I do not understand the reasoning for the "manual approach" but hey you picked your instructor right? If it is being done to humor him or her, perhaps a good dose of your day job into their life. I find that that to be usefull as a playing field leveler.
Eric
I think the point here is more that I understand each step in the planning process, that I can do the calculations, and the manual process demonstrates I can do it. Anyone can plug some numbers into vplanner. That doesn't mean you know what it is doing for you.
Here, I have to demonstrate the thought process, do each step of the calculations, "draw" the plan and switches on the diagram, according to the dive tables.
I am more than a little surprised . . . didn't you guys have to do all this stuff manually when you first learned?