Simviation Forums

Even if you only get a few hours of entertainment out of it.. it's cheaper than going to a couple movies..

My take on E6Bs, is,  "it depends on the person".

While you're first training, they help you get the concepts down. The thing is though; you're making exact calculations that aren't practical.

THE most important concept they help make clear, is what happens to ground speed, in winds aloft. A similar concept is crosswind components. The raw mathematical conversions they render are useful, but pretty straight forward and proportional.

Their weakness come through when you realize that all these  exact calculations, are based on data that isn't. A winds aloft forecast will never be accurate in either direction or velocity. An experienced pilot's best estimation is just as useful as what you'd come up with, spinning the whizz-wheel. And if you ever planned a flight where being exactly accurate was crucial, you're pushing limits like fuel duration WELL past "my" safety margin.

Now, again.. during training they're a must. You need to see that stuff, and get feel for it. You need to see, up close and in front of you, how things like course corrections, and ground speed adjustments play out in the fuel burn scheme of things...   I haven't touched one in years, though.

To answer the question directly ?  I prefer the mechanical wheels. You just seem to absorb the whole thing better, when you have to work at it. Something gets lost in the translation, when just punching numbers into a calculator. The only gain is that it's quicker.

Even if your planning was sloppy, and your alternate is in question, I think the wheel lends itself better to in-flight calculations. But again, if your pre-flight planning is good (and well within very safe margins), you'l never have to find out.

Their weakness come through when you realize that all these  exact calculations, are based on data that isn't. A winds aloft forecast will never be accurate in either direction or velocity. An experienced pilot's best estimation is just as useful as what you'd come up with, spinning the whizz-wheel. And if you ever planned a flight where being exactly accurate was crucial, you're pushing limits like fuel duration WELL past "my" safety margin.

I 100% agree. Your calculations are only a rough estimate, so solving something like airspeed to a tenth of a knot doesn't buy you anything.

I am also a fan of the whiz-wheel. I bought an electronic E6B a long time ago, it's still in my flight bag but the batteries have been dead for years. Simple math like multiplication and division may be faster on a calculator. But for flight planning, because the calculations are repetitive and don't need to be exact, I think that I can actually do it faster (or at least no slower) on a wheel.

As Brett put so well, I'd stick with the wheel until you've mastered it, as it will give you a much deeper understanding of how all the pieces fit together. After that, it's a matter of personal preference. If you like pilotage, dead reckoning, and sectionals, you'd probably prefer the wheel. If you like GPS and autopilot, you'd probably prefer the electronic E6B.

My cardboard E6B, which cost me about $5, has served faithfully for twelve years... it won't fail to work if I sit on it, drop it, get it wet, or subject it to extreme temperatures. It never needs batteries, is easy to read in any light, and it's also very hard to make a data-entry mistake on a whiz wheel!

I'll admit I usually just use it for flight planning, but it's designed to be used easily in flight, and I've never had a big problem using it in flight, once I got the hang of it.

Most common use in flight: figuring groundspeed, for ETA and estimated fuel burn.