Maths 'brush up' books for the private pilot

[Ian_Wannabe]

Hey there,
I was just curious if there are any books out there which are recommended to brush up the maths skills required for the PPL.

As I haven't done ANY kind of maths for about a year now I'd just like something which is purposely written to keep the private pilots maths skills upto scratch.

Many thanks in advance,

Ian

[28thJuly2001]

What maths skills?
As long as you have a brain somewhere between the ears and can work out this question>
>>Travel at 1.5nm a minute, how long to travel 7.5nm?<<
Got the correct answer? Good, you now have the maths skills required for a PPL.
Walt,,

[Evo7]

Just figure out the whizz-wheel - that does almost all of the maths you need (one side does multiplication, division and unit conversion, the other triangle of velocities problems and crosswind components). If you are struggling with it then some basic trigonometry also helps - I found that doing a few of the wind-side track, w/v and heading problems on a piece of paper helped me understand what the whizz-wheel was doing.

Apart from that there is some very simple algebra (of the a = b/(c+d). a, b and c are ... what is d variety), and basic addition and subtraction (for working out the load giving MTOW etc - can you do 2577 - (1756+343+175) without a calculator? Yes, then you're fine :) ). And ... um ... that's it, as far as I remember (done 6 of the 7 exams so far - and I doubt that RT Theory has much maths in it ;) ).

Finally, there's a very small bit of Physics - they're keen on Lift = C_L (1/2 rho V^2) S - but Thom talks you through it very clearly.

A Maths/Physics book for the PPL would be very short :)

[gofer]

King VCR tapes would be more use once you've figured out the wheel.:cool:

[Wrong Stuff]

Being similarly cr*p at mental arithmetic I did myself a little program that generates random tests on mental arithmetic. It's easy to set it up to just test you on one thing - eg calculating reciprocal headings. You're welcome to a copy if you'd like one. It will be about 3 meg though.

Cheers,
Wrong Stuff

[Ian_Wannabe]

Hi again,
Sounds ok to me :) Thanks everyone.

Wrong Stuff that'd be great to copy thanks, anything which keeps the mental math sharp will do.

Being only 3meg could it not be sent over the net? Do you have ICQ or MSN?

If so my ICQ number is: 71756370

My MSN contact is: [email protected]

Cheers!

[gofer]

Ian

Found this on the web a few months ago & its been quite useful
it comes from Pawprint (http://www.PawPrint.net)

Their other products seem quite good also:cool:

[Wrong Stuff]

Ian - I've tried sending it to your hotmail account, but it bounces back as the attachment is too big. If you have another e-mail account which might be better let me know - [email protected]. Alternatively, the pprune e-mail accounts seem to work fine - you could sign yourself up for one of those.

Cheers,
Wrong Stuff

[CBLong]

Wrong Stuff:

"a little program that generates random tests on mental arithmetic" and it's 3 megs?? What the heck is it written in?? :)

I remember the good old days when you could write a whole arcade game in less than 3.5k (yes, 3.5 kilobytes) and still have change for a Mars Bar and t'bus fare home...

:D

cbl.

[WX Man]

As someone who is not quite rain-man, yet someone who needs the skills of rain-man to do the job, I find these rules of thumb useful:

480kts is 8 nm/min (good for upper area, useless for PPLs, so extrapolate it and get:)

120kts is 2nm/min (fast cruise... C172)

90kts is 1.5nm/min (normal cruise... C152)

The other way to do it is to say that if you're doing 100kts, then you are doing 10 miles in 6 mins (divide it by 10 to get the number of miles in 6 mins). Half that for 3 mins, etc etc.

So 80 kts is 4nm in 3 mins.

Another useful skill that you will develop is judging distances. Useful for this kind of thing:

"TWR, Cessna 401, 8 miles east..."

(So you'll be entering the circuit in about 5-6 mins)

One very useful piece of advice is to learn reciprocals piecemeal... like 280/100, 130/310, 045/225 etc.

[Wrong Stuff]

CBLong - I know, I know. And that's 3 megs zipped!! Written in Sybase Powerbuilder - not really meant for this sort of job, but then I only wrote it for myself really so rapid development was more important. More than half the size is the runtime DLLs (pared down to a minimum too).