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The E6-B Flight Computer Is 75 Years Old, Still In Use (informationweek.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Few devices have been around this long, have had cameo appearances in Star Trek, and remain in use today. The current E6-B looks almost exactly the same as the first one manufactured 75 years ago. It was designed by U.S. Naval Lt. Philip Dalton in the late 1930s. When he completed the final version, it was introduced to the Army in 1940, and later used widely during WWII. Today is a required instrument for flight training, and has appeared on Star Trek original series several times, as Mr. Spock used a E6-B for critical calculations.
For great edit!
Capitalism: making something just good enough that you can sell it and it goes to shit.
If Stalin hadn't been such a megalomaniacal cunt, the USSR wouldn't have its horrid reputation, and people wouldn't be constantly excusing US immorality by suggesting that at least it's more efficient than Soviet Communism (it wasn't - that country achieved in a couple of decades what took other nations centuries).
"Windows 95 is 20 years old, and is still in use today."
That doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?
I remember being 14 and learning to use an E6-B flight computer for the first time. It's pretty amazing to be able to sit down and develop a to-the-minute flight plan from departure to arrival and then be able to go out and execute that plan. Flying along hitting all your waypoints at the proper time, getting your enroute crab angle correct for the given winds aloft and not killing yourself along the way was always exciting. Hats off to Lt. Dalton. Your invention will always have a place in my flight bag.
But don't they know that they are suppossed to ditch mature technology for the fad of the week? Don't they know they're just being crusty, old people who hate change.
Or at least that's what the tech hipsters seem to claim.
its a stupid slide rule with a stupid carnival wheel attachment.
I was musing just the other day about a related calculating method that has fallen into disuse, the nomogram. Nomograms always impressed me as an especially clever way to perform specific mathematical tasks.
When I was young, and dirt was still sparkling and shiny new, nomograms were in every engineering textbook, handbook, and reference book. Their demise in engineering applications seems to have come with a whimper, not a bang, as no one seems to have noticed it.
It's not surprising that it hasn't changed -- it's not like arithmetic has changed over 75 years.
I haven't used mine in over a decade. Even when I was leaning to fly it was very rarely needed, VORs and other electronic navigation aides made a flight computer unnecessary for most flying. GPS of course makes it even less useful. Pre-GPS there may have been areas with minimal ground based navigation aids where a flight computer was more necessary.
Its still a cool device though.
Has somebody made a detailed study on the common, everyday objects used in the episodes either as is, or as parts of a larger set? I fondly remember how a painted Logitech trackball was used in the captain's chair as a controller in the Next Generation series.
The E6B (and its smaller brethren such as the one I used to carry in my flight jacket pocket) is nothing but a circular slide rule with a couple of special index points for minutes calculations.
That said, there is nothing "just" about a slide rule. It scores as one of humanity's finest achievements.
They didn't even have running water in China 75 years ago, let alone electricity.
Yet, the *DAY* after both the F-22 and F-35 were revealed, China was already flying **WORKING** models that resemble, from at least outward appearance, the same aircraft.
Notice I said **WORKING**, because the US still can't get these planes to function properly, but both models are now the mainstay of the Chinese Air Force.
God help the USA.
Now, if they only teach the pilot how fly the damn plane with a partial instrument panel, we might make some progress. These damn Airbus jocks go into full panic mode with any little glitch in the computer.
The E6B is a rite of passage for all student pilots, but I haven't found anyone that kept using it. An electronics calculator from the 70s is much faster and easier to use in a cockpit, but despite not being part of the practical test, every designated pilot examiner wants to see every student use one, because they used one as a student.
So, the US taxpayer has to dig some fossil up out of a crypt in Alabama to weave some new core memory when this botched abortion breaks?
As an instrument rated private pilot, I do not ever recall using one, although I certainly know what one is.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Still have a couple. Vision is good enough for the whiz wheel but not good enough to fly. :(
A computer is a device that can compute...
Using that definition my hand is a computer also...
When Alan Turing did his seminal work on computing and computability, he used "computer" to mean both a human with a pencil and paper and abstract mechanical devices generalizing and simplifying what this human computer did.
I'm with Turning on this. A "computer" is any system that computes, whether it is entirely made out of live meat, made out of meat plus mechanical, electrical, and/or electronic aids, or made purely of such aids. The term may also be applied to aids that require a made-of-meat operator (or mechanical simulation of one) in the absence of the operator.
By this definition, both slide rule s and nomogaphs qualify as "computers".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
But don't they know that they are suppossed to ditch mature technology for the fad of the week? Don't they know they're just being crusty, old people who hate change. Or at least that's what the tech hipsters seem to claim.
There are plenty of young people who embrace mature technology. For example young Marines appreciate their KABAR, no electronics nor moving parts. Its the most reliable piece of gear they carry.
The Type D-4 Time-Distance Computer, mine is marked as being the property of the US Army Air Corp.
/. Dissent will not be tolerated. Think like us or perish.
Damn. Not only do I have one of those, I knew exactly where it was.
He could be doing calculations in his spare time.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We could use them to plot the course of starships! What, that's already been done??
Just because it has an archaic API doesn't mean it's not a computer.
First, let me digress, I have an interesting story about a wedding to tell you, and then we can get back to swimming in full armor across the sea..
If your into this kind of thing - check out this in-depth video of how an old US Naval WW-2 mechanical computer works. Absolutely amazing - totally old-school. https://m.youtube.com/watch?fe...
I thought this article was about the flight computer used in the Prowler Electronic Attack aircraft....
Aren't they out of service? How did the aircraft get a flight computer from the 30's? How could Gene Roddenberry possibly get his hands on a (then-modern) military aircraft computer during the original Star Trek's run?
but that's the EA-6B......