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Originally Posted by Ramius
And like Bill probably knows, by the time you get to know how to use these things properly, 95% of the time you can do it quicker in your head  |
Well, yes, and no.
Certainly it's true that practicing and using wheels on a regular basis, or indeed any manual procedure gives you a good fundamental understanding of the problem, and can also help you develop a sixth sense about where you are in relation to your target, and vice versa.
On the other hand, I still use the wheels on a regular basis. There are some things I find them indispensible for, like calculating target speed. Funny side story: I was watching the sculling qualifications for the Olympics a while back, and it struck me: They travel 2000 meters in a certain amount of time, I wonder how fast that is in knots? Whipped out my trusty Kriegsmarine whiz-wheel (because unlike the BRC or the SACF/IS-WAS, it's measurement is meters, not yards), and figured it out. It was something on the order of 9+ knots, by the way.
I imagine that if you wanted to do a manual TMA, this would be a must-have. I'm going to build another one myself in the near future and try it out in SHIII.
Now, I could write the software to do all this crap for me: I'm a programmer by trade. But I have to admit, there is just something retro-cool
about whipping out a slide rule to calculate something. It's cool enough that I don't bother reaching for my TI-82 programmable anymore, or any other. If I have something that needs figuring, I whip out my trusty Pickett N-200ES Pocket trig.