Among my hobbies, probably the weirdest one is circular slide rules. I was introduced to them 22 years ago when I started flying lessons, and have since branched out from the E6B to non-aviation circular rules. I like them because
@nyrath The DC-3 (designed exclusively using #slideRules) has never crashed due to a design defect, according to people I talked to at McDonnell-Douglas in the late 1990s. You can't say the same for Boeing's latest aircraft. I suspect there are two reasons for that:
GIGO: People trust the output of computers and skip common-sense sanity checks.
The DC-3 was overbuilt (to be on the safe side), while modern CAD allows companies to cut things closer to the margins for extra $$$.
@david_megginson@nyrath@Lazarou Alas, the 737 was also built in the slide-rule era, and a bunch of those went down. It's descended from the 1950s 707 family, only for short-haul routes and with two engines instead of four: it first flew in 1967.
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