AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2013 - 14

LETTERS
DOGFIGHT: THE E6B COMPUTER
This month, we welcome esteemed aviation writer Barry Schiff into the ring. He and Senior Editor Dave Hirschman debate
the merits of one of aviation’s finest inventions—the E6B computer.

I want my E6B

Ditch the E6B

Movies dig them, and chicks do too

You won’t miss it

BY BARRY SCHIFF

B Y DAV E H I R S C H M A N

THE INTRODUCTION of the digital aviation computer caused widespread belief that the conventional E6B computer would rapidly
become an obsolescent relic. But a funny thing happened on the
way to the graveyard. The old-fashioned whiz wheel not only survived, it thrived and continues to outsell its microchip counterpart.
One explanation for the continued popularity of the E6B computer is that it is a status symbol. It is cool to have and to brandish.
This is similar to when college math, science, and engineering students used to take pride in strutting around campus with slide rules
dangling conspicuously from their belts, ready to be quick-drawn
like six-shooters from low-slung holsters. Young pups like Dave
Hirschman likely never had this pleasure.
I purchased an E6B after my ﬁrst
ﬂying lesson. It’s not that I needed
one so early in my ﬂying career—and
I certainly didn’t have discretionary
income to burn—but I liked the way it
looked. It identiﬁed me as an aviator.
I loved being asked by nonpilots to
explain the esoteric E6B “confuser.”
The E6B has style, personality. An
electronic model looks like any other
BARRY SCHIFF
calculator with a microchip. The E6B
also provides us with a sense of history. Just think of all the navigators you have seen using them in
war and airline movies while hunched over their charts. Watching
them punch in numbers on an electronic calculator at such times
would look weird (if not anachronistic).
Perhaps the most signiﬁcant reason for the E6B’s longevity and
continued popularity is the elegant simplicity with which a pilot can construct a wind
triangle, one that is similar to the one that
can be plotted on an aeronautical chart.
Plotting a wind triangle on an E6B, however, is simpler and requires making only
one small pencil mark on the wind side
of the computer to represent wind velocity. (For those who don’t have any of those
lead-ﬁlled, wooden devices, pencils with
erasers can still be purchased in ﬁve-anddime stores. Oops. I meant to say, office
supply stores.) Once that is done, the pilot
simply adjusts the sliding scale to the applicable true airspeed and rotates the compass
rose to the desired true course. Voilà! The

WITH HEARTFELT ADMIRATION for the genius of E6B creator Phillip
Dalton, it’s time to admit that the era of the circular slide rule isn’t
just gone, it’s long gone. The whiz wheel that pilots and navigators
used to help ﬁnd their way around the planet since the 1930s was a
wonder in its time. But like slide rules and sextants that also were
widely used in the same era the E6B was born, those antiquated navigation devices have happily given way to far better ones.
Calculators, fuel computers and totalizers, radio navigation, satellite weather, and GPS have all come into being since the E6B was
invented during the ﬁrst Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, and
they all do its jobs (or at least portions of them) better than any crude
mechanical instrument ever could. Modern avionics make distance,
fuel consumption, and time en route calculations constantly—and in many cases
graphically—without requiring number
crunching from tired, cranky, distracted,
or semi-hypoxic humans.
As a ﬂight student and novice pilot,
I’d use an E6B to calculate my airplane’s
fuel burn, then round up a little; ﬁgure
a wind correction angle and estimated
groundspeed, then fudge some more.
DAVE HIRSCHMAN
By the time I actually got where I was
going, my plans seldom bore more than a passing resemblance to
actual reality. These days, an Internet ﬂight planner eliminates such
preﬂight guesswork; a fuel computer constantly updates the rate
of fuel consumption, fuel used, and time remaining; XM Weather
shows winds aloft and forecasts; and GPS calculates groundspeed
ﬁve times a second.
When I reﬁll the fuel tanks at my destination, I usually know within a teacup
how much they will hold. No technology
is infallible, of course, and pilots have been
known to enter the wrong waypoints, airport identiﬁers, fuel quantities, and other
erroneous data (don’t ask how I know!). But
even E6B aces such as the esteemed Barry
Schiff can make mistakes with mechanical
ﬂight computers, especially when operating
them with one thumb in bumpy cockpits.
Fred Noonan, Amelia Earhart’s navigator
on their ill-fated around-the-world ﬂight,
had an E6B—and he certainly would have
gladly traded it for a handheld GPS while
searching in vain for Howland Island.

Continued on page 92

“My paper E6B is
safer, never needs
batteries, and in a
pinch could be used
to start a campfire.”
Ken Lemieux
AOPA 898094
Somerset, New Jersey

In my office at the Air Force
Academy, I keep my E6B next
to my 1980s-vintage leather
Jeppesen binders. They both
look really cool on the shelf. I
feel the same about my dad’s
slide rule he used in college in
the 1950s. But I don’t use any of
these when I go flying!
Jim Greer
AOPA 684066
Colorado Springs, Colorado

License to Learn

“The Backseat ” by Rod
Machado brought back a pleasant memory. As many pilots do, I
took great pleasure in introducing friends and anyone willing
to the joys of flying in a small
general aviation airplane.
On one such occasion I had
invited a new friend for a flight
to “somewhere,” and in the
course of the flight asked if he
had ever been in a small airplane
before. He replied that he had—
in fact, he was a reconnaissance
pilot in Vietnam and a military
flight instructor. So much for
the introductory flight.
After a nice flight into the
next state and back, and having put the airplane back in the
hangar, he said that there were
very few pilots that he would fly
with and occupy the rear seat.
He said that I was one that he
would have been comfortable
flying with and occupying the
14 | AOPA PILOT September 2013

Chandler Swope
AOPA 3886945
Bluefield, West Virginia

SMO

Continued on page 92

www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 91

Dogfight

is being used by students and
experienced pilots alike. The
donor hopes the idea will catch
on and pilots will utilize the
pilot’s-lounge time everywhere
to improve their skills. Come to
Bluefield for the cheapest Jay
time in the country—$0.00.

rear seat. I considered that the
best compliment I ever received
in all of my flying years, and
one that was encouraging to
me when I found myself beating myself up after what I
considered a less-than-stellar
performance in the cockpit, or
after a flight review which I felt
was less than satisfactory. So,
when having a bad day, think
about the good days, and that
will make the bad day better.
Jack D. Trygg
AOPA 766668
Aloha, Oregon

Training

I saw the article concerning an
airport that has a Redbird Jay
simulator for a fixed fee of $120
per year for unlimited hours.
Mercer County Airport in
Bluefield, West Virginia, can top
that. A local pilot anonymously
donated one to the airport, stipulating there be no charge to
anyone for use.
The idea came from AOPA
Pilot’s numerous articles about
the value of desktop-simulator time in improving safety
and risk management through
inexpensive simulator training.
Now that Redbird is marketing
an extremely high quality simulator for less than three grand, it
wasn’t too hard to find someone
willing to donate the money. It’s
now been in our pilot’s lounge
for about three months and

I read Barry Schiff’s “Another
Nail in the Coffin,” concerning Santa Monica Airport.
My Cessna 172 is based at Chino.
On a recent Sunday, my sister-in-law, who lives in Santa
Monica, called and invited my
wife and me to lunch (I’ll fly for
any reason, but especially for
food). The flight from Chino to
Santa Monica is only 20 to 25
minutes. We flew over downtown Los Angeles and Century
City. It was great. There was a
lot of traffic at Santa Monica—
private jets and general aviation
folks. We tied down and drove
to the beach for lunch on the
beach. We had a good time and
we left money in the city of
Santa Monica.

The local politicians are not
concerned with providing lowincome housing on the 215 acres
that comprise the airport. What
the politicians and developers
are concerned with is lining
their pockets with as much
money as they can. They will
do anything to further their own
interests. I can picture them in
a back room, smoking cigars.
I regularly contribute to the
AOPA PAC. Please tell me
how I can make myself heard
regarding this flagrant misuse
of political power.
Richard Parmelee
AOPA 997987
Corona, California

We received many letters reflecting Mr. Parmelee’s desire to
help Santa Monica. Contributions to AOPA’s Political Action
Committee are in fact the best
way to assist the association in
helping to save airports (www.
aopa.org/advocacy/pac).
We welcome your comments.
Editor, AOPA Pilot, 421 Aviation
Way, Frederick, Maryland 21701
or email (pilot@aopa.org). Letters may be edited for length
and style before publication.

HANGAR TALK

P&E

How much difference
does 40 years make?
Some, and not a lot, says
Editor in Chief THOMAS
B. HAINES in “CLASSICALLY MODERN,” a report
on the 4,000th Model
36 Bonanza (page 54).
Haines own a 1972 model.
“A modern electrical
system and a wonderful
new air-conditioning
system are big differences,” he says. “I can
upgrade avionics and
engine, but that GFC 700
autopilot in the G36 is
unbelievable.”

Managing Editor JULIE
SUMMERS WALKER wrote
about the reality TV
series Flying Wild Alaska
in 2011 and described
the show as an answer
to seeing GA on TV—and
Anthony Nalli took notice.
“He couldn’t believe I
wrote that when he’d
been so hard at work on
his documentary series,
The Aviators,” she says.
FWA is over but Nalli and
crew are still hard at work
showcasing GA. “SPREADING AVIATION” begins on
page 72.

http://www.aopa.org/pilot http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/pac http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/pac

AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2013

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