-skyhawk-jy0050-55l.html

Might be a little overkill, but it looks nice

I see the suggested price has gone up. It was about $700 when my wife gave me one for Christmas in 2008 (she didn't pay that, however). It is a nice watch and I've enjoyed a number of its features when traveling around the world. Keeps good time, too. Even when out of range of stations it can be set by.

 

[david.h]

I bought the titanium version from jomashop. They have a $20 off coupon. Got it for $395 shipped.

http://www.jomashop.com/citizen-skyhawk-mens-watch-jy0010-50e.html

Wife got me the same deal for Christmas. Love it. Get the Ti one if you can, the light weight is awesome. My father in law was "joking" when I opened it "your left arm will be twice as big as your right" until I tossed it to him. He thought it was steel. He was impressed enough to shut up about it (hard to keep that man quiet, he has an opinion on everything).