Kane Mark VI Dead Reckoning Computer (E6B Flight Computer) Review / HowTo

The Kane Mark VI Dead Reckoning Computer, from the 1950s. This is a knockoff of the very popular E6B flight computer invented by the US military in the 1930s.
This is episode 55 of my video series about old calculating devices.
Download the instructions manual:
cstaecker.fairfield.edu/~cstae...
Featured E6B app is: "Flight Computer Sim" apps.apple.com/us/app/flight-...
End song inspired by "Hotter than a Molotov" by The Coup.
#e6b #flight #computer
Chris Staecker webarea: cstaecker.fairfield.edu/~cstae...
Curta photo by Rama, CC-BY-SA 3.0.
ASA E6B photo by Wikipedia user IDuke, CC-BY-SA 2.5.
KZbin E6B tutorial screencap from: • E6B Flight Computer. T... by MzeroA Flight Training.

[@andracatheduckking257]

ever since i first binged this series i can no longer pronounce the word "original" normally

[@gustavgnoettgen]

OORRIIGGIINNAALL

[@LuisRodriguez-vh6fg]

Me too

[@okboing]

Love that you mentioned the Curta. As a mechanical computer and calculator collector, the Curta is the REAL prize!

[@amingusamongus]

Man, your videos have been incredibly helpful in my job (history museum), from planimeters to various adding machines to dead reckoning computers. Informative and binge-able. Can’t thank you enough.

[@AnthonyFrancisJones]

When I learnt to fly this was a tricky device to get one's head around but it always works (no batteries) and only needs a pencil for drawing the wind vectors. It is a really good example of 'have an idea of what the answer is first' so you can be more assured you have got it right (my students note!). A really useful device that we still use and it seems not to have really changed at all! Not just for pilots but there are loads of useful conversions and calculations it can be used for too.

[@N.A._McBee]

In case KZbin's gonna ask me I'll tell them, that this video is enjoyable, informative, heart-warming and last but not least life-changing.

[@peterclancy3653]

i flew my 150B Cessna all over the north west of western australia and flights to Perth for servicing using a chart, compass, clock and a kane 6B computer. This was in the 1980s and this area was considered remote and all i had was VHF radio for comms. the best thing about these devices was no batteries to go flat.

[@mckseal]

Woah the wind speed calculator. I mean, I've used these but never thought about how clever this is. Also, we'd want the app because random numbers from an app are only so useful. The visible representation and memory from learning on the device translates better to reality.

[@joshmyer9]

Not only do the make giant versions, they also make tiny ones! I have a watch with an E6B around the face, which is super nerd fun. (It was a bit handier to have a slide rule on your wrist when I bought it. But I still wear it every day, and use it every so often. Usually when I only need a sigdig or two and can't find my phone.)

[@WxFly11]

I love my E6B! I used it for everything in ground school, and I still use it a lot for preflight planning. I like it because its light, I can use it with one hand, and it "saves" my calculations. Plenty of alternatives these days that do the same thing though.

[@MoonRock-ij8ni]

5:41 wind is always From a direction not to. If the radio reports the wind 180 @ 8 n the wind is from the south at 8 knots. Pilots want headwinds on the ground and there wasn't a lot of infrastructure to get winds aloft to publish. I made a conversion thing in an exel spread sheet convert polar vectors to cartesian x and y components so I could get a fast compas heading without using an automatic nav log program.

[@ct92404]

I STILL don't fully understand it...but now I want one! 😂

[@ggalla220]

Thanks for posting that manual! I've had one of these for years and couldn't find that manual.

[@Hyraethian]

I've just discovered your channel. I'm alternating between Awe at the cleverness of these devices, and a good case of the giggles at your humour.

[@olafzijnbuis]

The App simulating the E6B flight computer makes sense... When you enter data on a keyboard it is much easier to make mistakes. On the E6B you see what you are doing (in fact where you are going). A computer may be more accurate but a small input error can send you the wrong way.

[@coryschwartz1570]

I got my pilot license recently and they definitely still use this. My flight school gave me one. I started using one I found on Amazon marketed was the "asa-e6b-circ" despite it's name is not an e6b at all. The "circ" calculator has more charts than the standard e6b, and the wind side is completely different. Rather than vector addition like one you have, it has a rotating unit circle that shows you the crosswind and headwind directly as sin and cos of the wind angle, and the crab angle is estimated by matching your speed and crosswind around the outside. To me, this is actually better than the normal E6b since it'll let me know the magnitude of the crosswind vector, not just the crab angle, when landing. It's another cool calculator if you need more to add to your impressive list.

[@andrewsmith1204]

Love the editing. Wacky always keeps me focused.

[@suem6004]

I love learning about all these interesting and sophisticated devices for their day. They were fairly competent back then.

[@TheWinnieston]

I actually got my hands on a bunch of these calculators. Thanks for the tutorial!

[@LNC4P]

Pilot here. I used this computer for all of my training and time building to plan my flights. Thanks for the demo. Although your wind correction demo is half wrong/correct, you got the basic point across. One neat thing I found out about the log scale on the front, it is the same as a slide rule but arranged in a circle. You can do basic multiplication, division, and square roots on it. One easy way to think about it is to visualize a fraction. The outer ring represents the numerator while the inner ring represents the denominator. Anyway, it is an amazing tool to use when your electronics fail in-flight. Thanks again!

[@ChrisStaecker]

Thanks for watching! (What did I do wrong?)

[@LNC4P]

@@ChrisStaecker The center point that you use represents your true airspeed. Let's say the aircraft will travel at 150 true airspeed (the units don't matter so long as they all are the same, knots, mph, kmph, etc). Put the hole over 150. Spin the wheel to the wind direction, 360 or North. Make a mark for the speed of the wind, 20 (find 20 lines above the circle or 150+20=170). Now spin the wheel to your intended course, let's say 045 or NE. Now slide the card up so that your pencil mark lines up with the curved line that represents 150. Now read where the hole lines up. This should give you a ground speed of about 135, a left quartering headwind (I'm doing this from memory and I dont have an E6B in front of me so forgive me if the number is slightly off). Now let's make one change to the above. Instead of your wind coming from 360, let's make it come from 180 or S. Spin the wheel to 180, make your mark 20 lines up from the hole, spin it to 045 for your direction of travel, slide the card DOWN til the mark is over the 150 curved line, read your ground speed. This should be about 175 and a right quartering tailwind. Now as true aviators, let's stand back and take a look at the big picture. In our first example, our wind was coming from the north and we want to travel northeast. We should at least have a headwind, yes we do. Also, north should be off to our left while traveling northeast, yes it is. Since it's a headwind, our ground speed should be less than our true airspeed, yes it is. So now we can see that we at least did it correct enough to mitigate most errors. Always remember TLAR (That Looks About Right). True Airspeed = the speed the aircraft will travel at a given power setting, altitude, and temperature. Ground Speed = True Airspeed corrected for wind drift. Hope all this helps. Keep making more old-school demos. Love them!

[@someonespadre]

The purpose is to find the direction to point the nose in order to follow a desired course AND the resultant ground speed. From this you can flip the computer over and find out how long the flight will take, do you have enough fuel or is a stop needed?

[@coryschwartz1570]

Yeah I noticed this too. I think the way he's doing it shows how far off you'll be if you didn't correct. Instead, what we want to do as pilots is crab into the wind and have the wind push us into the desired course. So at the end of the calculation, we'll have the desired course straight up, a ground-speed under the hole, and a crab angle. One thing he might have mentioned is that the wind side is concentric circles, but the origin of the circle is just off the machine. That might help people understand what they're looking at. The wind correction angle is just degrees on the circle. The pencil mark is your airplane flying away from the origin, and the hole is the wind pushing you on course.

[@haramanggapuja]

Chris, this is exactly what amazes me about the two biggies of human cognition: math and language. Both of 'em seem to be magic but they are at heart just, well, mental gears spinning. . . . Thanks again for another wonderful & informative video. Stay safe & healthy, amigo.

[@portlyoldman]

Wistfully dug both of mine out of the cupboard.. I have a Kane AND a very natty E6B from the RAF courtesy of my dad 😁

[@danjarvis6980]

A E6B, MB-4A or similar dead reckoning handheld computer will solve ETP ( Equal Time Point ) sometimes referred to as "Point of No Return" in only a few seconds once you know how to set it up. The only math you do is the addition of the two ground speeds ( GSr- ground speed return ) and ( GSc-ground speed continue ) after that, the computer answers all the math needed.

[@der.Schtefan]

Excellent Audio. Enjoyable and informative content. Can recommend, would watch again.

[@BillRicker]

Aha the algorithm finally served up your E6B video

[@mkpleco]

What you do is awesome, thank you.

[@argonwheatbelly637]

I still have mine and my mom's... yeah, she was a pilot in the 60s. Awesome tool. Love the Curta. Wish I could find a Type II for less than a small motorcycle.

[@november2435]

As a student pilot, we are learning hoe to use these things and they're cool as heck!

[@brechlin2]

I saw that Tsu background on the tablet

[@LingTheBug]

I was taught how to use an E6B in ground school a few years ago. Sadly I never did get my license, but man is this little calculator powerful! It's a pain to learn though haha

[@gustavgnoettgen]

I love your intros so much Also, I claim that this instrument debunks flat earth once again, by function only.

[@rrcaniglia]

FRIENDLY correction. “Lubes” (lbs) is actually an abbreviation for ‘pounds’.

[@RalphReagan]

Farout! I remember these from ground school!

[@teddymills1]

Commando movie brought me here. There was a E6B on a Patria Enterprise desk. Wondered what that was. Also wondered if the name is related to the Navy EA6B Prowler.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Nice-

[@CarstenBauer]

My copy of the manual has an address of 8000 S Lyndale Ave, Minneaplis 20, Minnesota. Is that older or newer than this one in the video?

[@Jr-qo4ls]

So cool!

[@ryankane7177]

"on course the Kane way" could have described a lot of my exploits in the middle east.

[@aranclauson8182]

I have an E6B, but I fine Jeppesen CR-type easier to use. I have a CR-6 because I have old eyes. Try a grease pencil or china marker instead of a pencil. It is easier to wipe off the wax than erase the pencil mark.

[@farpointgamingdirect]

@1:23 Looks like Phillip Dalton is actually in the US Navy...a Naval Aviator

[@someonespadre]

I have 2 of these. Got my aluminum one in 1989, 15 bucks or so.

[@rrcaniglia]

BTW, these are not museum pieces. If you learn to fly, you’ll have one as a backup to your electronics.

[@mnoxman]

Ja ya might wan't to look at the P->R R->P keys on that Hello kitty upgrade.

[@colinstu]

Congratulations. You played yourself. OK, so when is the iPad version of the Curta coming?

[@MrDowntownjbrown]

Very cool! I wonder if there are other analog computers still in relatively widespread use today.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Sometimes I hear that some people somewhere still use slide rules, but I'm not really convinced it's anybody but slide rule enthusiasts. The carpenter's square is used to compute certain things- I've thought of doing a video about it, but I'm not sure it's interesting enough.

[@spaceminions]

It's a bit of a stretch, but I have a 1.5" circular pocket calendar which computes the days of the week for the next 50+ years given the input month and year.

[@klave8511]

@@ChrisStaecker I think it can draw circle using 2 nails and the right angle point. Not sure about finding the centre without the 45 degree edge, maybe as a right angle to a chord (because tangents are hard to use). If they had a scale multiplied by pi you could measure a diameter and get the circumference. Are there more?

[@staycurious8650]

Must admit, was thinking of coding a replica at the start of the video.😅

[@sseim5654]

I have one of these. Thanks. Would you happen to have a video on the type MB-2A computer? Made by JB Carroll out of Chicago. Part number is 205. Many thanks. Great post. Wait a minute... Hello Kitty Scientific calculator!?! What a find!

[@ChrisStaecker]

Never seen the MB-2A. Looks good though-

[@devinhiatt9995]

Heyyyyy I have one of these!

[@Rhynome]

You neglected to mention that it also has Imp. Gals!

[@matthewholzner9526]

The entirety of my private pilot License courses at the university were taught on planes using no GPS, no computers, and all planning (pre-flight and during flight) was used using this device and paper maps. It was interesting and neat to learn, but I always thought it was silly. It takes forever, gives you less data, and you'll never use it in real life. The argument of "well, if you have an emergency mid-flight and you don't know where you are and you don't have a cell phone/iPad and your computer goes down, you'll need this". Fair, I guess (even as unrealistic as that scenario is). But for the pre-flight planning......silly. Are computer science majors required to program their first year at the university on punch cards?

[@argonwheatbelly637]

Still use VORs? It's not silly, anymore than learning to drive a manual transmission, or sail a boat correctly. CompSci on punch cards? Heh...funny. I did. Actually, we used coding forms, and then after passing a short course on using the punch card machine, we were able to bang out our decks. Necessary? No. Fun? Yes. Good for learning. But an E6B? Still have one in my flight bag, along with paper sectionals. And it's not slow to use, and certainly doesn't take forever. Not even close. Why have one? The unexpected will happen. Why get caught in an embarrassing and avoidable situation?

[@R.B.]

An E-6B is a plane. You might use a Kane MK-6 Dead Reckoning Computer on an E-6B. Are you sure this instrument is commonly referred to as an E6B?

[@ChrisStaecker]

I'm not a pilot so I don't know first-hand how they talk about this stuff. But Google "E6B" and I don't see a plane.

[@QwazyWabbit]

Kane? Rosebud!

[@markvickroy6725]

Money murder and Mathematics. 🤘 dang mangh

[@alfredklek]

That Kitty Kalculator looks suspiciously similar to my Casio fx-115MS. I'd be willing to bet that Casio copied the design.

[@manuelsilva1999]

Batteries not included!

[@Laundry_Hamper]

Chris could you calculate where I could go to meet some nice imp gals? Thanks

[@ChrisStaecker]

believe me- if I knew, I'd be there

[@RaginKavu]

"Kane dead"? Nah. Everyone knows that "Kane lives!"

[@pubcollize]

Kane bees!

[@nashvillain171]

HAH! Check out the recently-released Scott Manley video on this device entitled "I Passed A 21st Century Aviation Exam With an 80 Year Old 'US Army Air Forces' Computer". I gotta say, Chris, I like his accent better than yours 🤷‍♂...but you're more entertaining!