Biffo,
Good luck with your navigation exam and ppl training
I am certain that you will receive a number of views on this and ultimately it is for you to decide what suits you best
Personally, I used the whiz wheel thing when planning my navigation routes during my ppl training, as my instructor would not let me use my Iphone even though applications like flight plan reduce the work load hugely. I would however check the results that I obtained through the whiz wheel against the I phone to ensure that for future use I was actually doing everything correctly
For the actual exam, you need to talk to your instructor in advance. I am sure that there are certain rules and regulations on this, but most of these guys are reasonable people and if you are up front with them and express an interest to use an I phone during the exam to help save time with these calculations you may be surprised with what they come back with. If you don’t ask, you will never get, that is for sure
As for my flying currently, I use my I phone to get the basic weather (Aero weather application is free and fantastic for this) and I use the flight plan for a number of the conversions and any calculations etc
Although to be honest even this isn’t necessary once you start planning with software like Sky Demon (which does 99pc of all this for you as far as I can tell)
The only time I used the whiz wheel was when I needed to plot a route during my written IMC exam just before Christmas and I had nothing to measure the track of my route, so I ripped the front dial off my CRP computer and used that. Without it I would have been ruined. So don’t throw it in the bin too early is all I will say
Good luck which ever direction you go
Nick
Last edited by nick ritter; 24th January 2011 at 12:32.