Aviation Mechanic Handbook

Good tool

Must have for A&P and great reference for pilots As important as a screwdriver

Good to have

Very useful if you need it. I keep it handy for quick info

Ok

As advertised

There are a number of typographical nuances that immediately jumped out to me, most notably the fact that they couldn't be bothered to find an actual theta symbol and used Ø instead. Like, this thing is copyright 2022. It's not that hard. It's not Ø, it's θ. See? θθθθθ. Too easy. They had no problem finding the π symbol, but apparently θ was too much. Also, variables are italicized, units are not. And it's "Kelvin", not "degrees Kelvin". Those were things that immediately jumped out to me as a pedant. Going deeper, I really have to question the usefulness of some of these lookup tables in 2022. I could carry a pocket calculator much more easily than this book. Is anybody really going to pull out this book to look up a square root? Is anybody really going to pull out this book to look up the corresponding circumference to a given diameter (which is just a multiple of pi, after all)? It's 2022. You don't need to waste five pages on a Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion table when the formula is easily computable. Then, right after the formulas and before the lookup table, it says "For interpolation, 1°C = 1.8°F". Let's be real: if I'm here, I don't know what interpolation means. If I am doing interpolation, I'm going to need a calculator, or to be really good at multiplication and division. If I have a calculator, I don't need your lookup table, and if I'm good at my arithmetic, I also don't need your lookup table. Personally, I know what interpolation means, and I can do that conversion in my head. And also, anybody who understands what interpolation is can easily see from the formulas that 1 C° = 1.8 F° (which is how you write that properly, by the way). This is what I mean by clutter. It simply does not need to be here, it's just in the way. The same can be said for the trigonometry section. Why do I need a lookup table for what I can more easily do with a pocket calculator? It's 2022. Also, the way the table is written is rather bizarre to me. It only goes up to 45° on the left column, but the right column lists the complementary angle. If I need to have basic trigonometry explained to me, I'm not going to understand that the sinθ = cos(90°-θ). The table lists sin, cos, tan and cot. What would be more useful is to just run the table to 90° and have sin, tan, and sec. I can do subtraction in my head, but computing reciprocals is much more difficult (and again, if I already have a calculator to do that, I don't need the lookup table). There's still a lot of good information, but the authors would do well to consider some brevity. You need to be smart about what you include, or your handbook will become too bloated to be a "hand"-book.

Awesome