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History of the Distance Computer
The distance computer that we have been using is simple type of circular
slide rule. This is the kind of device that people like engineers and
pilots regularly used before pocket electronic calculators were developed.
The E6-B Flight Computer
The picture below shows an example of a flight computer. Similar
devices were produced in great numbers for the U.S. Army Air Corps in World
War II, and they were given the Army designation E6-B. They have
continued to be used by pilots since then. Airliners and corporate
aircraft now have digital instruments that perform the same functions,
but most pilots still have an E6-B somewhere in the bottom of their flight
bag for use in case the digital instruments fail.
The Engineering Slide Rule
Slide rules were also made in a linear, rather than circular design.
The picture below shows part of a classic K&E engineering slide rule
made in the late 1960s.
(Unless you want to know how the distance computer really works.
But you can't get to that secret until you have studied Algebra.)
Yes I have studied Algebra and I want to know the
secret.
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