Who still uses a whiz wheel?

[KCDW]

Not for students this one, as we know you have to use it.

I very rarely see PPLs using one in the clubhouse. Is it a dying art? Have the modern techniques taken over?

Me, I consider it a skill, and the process helps me really think about the flight ahead.

After getting my license, I spent some time using just Navaids, and simpler forms of navigation, such as "10 mile navigation". Frankly, my cross country started going to pot. After that I rediscovered the whiz wheel, and am proving more accurate, and much happier with my flying.

Views?

[SKYYACHT]

I bought a Jeppesen Flight Computer 20 years ago, and I STILL use it for my pre flight planning, just to give a heads up on potential drift corrections.

However, I use all available means to create a plan. I have used Navbox and got a plog print out, and I have also used a handheld GPS to build the back up route. This has the benefit of giving me highly accurate true headings to double check the manual plan that I have created using the CAA Chart/Whizzwheel.

To address the other issues, I normally plan my flight using obvious geophysical waypoints and fixes, but naturally incorporate into the plan any handy VOR/DMEs or NDBs to add extra accuracy.

For me, part of the fun and skill of flying is doing everything necessary for the safe conduct of the flight manually.....

Blue skies

[Archard]

Like many polls a one answer reply is not really suitable, as I tend to use the last three suggestions in combination, namely, navaids, GPS and know where I am going, at least when near to my home base. Unfortunately I cannot remember the last time I used the whiz wheel apart from saying it was definitely several years ago now!

[bcfc]

I haven't touched the whizz wheel since the day I got my Sportys flight computer. Well, a slight exageration as I did a comparison and found I was much faster and accurate with the computer than the wheel. (If they were better, surely we'd still all be using slide rules insead of calculators)

That said, I suspect I'll need to bone up on it again as I'm doing my IMC and the whizz wheel seems to be a requirement for the written (or is it???)

[Aerobatic Flyer]

They are unnecessarily complex most of the time. I haven't used mine since getting my PPL.

Instead I use a device called a wind protractor, which does everything I want, and which can easily be used in the cockpit. It won't do the various "extra" things that the whizz wheel can do (TAS, density altitude, mutliplication and division, etc....), but in every day flying in Europe in a light single that really doesn't matter very much.

The wind protractor was shown to me by the CFI of the club where I did my PPL, who taught me the whizz wheel thoroughly, then told me to use the protractor instead. Sound advice!

[Whirlybird]

I'm another person who can't answer this. If it's a local flight, then I know where I'm going. If there are navaids in the aircraft I'm flying (rare), I might use them, in conjunction with something else. If there's a GPS in the aircraft (common), ditto. If I need to make corrections for wind etc, I got to be so quick with the whizzwheel during the CPL ground exams, that it's quicker for me to use that than any of the so-called short cuts, though I can manage to calculate most of what's needed in flight for diversions etc. I like my whizzwheel. Sometimes it saves making my brain hurt. At other times it's unnecessary. I use it along with anything else that happens to be around.

And being primarily a helicopter pilot I bear in mind that I can always fly low and read the road signs.

[Final 3 Greens]

I always manually plan the flight using the whizz wheel, plotter and a chart.

Then I build the plan into a Garmin 92 GPS.

Then I use VORs (when available.)

The chart and flight plan are the master documents en route, with the GPS and VORs providing useful information.

If a diversion is required, I'd use the 1 in sixty rule for wx avoidance etc, but also back that up with the GPS and the VORs.

I find that doing a chart/plan first helps me orient myself to the flight before I set off (as well as allowing me to check danger areas etc.) If I have a good feel as to where left, right and the wind direction are, it does avoid those embarrassing 'faux pas' arising from erroneous data entry!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Depending upon route, nature of flight and aircraft type, all or any of the above, plus usually heavy reliance upon ground features given a choice.

G

[Kingy]

I still use the whiz wheel whenever I go anywhere far. My usual ritual involves met form 214 and 215 off the net, lines on the map and the wheel for wind drift, TAS etc.

It can all go to poo in the air though, as the Compass in the Cub tends to cavitate and spins like a top in the climb!

Kingy

[DBChopper]

I agree with Kingy and use the exact same method in my planning. I may sound sad, but I actually enjoy that wheel-spinning flight-planning process

In the R22, there is no option to take your hand off the cyclic to write or scribble on the chart (and even to hold it sometimes!) so I think Whirlybird will agree it tends to all be done mentally by necessity. If it's there in the machine I'm flying, I use the GPS as a back-up only. I found it helped when flying to Andrewsfield: a green field, surrounded by, um, lots of other green fields!

DBChopper

[distaff_beancounter]

As with most other posters, I use all of the options EXCEPT for the whiz wheel.

If I am going on a long trip, especially to somewhere I have not been before, then I do like to write out a full flight plan, so that I have estimated times, full consumption, ATC & VOR/NDB frequencies etc, to hand.
If its a short trip from my home airfield, then the old Mark 1 eyeball will suffice.

I definitely still own a CR*P 5 whiz wheel, if only I could remember which old flight bag I buried it in

[Keef]

Whizz-wheel? What's one of those? ;-)

I bought one for the PPL, and it's languished at the bottom of my flight bag ever since. I bought a cheapo electronic flight computer,and that was hopeless.

Then I bought the Jepp one, and have used that ever since. Great bit of kit.

Like the others said: I use all of the above depending where I'm going. Not having an IFR-certified GPS (coming soon!), inour group we all have little yoke-mount ones that are good backup - but no more than that.

If I'm local, I recognise the scenery. If I'm not, I prefer VOR etc if available. NDBs are not my favourite devices.

[jayemm]

I plan with the Whizz-wheel.

Then, factor in VORs when it's going to help for those flights that's tracking through them.

Then I set up the GPS as a 'third aid'.

I find that the whizz-wheel is the best for simulating the flight ahead as part of planning.

Plus it gives me a kick to use something that doesn't depend on electricity.....sad I know.

[KCDW]

Firstly, I too use most of the options, the intention was to understand the preferred / initial planning tool independent of route.

Have to say that I am pleasantly surprised with the % still using the whiz wheel – I’m not the lone nerd that I thought I was then.

Also surprised with the relative lack of use of electronic flight computers – surely they are faster? Keef, is the Jepp computer you use the Techstar one? Does it do everything a whiz wheel does?

Thanks all

Richard

[Taildragger]

Ahhhhh Boys...the arrogance of yoof. The E6B whizz wheel, as you call em, have been around, and stood the test of time since Orville and Wilbur calculated ho long it would take to fly 110 yds (Metres in Europe) in a Wright Flyer.
I have used one for years, and it is still an essential part of my nav Bag, along with all the other gizmos that Snake Oil salesment have sold me over the years. The "wheel" in all that time has never run out of batteries, or given me a wrong answer, unless I have set the wheel to the wrong angle with the didgeridoo factor or set the cutting wheel to graze the turf too short, or rotated it the wrong way giving 120 Kt crosswinds, to which I shut out of my mind. AND you can use it with one hand.
But you tell the yoof of today and they dont believe you.
Josiah Arkwright. Air Pilit

[T_richard]

Hello all, Please tel me ( so I'll know it when I see it in PPL school), what is a whiz wheel. In the maritime world we have a D=SxT kind of wheel and we have plotting tables for set/drift. Am I close?

Thanks

[feet dry]

Yes Mr T you are correct....the two are more or less analogous.

The difference being on the wet stuff you must correct for both wind and tide, in the air you correct for wind only.

The whiz-wheel (or circular slide rule) is a handraulicly operated flight computer which only works if you practice with it, you perform you SDT calcs, fuel consumption calcs, wind drift calcs etc on it...the benefits are it does not need batteries, does not break when dropped and will continue to function even when the yanks reactivate the selective availability on the GPS when DS # 2 kicks off in a few weeks time.

[T_richard]

Roger that Mr. Feet,

I like that kind of nav hardware, I always assume that my electronics are going to crash so I keep the charts and "whiz" wheel and Eldridge handy. Can you elaborate on SA retun if we go to DS II. Have you seen any official notice to Mariners or NOTAM regarding this?

[feet dry]

I have not, however one cannot deny GPS played a major role in DS1 and a handheld garmin et al are now well within the reach of any self respecting republican guardsmen.

My point is....there are many ways of navigating and whilst technology in the main has released us from the tiresome burden of the process, it is perhaps wise to retain the ability to practice the art.

[slim_slag]

T_richard,

You have to understand the Europeans. The Brits slag off GPS as being "American" but use it all the time (actually they like GPS and Americans a lot, its the politicians who scare them). It's part of their sense of humour.

The French on the other hand hate the Yanks, and don't like them being in control of such a wonderful tool like GPS, which the Americans have provided free of charge to the world. The French want the rest of Europe to pay for Galileo, which will be controlled from a building in France (so giving the French control). The good Europeans will also find a way to charge users of Galileo, and it will probably be quite expensive, like the premium rate phone calls (0870) you have to use when you want to call somebody up and buy something.

As Tony is desparate to remain friends with EVERYBODY in the world, he will go along with the French plan at the expense of his electorate, just so he is seen to be a good European.



No evidence that dubya will turn off SA, but even if he did, he will keep it over the US because the only thing he cares about is re-election (and avenging the attempt on daddy's life) and pilots in the US are a very powerful lobby

As for whizz wheels, you will need to show a reasonable proficiency in their use when flight planning for your private. Most people then forget about them, until they have to show reasonable proficiency for another annoying test.

What I do is go to duats to get the weather and NOTAMS. Duats is a nifty (and FREE, so American ) tool which lets you store aircraft profiles and has a database of airports/intersections/VORs etc. You put in your origin and destination, and it works out your route/headings/times etc, using winds aloft if known. Duats then gets the weather/NOTAMS for your route. This is VERY important.

On the very detailed flight planner page, you get total time and fuel burn. If that is within my comfort zone for the amount of fuel in the plane, I file the plan with the FAA, then print it out. The paper plan then goes in my bag only to be brought out if some FAA inspector asks me to demonstrate I have prepared for the flight. I then fly the route visually, maybe checking my location using VORS if I have a receiver in the plane, but if I really want to know where I am (and that means I have failed as I have got lost), I use my trusty hand held GPS.

If the fuel burn as planned by duats is too close to what I am setting off with, I just go to airnav.com, find where fuel is cheap on my route, reenter into duats flight plan calculator, and print out new flight plans which go in the bottom of the bag in case somebody asks to see it. It generally goes in the same place as my whizz wheel, which only comes out when I am cleaning the bag of flight plans which went in at some stage, never to be seen again.

So if I am VFR, and as all I really care about ahead of time is weather and fuel because messing either one of those up is what will kill me, the above procedure works well. Always know how much fuel you have on board, what the weather is, and where the nearest airport is. No need to use a whizz wheel for that.

If the weather requires IFR, total different ball game, but still no real need for whizz wheel. If ATC makes the rare annoying request for time to next fix, you can work that out on paper or in your head