[time-nuts] How good are mechanical watches

[Maggie Leber]

On 4/21/07, John Pettitt <jpp at cloudview.com> wrote:
> I still love
> it and occasionally use the circular slide rules to the amazement of
> anybody under 45 (my class in the UK was the last high school class to
> use slide rules and I had to use a circular one for my pilots license).

I used an E-6B circular slide rule for my private pilot's written exam
(although it was the wind triangle solving part that was most useful,
not the logarithmic scales). Haven't used it much since (except for
the instrument pilot's written). Of course, there's aeronautical
calculators available for my Treo and Wrist PDAs now...and the Garmin
GNS 430 in the panel does a much better job of navigating anyway; why
guess what the winds aloft *might* be?. We also have a Northstar LORAN
for backup...may be useful if Sol clobbers GPS reception.

 (annotated cockpit photo:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/maggiel/437942059/ )

My elder daughter caught the slide rule bug once; I gifted her with a
nice 10" K&E. Not very easy to find these days.

She's 23 now... :-)

--
Margaret Stephanie Leber CCP, SCJP  SCWCD
<maggie at voicenet.com>  http://voicenet.com/~maggie
AOPA 925383 -- Amateur Radio Station K3XS -- ARRL 39280 -- AMSAT 32844

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