[leiafee]

If your plan is to go onto commercial afterwards then a suitable one which covers the higher speed ranges.

If not, then whichever one your flying school recommends for ease of instruction. If you're having someone show you it helps (a bit - though not more than a few quids worth of helpful) to have the same model.

If they don't have a preference, then the cheapest one you can possibly find because you'll hardly ever use it in anger ever again after passing! You absolutely will not use it enough, for example, to wear out a cardboard one and need shiny 'brushed aluminium finishes' for similar!

[WelshRichy]

If they don't have a preference, then the cheapest one you can possibly find because you'll hardly ever use it in anger ever again after passing! You absolutely will not use it enough, for example, to wear out a cardboard one and need shiny 'brushed aluminium finishes' for similar!

I must be one of the few that still use mine every time I plan to go somewhere! Half of the enjoyment for me is planning and working out groundspeeds and headings the old fashioned way. Dont get me wrong, I'm all for gadgets and maybe I'm just an anomaly in this day and age of Sky Demon and such like (excellent tools!).

Back to the original question, yes as leiafee has already said, probably check with your school with what they recommend.

Word of warning though, my original was a Pooleys CRP-1 but later had to upgrade to a CRP-5 for the ATPL exams, the CRP-5 has a scale for higher speeds and has functions such as compressibilty correction. Probably worth bearing in mind if you wish to go commercial at any point.

Remember looking at the whizz wheel when i was approaching the navigation element of the course and couldn't really make head nor tail of it. Went into the club, not flyable so my instructor told me to go sit in the classroom and had me doing CPL style questions by the end of the day using it. Some time with someone going through it's functions and how to use it is really valuable and will, in my experience, click.

[QSD]

If you are just doing the PPL, and don't want to immerse yourself in 1940s technology, then you could just use a standalone electronic flight computer.

These are permitted in the PPL exams :-

From Standards Document 11

"Candidates may use the following equipment during an examination:
(1) a scientific calculator, or
(2) a mechanical navigation slide rule (DR calculator), or
(3) an electronic flight computer, and
(4) a protractor;
(5) a compasses and dividers;
(6) a ruler"