Why different ATPL standards?

[zakpeegoodus]

I am curios as to why there is such a difference in ATPL theory requirements in ICAO countries?

In the States it took me just one day to do the FAA ATP theory – including study and exam! I got 86% - with no prior study for more than two years!
- It was an absolute joke. I learnt not one thing…At least it cost under $300.


If I want to do the JAA ATPL, I must sit 14 exams and participate in hundreds of hours of classroom lectures and spend thousands of dollars.

Why is the standard so embarrassingly shabby in the States and so overly difficult in Europe?

I did the FAA exam through:
http://www.atpflightschool.com/programs/writtens/atp.html

[FFP]

If you have the FAA ATP, then aren't you exempt the classroom element of the JAA ATPL ?

[Fellow Aviator]

If you have the FAA ATP, then aren't you exempt the classroom element of the JAA ATPL ?

Yes, but only if certain conditions are met.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=209676

[hazehoe]

I think this is a cultural difference,the above is true for a variety of other things,try to open a bank account here, in the UK,( you will spend at least 2 hours in the bank),try to get a drivers licence(you will not go 3 times left around the post office like in the USA and finish the exam in 5 minutes),try to get something noterized(you will get a wax seal,pay a fortune in a posh office, in the US you go the the local mall and pay around 10 dollars,outside in 2 min),the list goes on.

As for the ATPL written(s),i think you have to look how poeple come up in aviation , a guy with 250 hours in the RHS of a Southwest 737 is unheard of.
I believe the average FO will have around 5000 hours (with jet time) when joining Southwest.I agree that the FAA writtens are not up to "par" i did both and it's like night and day,the 2 could not be further apart.
The much more natural progression of pilots in the USA will take care of most of the difference,you instruct for 1000 or 1500 hours get some twin time,fly night freight/135,go to a regional and fly a TP for some years and now get a interview with a major carrier with thousands of hours in the IFR system on your belt.The safety record is about the same so in the end it does not make a lot of difference.The amount of aviators from the armed forces in the USA flowing in to civil aviation is substantial as well.I think the system we have in place for the ATPL theory in Europe is better than anything out there,there is nothing wrong with studying POF to name one.It also prepares low time pilots to go in to a TR course and already be familiar with systems,colour codes on EFIS displays etc etc, if you take a guy with 250 flying hours in Florida and a FAA CPL and put him in a 737 TR course he would have a hard time to absorb a massive amount of manuals with info he has never seen before
I believe it should be both;you do 14 ATPL (on JAA level)writtens,now go out in the system and come back in 5 years or so .

Next time study a little bit harder ( 2 or 3 days) you have all the answers in the red book(gleim i think it was),no reason for scoring anything below 95%;)

Just read the other 2 post, you can do a DL course( yes with a minimum amount of study hours),if you have a ICAO ATPL you are not required to sit in on the brush up courses before the exam, you would never have to be in any classroom if you choose not to do so.

Cheers

[B200Drvr]

I see no mention is made of the flight test and oral exam. This is also the reason why they are different, it is a proven fact that you will retain more information if you have to recite it in an oral format and explain yourself. Which is what the FAA system concentrates on. Also the FAA flight test system is alot more stringent than most other ICAO countries, they concentrate on the flight portion, as at the end of the day that is what you do, Fly. We can debate the finer points for ever, bottom line is the FAA spends more time and money on research and they have found a system that works for them.

[Julian]

zakpeegoodus, yes the writtens arent that hard and they deal witho nly relevant issues rather than all the bunkum that comes with the JAA ATPLs.

However as regards your quote,

Why is the standard so embarrassingly shabby in the States

I would go do your oral exam which will be 3+ hours and the examiner will grill you, especially if he thinks you have learnt things parrot fashion and dont actually understand them! He can call an end to your flight test without you even setting foot in an aircraft at this point.

Let us know how you get on and how you find it.....

[zakpeegoodus]

I found it a joke. I did it last year...

[RVR800]

Isnt it a lot to do with provider-driven training. Vested interest dressed up as safety.

Is there any evidence as to why an integrated practical exam is insufficient to meet the needs of the job compared to many theoretical exams with rote learning of things that are mostly forgotten......

Isn't it just a set of glorified intellgence tests; although even in JAR land many people just end up learning all the answers in the question bank. Some of the answers are silly so that this practice is encouraged so that one doesnt use common-sense and get the answer wrong.

Suppose it keeps many people in work.

[apruneuk]

Z

I don't see your point. Are you complaining that you weren't "put through the mill" enough or showing off because you memorized the 1,000 questions in the bank? You do not say whether you actually went to the US and did the actual flight test as well or just did the written test in OZ.
This subject has been covered many times on this forum and you need to realize that you are comparing chalk and cheese when you compare the FAA and JAA systems. I have been through both and have come across good and poor schools on both sides of the pond. However, the FAA do not have a "FATPL" but airlines will expect at least a couple of thousand hours and a 4 year college degree before they will interview. As a result, many potential airline pilots will take their degree in Aeronautical Sciences while attending flight school. They therefore don't really need the CPL/IR/ATPL writtens to be quite as protracted as is the case in JAR Land.
As far as the writtens here are concerned you only have to look at the postings on this site requesting exam feedback questions to see that any student, given half the chance, will take the easy route. When I came out of the exam hall here there were always ground instructors debriefing us and copying down as many questions as we could possibly regurgitate. At least the Americans are up front about it and publish the question bank officially.

[zakpeegoodus]

“I don't see your point.”
I was not making a point, I was asking a question.
“Are you complaining that you weren't "put through the mill" enough or showing off because you memorized the 1,000 questions in the bank?”
I am glad I was not put through the mill. I generally struggle academically. I’m not complaining about it, I just was asking why the difference…
“You do not say whether you actually went to the US and did the actual flight test as well or just did the written test in OZ.”
I did both the FAA ATP written and the flight test in the USA. The whole process took 5 day. To obtain the equivalent European license I believe it would take around 6 months?
-Now you must admit that the FAA ATP theory is hell of a lot easier to get than the JAA theory – one exam compared to 14…
I was just wondering why there is this big difference in obtain a license that allows you to do the same thing – be it in different countries…
“airlines will expect at least a couple of thousand hours and a 4 year college degree before they will interview. As a result, many potential airline pilots will take their degree in Aeronautical Sciences while attending flight school.”
If that is so, it may go part way to explaining it.
Thanks.

[Send Clowns]

RVR800

That is in fact completely the reverse of the truth.

The providers (remember I have worked for 3 of them) in the UK are actually some of the greatest critics of the system. They were not deeply involved with the development of the ATPL exams, and it shows in exactly the problems you highlight - the instructors have to teach things that are very tough to teach and completely pointless, and they have these two characteristics because they are either irrelevant to the pilot's job or else not quite correct or accurate. The reason they are in the syllabus is the lack of consultation when it was developed.

At times there have been real problems supplying ground instructors - I became one immediately after my IR because my FTO was desperate and there was not much recruitment forecast for a few months. It is hardly a conpiracy to keep some mythical cabal of ground instructors in jobs!

[Whopity]

"The reason they are in the syllabus is the lack of consultation when it was developed."

I disagree, the reason is because nobody has ever conducted a Training Analysis of what a pilot needs to know. Without that, it is not possible to state what is or isn't relevant. The exams and courses we have now have evolved over ther years do to a lack of direction from industry, governments, ICAO etc.

The UK ATPL was based upon what the RAF did. Prior to the CAA being formed, The RAF College of Air Warfare used to vet the questions. Strangely, at about the same time as the CAA took over from the Board of Trade, the RAF scrapped most of the things that went into those exams, wheras the CAA continued to use the same material.

Many European countries see the ATPL as an academic course with flying added. Since the JAA set the rules by committee the exams have degenerated into a bag of third rate questions because of two reasons. Firstly. the people who wrote them were probably highly qualified, but not in aviating and secondly, when the questions were circulated to all JAA member States for vetting, nobody had the time to do it. A Nil return, which most were, signified that they were OK.

Whilst the FAA system is deceidedly thin, the JAA system has lost the way; it sets out to give a pilot a sound grounding in aviation but fails to achieve it.

[Whirlygig]

"The reason they are in the syllabus is the lack of consultation when it was developed."


I disagree, the reason is because nobody has ever conducted a Training Analysis of what a pilot needs to know.

Er? Isn't that essentially the same thing? Training Analyses are usually conducted via Consultation!

Cheers

Whirls

[High Wing Drifter]

the instructors have to teach things that are very tough to teach and completely pointless
Could anyone be specific about which aspects of ATPLs are not relevant to flying commercially? The only subject I can think of is a fair amount of air law which seemed to more relevant to ATC and the comms exams seem quite pointless too. Other than that, basic knowledge in the engineering, basic nav, automation, FMS, PoF 'n' Perf, physiology, psychology, ops and the relevant chunks of airlaw would I think be a reasonable grounding. Or am I missing something?

[potkettleblack]

Why the ATPL's are like they are is simply down to JAA itself and how it is comprised of the various member nations. Each one thinks that it has the "perfect" system and wants all/some of their syllabus included. At my ground school we were told that individual subjects were farmed out to certain countries who had the initial responsibility for submitting questions into the question bank. As a result you got a lot of stuff that was "old CAA style" and some very obscure questions that were very important to some people but clearly not to us. Hence we are where we are.

Unfortunately these debates never get anywhere and won't until the system is fundamentally changed and the whole process evaluated. Until there is a level playing field in the way the papers are set/marked/available for review afterwards and the really obscure/irrelevant questions removed then just grin and bear it.

[Send Clowns]

Thanks Whirls, that's what I thought when I read it. What Whopity describes is part of what I meant.

HWD

Just a couple of examples: A.C. theory (i.e. LCR circuits). Circuit symbols for logic gates. Semi-conductors. Operating principles of GPS. Some of the psychology (not because it wouldn't be useful, but because it is wrong or debatable). Number of fire extinguishers required by seat numbers (not because it is not needed in the end, but because it will also be taught for the type and configuration you fly). ETOPS (again because further training is required that covers all ATPL material and more). Colours of FMS screens, for an aircraft you either won't fly or will do a type rating on.

There are many more!

[High Wing Drifter]

Send Clowns,

I see what you mean. But somehow I'm glad I know this stuff to some degree.

[Send Clowns]

Me too - I think it makes a more rounded pilot with more confidence that he knows what is going on. However it can be hard to motivate students to learn something they don't feel they really need to know! Hence my feeling that the ground-training instructors are not responsible for the extent of the syllabus.

[FlyingForFun]

To me, the real proof of how unimportant much of the JAR syllabus is was when I spoke to American and Australian pilots who were on the course with me, converting their licenses to JAR. These guys had thousands of hours between them flying jets around the skies quite safely, and had never come across a large portion of the syllabus before.

FFF
-----------------

[PPRuNe Towers]

FFF - the real reason for the epic JAR/CAA might be to paraphrase you:

The Americans and Aussies had thousands of hours before being allowed to safely fly a jet around the skies.

Different systems evolved for different situations. None is perfect.

Rob

[mad_jock]

Its funny though when the ATPL stuff comes up.

You can go for ages with out using any much more than 20% of met. Then all of a sudden a tech problem or funny situation occurs where you remember a small snip of the theory and it helps you out.

I used to think it was pretty much all ****e apart from the stuff we learned for PPL level and day to day that level is all you really need.

But I have used enough bits and bobs for the course not to have been useless. Some of it needs consolidated and other bits removed to be included later on in ones career if required. But currently i think the course is doing a bloody good job at filtering out and stopping poeple who would struggle later on in the training from wasting large sums of money for no job.

MJ

PS i think they should have a practical morse bit put back in. 1 coms paper and 1 doing three letter idents off recordings of various beacons. Instead of the current ones.

[hazehoe]

Yes ,i agree.

But lets take these Q codes out(are they still in the syllabus?),about 6 of them are usefull the rest is really nonsense i believe.:)

[Charlie Zulu]

If you look at the JAA learning objectives for VFR and IFR communications, the morse code subject is still there as a learning objective.

However there is a note in the column next to it stating:

"Recommended training: given an aural test comprising groups of 3 letter codes sent at standard rates (approx. 5 seconds per code group, annex 10 Vol1 Ch3/3.5.3.6.3b describes typical values) Annex 10 V2 5.2.4. These procedures are not included in the JAR-FCL syllabus, however this subject is appropriate to the training required by professional pilots and may be included in future exams". (My bold)

Now how many training schools actually teach their ATPL students morse code nowadays? In the olden days (pre-JAR) the CAA had a proper Morse code exam that one had to pass.

I wish they would make the IFR Comms subject a little different to the VFR communications exam. They both seemed the same when I did them... if they put morse code, even if it is in a written format, within the IFR comms exam, then that would surely be a little better in terms of testing than it is now?

[Streamline]

Knowledge shapes the way you think.

I think it is essential that a pilot knows in detail all the important aspects of the world he works in.

To give just one example is reported braking action. A lot of science goes into that and I think it is essential that these issues are lectured in detail.

Another aspect are Aircraft Limitations. We should not just know them but understand them.....same for Aircraft Certification programs etc...

This should not be lectured within the Airlines but during ATPL groundschool.

[Send Clowns]

The school I used to work in did teach morse code. It was taught by the comms instructor, who originally taught me and I can still remember enough for my single-pilot IFR flying!

[twizzle999]

I did all my PPL Groundschool at Gamston Airport with Linda True who also does the FAA ATP, Instrument Rating etc etc.

While on the course she told me she has a 100% pass rate for the FAA courses - pretty impressive, so if you want good and, very importantly, FUN groundschool I'd suggest you call her or email her.

[email protected] or +44 (0)7798 801080

Good luck y'all!