Sport Pilot Talk

krish · Joined: 06 Aug 2011 Posts: 7 Location: San Jose

Pretty awesome little tool...sorry newbie here taking ground class.

My questions are...

1. Do pilots really use E6B (the mechanical one) to do a navigation log.

2. Do pilots really prepare Nav log before every cross country flight? What are some of your fav online sites that let you do that?

3. If you have a glass cockpit, do you still need a nav log for long flights? why?

I have no problems with preparing nav log and luv doing it, just curious about the practcial use / benefits in GPS age.

Happy flying !!

RyanShort1 · Joined: 17 Aug 2010 Posts: 101 Location: San Antonio, TX

krish wrote: Pretty awesome little tool...sorry newbie here taking ground class.

My questions are...

1. Do pilots really use E6B (the mechanical one) to do a navigation log.
Truthfully, some of us still do, but not many. It's becoming more rare. It's a good skill to acquire, and practice at regular intervals.

Quote: 2. Do pilots really prepare Nav log before every cross country flight? What are some of your fav online sites that let you do that?
A LOT of pilots don't do ANYTHING they don't feel they have to, and judging from folks flying into the airports I frequent, I suspect that many do not follow the rules in 91.103 and a few other regs, either. 91.103 and 91.151 would indicate that you should know how long it will take to arrive at your destination, and your fuel state upon arrival, as well as what the weather is forecast to be like when you arrive. That means you need to do some basic planning, and be able to determine those things. One should learn to do it manually so that they understand the principles involved. After that, a lot of professional pilots use tools like fltplan.com to expedite the process.

Quote: 3. If you have a glass cockpit, do you still need a nav log for long flights? why?

I have no problems with preparing nav log and luv doing it, just curious about the practcial use / benefits in GPS age.

Happy flying !!
As a student, I certainly would have one. As a professional pilot, it would be wise to have it in case something went wrong.

Ryan

zaitcev · Joined: 05 Jan 2010 Posts: 258 Location: Albuquerque, NM

krish wrote: 1. Do pilots really use E6B (the mechanical one) to do a navigation log.

2. Do pilots really prepare Nav log before every cross country flight? What are some of your fav online sites that let you do that?

3. If you have a glass cockpit, do you still need a nav log for long flights? why?
1. I never got into habit. I just use a calculator for everything (Russian pilots have no equivalent of E-6B and use a standard issue engineering slide rule in its place).

2. I prepare a log, yes. Again, never got into habit of using a typical log, so I use Jepp's, even if all the calculations go in strange order.

3. The objective of the log is to find discrepancies, which are more important for IFR pilots than us. Basically, you have to know at any time what airport(s) you can reach with actual fuel reserves and the winds. If you start missing your checkpoints, DIVERT. I only had to do it once. At that time, the available airport was already behind, so we turned back. Approach even asked if we're declaring an emergency.

Other than checking times, I see no particular value in the log. Jepp's log form has convenient cells for squaks and frequencies, but in IFR flying they are commonly assigned out of sync with my checkpoints, so I track them in free form on scratch paper.

If I knew how make my GPS to track times and power settings and tell me be ATA vs ETA per checkpoint, it would be swell, I guess. But I basically use GPS as a moving map with WX, airspace, and TFR overlays. The plane I'm flying tomorrow uses an Aspen for PFD. Shamefuly, all I do in it is setting "Direct" to the next waypoint repeatedly.

Helen · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 119 Location: Maryland

I view E6Bs and nav logs as teaching tools that should be used by students, new pilots, and rusty pilots. These tools teach you the fundamentals of pilotage and dead reckoning which take a lot of practice (a lot more that you'll likely get as a student pilot) to master. You will find that pilots who have mastered these skills tend to use other methods of doing their calculations and record keeping. I personally believe that these are the best teaching aids available though to master these skills.

Helen

spooky981 · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 45

An outdated remnant of the old days that has been supplanted entirely by technology but won't die solely because the pilot curriculum was written before the internet was even invented.

drseti · Joined: 28 Nov 2009 Posts: 1390 Location: Lock Haven PA

spooky981 wrote: supplanted entirely by technology but won't die

And one of the reasons it refuses to die is that its batteries will never die!

The nav log is great to have with you, even in a glass cockpit equipped aircraft. As an electrical engineer, I can tell you that any piece of electronics can fail (and usually at the least opportune time). You don't have to do the how-goes-it sheet manually (though you should, every now and then -- say, during a flight review). The website I like to use for this is the AOPA Flight Planner. If you're not already an AOPA member, this tool alone is worth the price of admission.