Old school or electronic?

[Tram]

Originally Posted by JaceTheAce

Old school... do not buy the electronic E6B...waste of money IMO.

I think owning one period is a waste of money these days..

I just unloaded 2 of the nice Jeppesen metal things..

[kellwolf]

Actually, I use mine occasionally in the CRJ. It's still faster to do range/fuel/time calcs on the ole E6B watch than it is to plug it in to the FMS!

[Fly4Pay]

Originally Posted by Tram

I think owning one period is a waste of money these days..

I'm with Tram. If you're flight planning by hand, you might use one, but why do that when you can duats it for free. As for inflight calculations, I doubt you REALLY need to be so close that you need to "calculate it" anyway. Fuel, time, and so on can usually be estimated close enough to do the job. And if you can't estimate them fairly closely, odds are that you don't understand your situation well enough to decipher what the computer is telling you ANYWAY! You'd never recognize that you had input a bad number or misread the output.

And on written exams (the only time I've used an E-6B in 20 years), there's an "E-6B" built into the software, so no need to buy your own!

[Sprint100]

Originally Posted by Fly4Pay

And on written exams (the only time I've used an E-6B in 20 years), there's an "E-6B" built into the software, so no need to buy your own!

I wish I knew that before I bought it, then bought another replacement after I trashed my original.

[mattp1803]

Originally Posted by bdhill1979

I had an electronic one and sold it, I always found myself getting impatient punching in a whole bunch of numbers when I could just turn the wheel and there is my answer. Nothing wrong with the Electronic, but if you have a firm grasp on using the "whiz wheel", the electronic is actually slower.

I am now the proud owner of bdhill's electronic E6B. I am flying through my cross country flight plans now. I am glad that I learned the old school first though, in case my electronic does run out of batteries.

[FlyChicaga]

I do all the math in my head. Real men don't need E6Bs.

[LoadMasterC141]

I have learned how to use the whiz wheel and all, but I prefer the electronic one personally. I brought it with me on my one solo XC and have a kneeboard it attaches too. Makes it very easy to keep timers, check and adjust for real groundspeed, etc....

[KLB]

I learned on Ole Skool! I even used my it on my interview. I was asked to do a Feet/Mile vs. Feet/Minute problem. He left the room to give me time to figure it out. I was darn near done before he got out of his seat good. It took me all of 10 seconds to do it. I occassionally pull it out and play with it in cruise on those long boring nights.