The E6B in Training and Testing

A flight computer is a training tool as much as a navigation tool. Student pilots learn the wind triangle on one, the FAA’s written knowledge tests are full of problems that need one, and the pilot planning a cross-country flight on the day of the practical test, the checkride, uses one in front of the examiner. The rules for which computers are allowed have changed less than the computers have.

7.1 The knowledge test

The FAA’s rules on calculators in its written tests go back to an advisory circular of August 1974, AC 60-11, issued just as the first electronic flight computers were being patented. Its replacement, AC 60-11A of December 1979, set the pattern that still holds: applicants “may use scales, straightedges, protractors, plotters, navigation computers, and electronic or mechanical calculators”, but before and after the test “the applicant must actuate the ‘on/off’ switch to ensure erasure of any data stored in memory circuits”, and calculators with “permanent or continuous type memory circuits without erasure capability” are not allowed. Printed information on a computer that was not needed for the test had to be masked.

AC 60-11C of April 1999 widened the wording to “all models of aviation-oriented calculating devices that are directly related to the test”, and explained the purpose: “The intent is that all applicants are tested on concepts rather than rote calculation ability.” It added that “the use of any booklet or manual containing instructions related to the use of the applicant’s calculating device is not permitted”. That circular was cancelled on 22 August 2025; its rules now sit in FAA Order 8080.6H, Conduct of Airman Knowledge Tests, chapter 3, paragraph 6, which allows “all models of aviation-oriented calculators” and repeats the conditions on memory and manuals.

The FAA approves kinds of device, not makes. Sporty’s manual for my E6B says it “is authorized and acceptable for use during FAA and Canadian written tests”, and cites “FAA Advisory Circular 60-11B and FAA Order 8081D, Conduct of Airmen Written Tests, April 10, 1989”; the order number does not match the FAA’s numbering of its testing orders, which are 8080.6. Transport Canada, by contrast, keeps a named list of accepted computers, and “SPORTY’S E6B” is on it, with the Jeppesen Avstar, ProStar and TechStar, ASA’s Pathfinders and CX-3, the Cessna Sky/Comp and the Nav-Gem.

Two practical points follow for my E6B. Its OFF key only blanks the display, and Sporty’s manual says that “all memory is erased by removing and reinstalling the batteries”, so clearing it for a proctor means taking the batteries out, which also wipes its clocks. And the manual itself must stay outside the test room, so the keystrokes have to be known by heart.

Since 23 September 2024, the FAA’s testing provider has built an E6B into the test itself: “an enhanced aviation-oriented calculator, including an E6-B flight computer, which will be available for use at any time during any knowledge test administration event”. Phones and tablets, and so the E6B apps, are still not allowed.

7.2 The checkride

For the practical test the FAA’s Airman Certification Standards companion guide lists, among the applicant’s personal equipment, simply “Computer and Plotter”. No rule says which kind. Examiners judge the planning, not the tool, and AOPA’s advice to applicants is that “most examiners appreciate observing their applicants … conducting flight planning … in the way they intend to continue doing after the checkride”. Pilots’ forums report examiners who asked to see the mechanical E6B worked as well; that is the examiner’s choice, not an FAA requirement.

7.3 Slide rule first?

Instructors still argue for learning the mechanical E6B first. Rod Machado, the flight instructor and author, puts the case: with the slide-rule E6B “you can actually see how the wind affects your airplane since it uses the ‘wind triangle’ concept”, and it “makes you smart in that it keeps your head in the game when calculating”; “after you’ve developed some fidelity with it, then move up to whatever electronic version tickles your fancy”. A slide rule also needs no batteries, and estimating the magnitude of every answer catches decimal errors. Barry Schiff, writing in AOPA Pilot, notes that the electronic computers are slightly more accurate but as prone as any computer to “garbage in, garbage out”.

My own experience runs the same way. I learned on a cardboard E6B and then an aluminium one, and now use the electronic one: it is so much quicker, and mistakes are not as common. One likely reason for the second is the idea in the patents on its back: the computer asks for each value by name, in order, so that nothing is skipped or put in the wrong place.

Sources

• FAA, AC 60-11A (1979), AC 60-11C (1999) and Order 8080.6H, chapter 3, para. 6; FAA advisory-circular status page (cancellation of AC 60-11C, 22 August 2025); Airman Testing Community Advisory, August 2024; FAA, ACS Companion Guide for Pilots (FAA-G-ACS-2), section 7.
• Sporty’s, E6B manual, Version 05A (2005), p. 3.
• Transport Canada, “Accepted electronic computers for flight crew examinations” (2019).
• Rod Machado, “Since you asked”, AOPA Flight Training, October 2009; AOPA Flight Training, “Checkride”, November 2015; Barry Schiff, “Wind triangle computers”, AOPA Pilot, April 2000.