December Gen Nav

[My names Turkish]

It might have been just me and a vertl limited few I know who also did Gen Nav, but a lot of people seemed to fail it? I was suprised not to pass it with 71% as I thought it was a very fair exam. I did find it crazy tight on time, and I suspect I may not have been the only one.. Comments, thoughts,questions?

[PaulStonitsch]

Tight on time was a bit of an understatement. I also thought there was an unresonably large amount of CRP-5 work, which is easy enough, but you have to be careful.:yuk:

[Mark24]

Yep, I failed too!!! Second time and with 74% !!! I would not mind so much except that it is my last subject and my re-take in Feb will be sitting no. 6!!!!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

I also thought that it was an ok exam, nothing too hard and I was really, really shocked to fail. I honestly feel that I know what I am talking about with this subject and do not know where I have gone wrong!!! If only we received feedback!!!

I have heard that there are questions being asked of this paper by the powers that be...however this is just a rumour...

Any more views???

M

[Dah Dah...Dit]

While I also agree with Decembers' exam being "tight on time" to say the least, I just managed to finish it with seconds to spare! Granted, there was alot of of CRP-5 work but we can all do that standing on our heads blindfolded (even though some answers only had 2 degrees difference)!

All in all it wasn't a bad exam, not 1 question on Polar Stereographic (not my fortie) and unfortunately only 1 question on PET (my fortie). The exam could have been alot worse!

I passed with 85% - Shame things didn't go so well with Met. 71%

Now that was a hard exam!

[flyfish]

Funny how peoples minds work in different ways. I sat and failed the Dec Nav exam having thought I had walked it. In fact i was wondering if it would be my highest scoring pass. How wrong can one be.
Met on the other hand I breezed an 85.

If anyones interested and i am sure he won't mind me saying, but i have been in contact with and am arranging a few one day crammers with Send Clowns, down at Bournemouth.
Hopefully that will sort out the gremlins that are risking me doing the whole darn 14 again. 13 in the bag 1 to go,sitting 6, oh god the pressure !!!

[timzsta]

Got 90% for Gen Nav in December but being an ex Navy bridge watchkeeping officer it would be dissappointing in the least to have failed nav!!!

I do agree that it was way over the top on CRP 5 stuff and mentioned this to the staff at London Guildhall. What got me through I think was the excellent feedback I had. LGU still have the old CAA Gen Nav stuff and if you can do that the JAA stuff is a piece of cake. If any one has any queries on any of the Gen Nav stuff dont be afraid to PM me.

Cannot stress enough you got to be able to do the CRP 5 stuff with your eyes shut. Most of the form of the earth questions can be answered by drawing a picture and doing the sums in your head - you dont need to sit there with your calculator, pencil and paper working it out.

IE that question:
Circumnavigating the earth at 60 N , GS 480 knots. What GS needed to circumnavigate the earth in same time at the equator:
a 480
b 240
c 720
d 960

Cos 60 = 0.5, there its twice the GS = 960 = D. Next question......

Meteorology was a tough one too, but is my "chosen specialist subject". Was getting high 90s in feedback, only managed mid 80s, so I would say it was a hard paper.

There were a couple of gash questions in Rad Nav as well.

[Dah Dah...Dit]

timzsta - yes that was a nice easy question. I found alot of them were simple enough i.e. the relative bearings, grid plotting etc.

What caught me out on the time side of things were the q's towards the end of the paper when time was getting short. This was the question that asked " what is the latest time the a/c can start it's descent to cross point x at !5:20"? (or something)

Not particularly difficult, just not what I wanted to be seeing as Q45 with 15 mins to go!

Anyway, at least it's passed - now onto Flight Planning!!

[M.85]

I passed all the exams the first time but no job yet..so guys dont worry..take your time...:E

Safe studying,

M.85

[Alex Whittingham]

The pass rates for General Nav are amongst the lowest for the ATPL(A) group. Each month around 60% of all the candidates in the UK who take this paper pass it. December's pass rate was slightly better than usual at 64%. It's probable that more people failed General Nav than the other papers but that, in itself, is quite normal if slightly depressing.

[High Wing Drifter]

What is the general problem Alex: the exam or the students?

[Send Clowns]

I think it is the exam, Drifter. I teach General Navigation and Flight Planning, and offer private tuition. I have had more people wishing to study Gen Nav on their last chance to pick up a pass, i.e. 4th attempt or 6th sitting, than all our other instructors have in their subjects combined. I haven't had any in that position for Flight Planning, I don't think. I certainly am by far the busiest in the school for private tuition (students from all the schools, I hasten to add - it is not me failing to teach the course!).

That all suggests that pople who are passing other subjects are not passing General Navigation.

[High Wing Drifter]

Clowns,
Gen Nav is giving me the heebe-geebes somewhat. I don't really find anything particuarly difficult but I keep hearing of guys doing good in the course and then failing the exam or barely passing.

Does anybody have any pointers on where the problems exist? I'm doing the exams in Feb so anything to help us expect the unexpected...

[Alex Whittingham]

From our experience the quality of basic PPL ground training has nosedived in the last couple of years, it is normal to find ATPL candidates who cannot use the CRP5 and who don't know the difference between heading and track. We spend a lot of time teaching stuff that really should have been covered in the PPL.

For the exam I would agree with timzsta, you need to be totally comfortable with the CRP5. Don't expect very much Polar Stereo stuff, the plotting is easy peasy, usually VOR/DME fixes on the Jepp airways chart that covers Ireland and you can expect a few 'mensa' type theory questions. Good quality feedback can help with this paper because the oddball questions do seem very odd until you see how to solve them.

[My names Turkish]

I am going to be a bit controversial here and wonder if the decrease in quality of groundschool instruction has to do with more and more PPL students doing their licences in the US being taught by FAA rated pilots who have never even sat the JAA PPL exams, and who a lot of them cant actually use a CRP themselves? I dont mean this as an insult its just not something thats covered in the FAA syllabus in much detail and therefore they need not know it. I certainly could have benefited from better PPL groundschool for Nav and Met, but my FAA instructor was not familiar with much of the Nav and MEt questions in the confuser.

[High Wing Drifter]

it is normal to find ATPL candidates who cannot use the CRP5 and who don't know the difference between heading and track
Bloomin' Nora! For some reason I feel it necessary to express my complete astonishment at this. Surely all PPLs must have worked from PLOGs in the PPL and hour building??? :uhoh:

I certainly could have benefited from better PPL groundschool for Nav and Met, but my FAA instructor was not familiar with much of the Nav and MEt questions in the confuser.
You mean somebody actually went through the theory subjects with you? When I did my PPL in the UK last year I didn't get any tuition on any PPL subject except the actual flight briefings. My PPL ground school consisted of me reading Thom books in the bath and on the train. I thought this was the norm :8

[Alex Whittingham]

Nope, the norm is reading the PPL confuser and learning the answers to the questions. Thom is often considered too complicated for the PPL exams, I think his books are excellent.

[Dah Dah...Dit]

From my experience, I've found that there are 2 ways of teaching PPL training in the U.K. The 1st type is purely for people who want to fly for fun. This involves a more simplified approach to training but obviously still teaches the proper syllabus. The 2nd type is geared more towards the aspiring professional pilot. By this I mean, if you're going to learn how to fly a plane, then you might as well learn to commercial standards. Same goes for commercial navigation techniques.

Overall though, I have to agree with the philosophy that the structure of the JAA PPL is by far superior to the FAA method, especially in terms of Navigational techniques.

Now I've been in Florida now for some months studying for my ATPL's but have occasionally found the time to fly with a few fellow Brits trained 'The American Way'. My point is this : While general handling + procedures are very good (although it's checklist overkill), general nav. is a disgrace. They just fly from point to point, slap on a couple of 6min markers, + off they go - knowing nothing of Closing angle techniques/ inverse fraction rules etc. which was drummed into me from day 1!

I'd also like to agree with Alex on the Trevor Thoms PPL books. Granted it's a bit indepth for the average recreational flyer and I think maybe contains a bit too much information required for the written exams, but for those wishing to pursue this as a career (ATPL's), these are an invaluable set of books!

[OneIn60rule]

Is simply that there are TOO many CRP 5 questions to do. 26 questions where you had to use the CRP5 were on the exam the month before.


Our instructor gave us paper after paper of questions where you had to use the CRP 5 and after 30 or so papers of it you do get a lot quicker, even if you yourself don't notice it.


One of my buddies failed his GNAV exam due to the lack of practice, he hadn't used his CRP 5 in weeks and thought he would be safe. (due to 26 questions involving CRP5)

Moral of the story> There's no such thing as enough practice.

Even if you think you know everything your CRP 5 can do, do it over and over.

Gnav IMO isn't as complex to me anymore since it's all about a few drawings, formulas. It's basically a lot like M&B, calculation after calculation, nothing to it. The trick may be though when do you know what formula you can use for what questions and what map i.e. POrigin, Convegence for the 4-5 maps (were there more?).

[My names Turkish]

No I didnt get groundschool for my exams but Dah Dah made the point I was trying to make very well. If you are going on to higher things its a huge help to have a good base to start from.

I think Thoms books arent good enough to prop up the short leg of my bed. They may have all the info, but they are the worlds most boring books. Have you ever read the Jeppesson PPL or CPL books Alex? Loads of colour, pictures, Little illustrative stories in the columns, well laid out books that keep you from falling asleep after 5 mins. They should make them for the JAR PPL. I would agree with you though, the PPL confuser can be abit of a dangerous thing as it is sometimes the sole basis of the exams.

[Mark24]

Well, now I'm on sitting six I've decided to sign up for the ABACUS Gen Nav question bank...I was wondering if Alex Whittingham could comment on this??? Is it any good??? If not can he advise me on where I can find more JAA type questions from?

M

[My names Turkish]

I dont think its the hardest exam in the World Mark24. I just ran out of time. Of the questions I had done, I was quite confident I had got them right and my mark reflects this. Just get a good quantity of feedback and practice practice to get speed, a few grinds with one of the specialist companies would seem like a good idea too?

[Alex Whittingham]

Thanks for the steer Turkish, I'll check out the Jeppesen books. Mark24, I can't really comment properly on Abacus as I haven't seen all of their material, what I have seen seems good. Oxford/Jeppesen have a similar product which their CGI tells me is a mix of feedback and made up questions I think the prices are about the same, around €100 a month.

[Send Clowns]

High Wing - Sorry for the late reply, have been away enjoying the new year celebrations. Don't be scared of the exam, if you read the questions and answer what is set, if you are fast and accurate on the CRP-5 then you should be OK. I hope Alex's comments here have also calmed you, but if you have any more specific querries, then put them here or do not hesitate to send me a private message.

Best of luck!

[High Wing Drifter]

Thanks Clowns,

Feeling better already. I think I'm OK with the CRP. I use common stuff for every flight and make a point of using it to do conversions rather than the calculator. Need to brush up on the stuff I never use for practical purposes, like finding wind from drift and GS, ect. Not rocket science as you guys say, but sometimes I do stare at and think "Now what?" :\

Thanks :)

[timzsta]

I read all the Trevor Thom books cover to cover when I did my PPL. I did all the PPL exams at my local flying club, and paid for one on one tuition with the clubs ground school instructor before I sat the exams. I passed all PPL exams first time no problems and that has proved to be an excellent building block as I have worked through my ATPL exams.

When I got out to California to do the flying they asked me what books I used for ground school. Trevor Thom rubbish they said, to much detail, too boring. So I think some of what was said earlier in this thread may have some truth to it. Certainly there was very little in PoF ATPL notes that wasnt in Trevor Thoms book, except for high speed flight obviously. The quality of flight instruction I got in California was good though, I had an excellent instructor.

What I have done everytime I have gone flying on my PPL is get out CRP 5 and calculate wind corrected headings, TAS, expected fuel burn, and updated ETA's and heading in flight etc etc. When it came to the Gen Nav exam that was a big big help I think. 1/60 rule etc etc. They way I looked at it the more CRP 5 questions the better, as I knew I would get them correct.

With the regard to the form of the earth type stuff, I think the biggest thing people struggle with is having spent their hole life looking at mercator type wall maps, school atlas type projections. Hence they struggle with things like convergency, earth conversion angle and so on.

[Jinkster]

just wondering if the Pooleys CRP CDROM is worth investing in - does anyone have a copy of it for sale or loan?

PM me

Jinkster

[flyfish]

I have a copy of it , but as i am preparing for the Feb exam i cant let it go yet.
It is a very good tool for gaining confidence in using the crp5 and as well as the lessons it gives, it has a large questions and answers section. Having said that, i have found the questions a bit on the simple side, sort of PPL level certainly nothing as tricky as the ATPL questions I have come accross.

In conclusion I would recommend it, lets face it the Gnav exam seems to be a speed CRP test, so anything that helps making you a whizz on the wheel has got to be worth the twenty odd quid


jinks - if you are taking it after Feb , you are welcome to borrow/buy it .

I will pass g-nav , i will pass g -nav !!

[Field In Sight]

I suspect that most people have problems with Gen Nav because it involves "sums" and most people just never do anything similar in their daily lives.

I know one friend who is about to sit the exams for the first time and he says his brain goes blank when looking at the Nav questions just because of the maths.

As with anything though, it's gets a lot easier with practice.

The instructors on my ATPL course swore by the CRP-5.
I f@%king swore by it when I had to buy one to replace my AFE ARC-1 because it came up with slightly different answers than the CRP-5 :mad:

The main problem I have in using slide rule flight computers is for:
1. Private pilots. Guestimation techiques work very well for diversions whilst airborne, so why revert to an easily confused tool on the ground. During my PPL flight test we were tested on diverting using the Flight Computer to work out everything. What a complete waste of time (and dangerous if you ask me).

2. For wannabe Commercial pilots
I would like to count how many airline pilots keep their CRP-5 in their flight bag "just in case". So what's the point in learning how to use it.

That's my 2 pennies worth anyway.

FIS.