Slide rules, E6B
Tags: General
Pilots learn to use an "E6B" for basic calculations. This is basically just a circular slide rule with some extra markings. Pilots love to argue and you'll often see them discussing which is better, a manual E6B (or "whiz wheel") or the electronic version. Obviously I'm a whiz wheel kind of guy although I don't argue about it - if you want to use a calculator knock yourself out. Of course I'll probably have the answer faster than you will, but that's OK. The E6B slide rule is a pretty elegant solution for something that is based on 19th century technology.
I recently wanted to use an E6B for something other than aviation though - turns out they're a great way to convert currency, metric equivalents, etc. For some reason I also thought it would be kind of cool to be able to carry one around in my wallet. So I found a printable E6B - just print it, cut it out, and assemble. It's simple and works great.
I also found an even smaller business card slide rule. This is even simpler to make, and if I hadn't just ordered 1000 new business cards 3 days ago I would have printed this on the back. Oh well. pdate: since I originally wrote this I have reordered business cards with my new address and, you guessed it, a slide rule on the back./font>
If you want to play with a "whiz wheel" online, try this (scroll down to the one at the bottom of the page.)
As far as actually learning how to use one of these things, that's a post for another day. Probably on another website (Google is your friend here.) They're simple to use but complicated to teach.
Pilots learn to use an "E6B" for basic calculations. This is basically just a circular slide rule with some extra markings. Pilots love to argue and you'll often see them discussing which is better, a manual E6B (or "whiz wheel") or the electronic version. Obviously I'm a whiz wheel kind of guy although I don't argue about it - if you want to use a calculator knock yourself out. Of course I'll probably have the answer faster than you will, but that's OK. The E6B slide rule is a pretty elegant solution for something that is based on 19th century technology.
I recently wanted to use an E6B for something other than aviation though - turns out they're a great way to convert currency, metric equivalents, etc. For some reason I also thought it would be kind of cool to be able to carry one around in my wallet. So I found a printable E6B - just print it, cut it out, and assemble. It's simple and works great.
I also found an even smaller business card slide rule. This is even simpler to make, and if I hadn't just ordered 1000 new business cards 3 days ago I would have printed this on the back. Oh well. pdate: since I originally wrote this I have reordered business cards with my new address and, you guessed it, a slide rule on the back./font>
If you want to play with a "whiz wheel" online, try this (scroll down to the one at the bottom of the page.)
As far as actually learning how to use one of these things, that's a post for another day. Probably on another website (Google is your friend here.) They're simple to use but complicated to teach.
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