Stopwatch?

[GrassStrip]

Hello - I'm looking for a half decent digital stopwatch, which I can clip onto my kneeboard - does anyone have any recommendations?

(Checked Pooleys and Transair but they only have analogue)

Thanks!!

[CSX001]

I use a digital kitchen timer, price about 3 quid from B and Q. Works very well too..

Charlie.

[Mike Cross]

I use a similar digital timer from RS Components, cheaper than Transair and it has 3 separate timers so you can keep total time and time on leg separately.

Bolt a scrap of sheet material through the stopwatch holder hole on your kneeboard and stick it on with sticky velcro.

It comes with a spring clip (easily removable) and it also has a magnet on the back which I have removed to prevent it interfering with the compass.

Parsimonious Mike

[Boing_737]

I bought a sports stopwatch from a high street jewellers - 14 quid - much better value than the 40 quid for one from Transair I have to say (although it doesn't go with 4 bar epaulettes as well:D ). To get it to attach to my kneeboard, I just Araldited a smallish bulldog clip to it (I think WHSmiths sell them as letter clips). Works a treat.

A mate of mine who is still doing his PPL at the moment has a kitchen timer, but he said that the buttons are so big that it is very easy to hit one of them and stop, or reset the timer - DOH!

[Evo]

Why do so many PPL students have these £50 transair stopwatches? As you don't tend to fly too many holding patterns during the PPL, what's wrong with using your wristwatch? When I arrive somewhere I glance at my watch, write down the time in minutes past the hour, add the time in minutes for the next leg (worked out earlier from distance/speed) to get the ETA at the next waypoint and that's it. I don't care if it took 7mins 46 seconds to get here. I'm doing VFR nav in a friggin' Robin, not a fast jet ... :)

Seriously, does anybody use the things once they get their PPL, other than in IMC/IR flight tests (when else do you actually have to fly a hold... ;) )? Reckon it's part of the pilot kit to differentiate us from the spotters, 30min-trial-lesson weenies and crusty old PFAers...


<disclaimer>
before someone flames me, don't take that too seriously. :)
</disclaimer>

(edit: D'oh, forgot to stand on the right soapbox before i started ranting. I blame the heat. :) )

[gasax]

As a crusty old PFA'er I'll admit to using a calendar!!

No really my watch works really well! At 5 hours I have 20 minutes to land. Come to think of it perhaps I should be using the sun!

[Kingy]

As a Crusty old PFAer I've decided to design and build my own electrical stopwatch. Naturally it will be a Valve design and use the front-end digital clock display from a 1984 Austin Ambassador.

I've sent the detailed engineering drawings into PFA towers for stress analysis and I'm eagerly awaiting the letter of approval from big Mr D. :D :D

Kingy

[Tinstaafl]

Jeez, even when IFR I still use my wristwatch. Stuffed if I can see why you'd want to spring (geddit?) for a stopwatch when VFR.

[Thumpango]

Bought my stopwatch only yesterday from Argos £5.99. Does everything I need for my Nav exercises and leg calculations.
Cat number: 254/2535

[147break]

I bought a stopwatch after 1 or 2 dual nav ex's thinking it may help or make things easier.
Na, didn't.
Used it once on a solo nav but kept forgetting to reset the bloody thing. Luckily I had the trusty wristwatch to hand (or at least wrist!) Not used the stopwatch since. Bit of a waste of money really, had to try though.
I suppose it is what each of us feel most comfy with.

147,

[High Wing Drifter]

Evo,

Don't you see? If you use your watch then you have to go out and buy a Brietling. £1500 or £50?

:p ;) :O

[BEagle]

As an ancient aviator I recjon that you can't go wrong with a sun dial and egg timer......


.......backed up by Breitling Aerospace, of course! The two-tone model with titanium nitride highlights.

[Evo]

Nah. Breitling's to show you're a real pilot, innit, not one of those know-it-all PPLs. Cr@p car, big watch ... and what's the other ;)

[Thumpango]

147 Break

I have to agree with your comments.
Having bought my Argos stopwatch and later that day duly wearing it around my neck for my Nav ex, I set it on the first leg, didn't look at it once, and forget to reset it for the following legs.

Reverted naturally to the aircraft clock!

[Northern Highflyer]

Thumpandgo

Still time to get your money back on the 16 day guarantee.:p

[Boing_737]

I bought a stopwatch 'cos

(1). The clocks always seem to be knackered in the planes
(2). I keep forgetting to look at my watch, and the stopwatch is there staring at me.
(3). It only cost 14 quid (although now I feel a bit done given that someone bought one for a fiver:{ )

[gingernut]

Prefer a wristwatch meself.

Got a fancy swatch off the mrs, looks great in the Frog and Parrot Friday nights, but competely naff for navigating.

Bought a very unstylish, extremely practical analogue wrist watch from argos, £4.99.

Has a white face, real numbers, graduated in minutes, black hands. Loses less than 30s each month. Fantastically simple, for when my mind blanks in the cockpit.

[aidanruff]

I've always found that the timer in most modern ADFs - if you've got one - is the best for flying holdings patterns or for timing from the final approach fix to the missed approach point...There are still plenty of basic NDB approaches around despite GPS. the advantage is that there is only one button to press - hit it and the timer resets to zero. I've ditched the fancy 4 way timer that I used to use - kept prssing the wrong button...

BTW, why do aircraft clocks never work? Is it a requirement of the C of A that the clock is bust?

[Evo]

BTW, why do aircraft clocks never work? Is it a requirement of the C of A that the clock is bust?


Yeah, I've noticed this too. If, by chance, they do work, they always seem to be on Tierra del Fuego time - with no way of adjusting it without taking the instrument panel to pieces :)

[GroundBound]

Appreciate the humour folks, but the poster didn't say he was a student, and he didn't say he wanted it for navex's. Maybe he does want it for IMC work?

Would that change things?

[Tinstaafl]

No difference for me. I still use my watch.

[englishal]

My trusty 5 bucks egg timer from Target does the job fine. Plus you can tap in a time in minutes and seconds then press start to start the countdown. Great for timing approaches.

Besides why do you even need the time these days when VFR, wot with GPS and all that? Just keep you head in the cockpit, follow the arrow and when you arrive it'll tell you :}

Cyer
EA:D

[Keef]

Stopwatch - I bought a basic one when I did my IMC, together with a yoke clip and a gripper to hold the IFR plate. Never fly without it. Excellent value at £20 the lot.

Clock - I think it's a C of A requirement that all aircraft must have a clock, and that it doesn't work. Ours is clockwork, I think electrically wound - but the electricity to wind it comes from the "cold" side of the master switch so the clock runs down after two days unless the aircraft is flown. It has a winder on the front, which gives that warm feeling of contributing something when I wind it up. It then ticks erratically while we're airborne.

Age and humidity/vibration have taken their toll, and it no longer ticks while on the ground, whatever is done to it. I did ask if I could fit one of those simple, reliable battery and quartz clocks like the missus has in the kitchen. Answer was NO - they're not certified airworthy. It's more important that the clock is airworthy than that it works.

I wear a watch. I have a Breitling whose stopwatch doesn't work (long, sore point) but the stopwatch above does sterling service.

[dublinpilot]

Don't know about that fancy imc/ir stuff. I just have a basic ppl :}

But for VFR, I have never used anything other than my wrist watch. It is graduated in minutes, but doesn't have a second hand.

A stopwatch is only something I'd drop in the cockpit, and have to go searching for :hmm:

dp