Customer Reviews

Mental Math for Pilots (Professional Aviation series)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Mr. McElroy's book has some neat math shortcuts for common aviation problems, but it is a pretty skinny book and not worth near the asking price. I've been an airline pilot for about 5 years, and a military pilot for about 10 before that. I'll admit that there were 2 or 3 shortcuts I didn't know (though less that I'll actually use!), but the prevailing comment among other airline pilots I showed it to were "You can tell the author is an airline pilot!" as they pointed to the $27+ price. I agree, this book is worth $10 or $12 tops. . .I could summarize all the shortcuts in a page or two. As for interview prep, you're better off using one of the books written specically for that purpose.

This book is over rated! It comes across as giving the pilot all these tips and formulas but falls way short on the task. First off, the typeset fills only half the page making the book in reality about 25 pages. It goes on to show you basic math found in any private pilot instruction guide. FH/C temp conversion, subtracting military time, and RVR which is all the same as in the NOS/Jep charts and Ops manuals for the plane you fly. The second half of the book has the times tables, subtraction tables, and division tables. He put fuel dump calculations in along with wet runway computations, this is not only a waste for pilots flying anything short of a jet, but worthless due to FMS and EFIS on bigger airplanes not to mention the F/E sitting sideways behind the captain. In short the book is outdated. finding reciprocals, compass turns to a heading, and ANDS are all in the flight manuals. In short this book fails to teach much. It is not worth the [price] that is for sure.

For its price, I found this little booklet not helpful. The first 5 pages are essentially advertising for a consulting firm (the author's employer) that prepares pilots for airline interviews. The final 5 pages again are mostly advertising for that same company's products. A 14-page appendix contains a review of how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide (at the level of teaching you that 3 + 4 = 7). Another 10-page appendix contains addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tables. In the remainder of the book (55 - very small - pages), I found exactly one useful rule: how to meet a crossing restriction. There are one or two other rules that in years of corporate flying I have never found useful (such as how to calculate your hydroplaning speed - interesting in concept, but practically not very useful).
If your math is below high school level, this book may be useful to you. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend this book.
If you are planning to prepare for an interview, I would recommend you save the money you would have spent on this book and buy "Everything explained for the professional pilot" instead; and if you are interviewing for a job in a turbine-powered aircraft, "The turbine pilot's flight manual" - both those books are MUCH more helpful.

This book covers all the neat little tricks to getting the job done quickly and right. It is also a great book for interview prep. Goes into detail on how to do the math problems and gives several ways to do the problems. There are also review problems at the end of each chapter. A must buy for interviews or if you are just looking for a way to make your flying job easier.

In reality, it's not an awful book. In fact, there are quite a number of things which can be filed under the "good to know" category. However, I'm so bitter at paying such an outrageous price for this book that I simply cannot bring myself to give it anything more than a very poor rating. Don't bother, there are better (and more reasonably priced) sources.

Having gone through the Private and Commercial cylabus I realised how quickly one forgets the all-important calculations... This guide keeps you current and your thoughts aligned without having to remember all the complicated match exactly

Mental Math for Pilots fills a very specific niche in aviation knowledge. If it were not for the very specific math questions asked during a Major Airline interview knowledge test, the book would be almost useless. Almost every technique taught in the book is beyond what you would ever need to know or have time to figure out in the flight deck. It is the perfect book for those in the academic world that do not spend their working life in the cockpit. Furthermore, for the price of the book, the content is very limited. Explanations of problems are lacking and often times leave you wondering how the author came up with the answer from what is written. The author will give a problem and the answer, yet leave out the explanation of how to arrive at that answer.

Some great tips to help you do both everyday and complex maths in your head. Some really simple ideas that you will find yourself using every time you take to the sky.

A new approach to improve on your license or if your a student a way to help you along with less frustration. This product was well worth the time if you sit and take it seriously it will greatly help you. This tool is good for more than just flying though, it will help you in every day life.

Extremely well written. Provides great descriptions of sometimes difficult to understand/visualize aviation concepts. I appreciated how the chapters were organized ... starting with the necessities (foundational concepts/basic math) and gradually stepping up the level of complexity with each subsequent chapter. Plenty of room for margin notes when there is a need to jot down and "fyi" or two.