Originally Posted by wmuflyboy

Had a student just take his commercial ride but he told me the DE was not to happy with the explanation of how my student found pivotal altitude in the airplane. We have always done them at 1,200 MSL and they work out nice. He passed and everything but I was just curious if any of you knew a simple way to figure PA out in the airplane. The GS is right there on the GPS but obviously you wont know your GS if your on the ground before the flight. Should he have broke out a calculator or something??