Air Law exam - any tips, magic wands?

[kevmusic]

I've been reading Mazzy's PPl diary thread and in there, Mazzy, you say you passed the Air Law exam, no problem. Well done you! - bloody thing! I find it difficult and onerous. As I don't resume my PPL training for over a year, I'm going over the ground stuff now. I passed Air Law some time ago (with difficulty) but that's expired now & I have to do it again. So many facts to remember; & those flaming pink AICs! I can't remember vortex seperation data or factors affecting take-off distance data for the life of me :ugh:.

I'm using Thom and the OAT/Transair DVD package. What's the PPL confuser like?

Cheers,

Kev

[Happyeater]

The Confuser is great as is Airquiz.com well worth the few quid to test yourself with.

[Oxeagle]

What I found worked for me was going through each section of the Air Law syllabus (AFE book), after which I would do the questions at the end of the section. I set myself a threshold of 80%, and if I scored any lower than that I had to go back and re-read the entire chapter over and over gaina, and then re-doing the questions until I got over 80% before I allowed myself to move on to the next section. Worked for me, as I passed first time :} ! Might be worth a go. Good luck!

[JonWhitehouse]

personally I found the two best books (and only books IMHO) I needed were the Thom books, and the confuser. The confuser is very much like the real thing, if you are getting 80% or so in that, then you have a chance of passing.
The way that worked for me was to go through the textbook and excercises first till i knew them pretty well, then concentrate on the confuser till i was getting 80-90%. then just went for it. passed it 2! I sympathise though, air law is excessively difficult to apply yourself to!
Good luck!
Regards
Jon

[Aussie Andy]

The formula is:

1) Read Thom or equivalent, doing the quizzes in the back to check yourself.
2) Do the Confuser and/or Airquiz.com until you puke (i.e. until consistently getting 90% say)
3) Sit the exam before you forget any of this cr&p!

Andy :ok:

[Mariner9]

As I don't resume my PPL training for over a year, I'm going over the ground stuff now. I passed Air Law some time ago (with difficulty) but that's expired now & I have to do it again.

Over a year till you resume your ppl? Watch you dont fall into the same trap twice. You wouldn't want to do Air Law 3 times :ouch:

[Say again s l o w l y]

Don't do it too early, as already mentioned, you really don't want to do it 3 times unneccessarily.

The only way to pass air law is through sheer drudgery. The confuser etc. are OK, but don't rely on them. Many of the papers have changed specifically because of what was in the confuser.

Sorry!

[DRJAD]

There should be no 'tips' or 'magic wands'.

A grasp of how the legislation governing our activities is framed, and some rudiments of the content, is essential if we are safely to coexist in the air.

There is therefore no subsitute to reading and understanding the material. This applies to all the examination subjects. It is worth remembering, too, that, in the nature of these things, the examination syllabus represents the bare minimum of the subjects.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I find that the biggest mistake with air law is to actually expect it to make any logical sense - it doesn't: all you are learning is the result of many decades of negotiation and compromise, with reasons behind all that which really don't matter to you. Just memorise it as a series of facts and figures.

And with any of these subjects, there are some excellent CBT packages (computer based training) available and worth the money if you are struggling. I'm working through one from Oxford Air Training at the moment (inevitably, not for PPL stuff), and it beats the heck out of going through the books. Not cheap however.

G

[kevmusic]

Over a year till you resume your ppl? Watch you dont fall into the same trap twice. You wouldn't want to do Air Law 3 times :ouch:
I'm hoping to apply for the licence in autumn 2007. If I do the ground subjects between now and then they shouldn't lose currency should they?

And I agree with you, Genghis, about it not making logical sense. That's what I find so hard about making it stick.

[Mariner9]

Gospel according to Lasors...

An applicant shall be deemed to have successfully completed the theoretical examinations for the JAR-FCL PPL(A) when awarded a pass in all of the above examinations within a period of 18 months. A pass will be accepted for the grant of a JAR-FCL PPL(A) during the 24 months from the date of successfully completing all of the theoretical knowledge examinations.

You should be OK then :ok:

Why the wait for your flying training? (I admire your patience though)

[Kolibear]

ISTR that if someone tells you something, you retain about 10%, if you read it you retain more, like 20-30%, but ifyou write it down, you retain about 70% of the subject.

I think I scored about 95% in my air law and its been about 30 years since I sat an exam. I'll let you work out which method I used, it also took about 6 months to take all the exams.

[stiknruda]

I'm probably a few years younger than Kolibear :rolleyes: but all I had to do to pass the exam (first time - 90%+) was to read and re-read Thom until I felt that I knew it. It was so long ago. I'm not sure if I was converting from a US or SA PPL, but the UK was different and it required learning the stuff.

As Ghengis says, it may not make sense - but once it's passed it can become "learn and dump". Obviously, I'd not advocate that. :ouch:

[Stik]

My first post . . I just started my JAA PPL last week. I have an observation on the OAT/Transair PPL CBT package.

I bought this tution pack which describes itself as ' all you will need . . . blah blah ' on the packing, but discovered after opening and reading the software licence, that it does not constitute a full learing package. There is a specific disclaimer in the opening introduction on AirLaw too.

Whilst I was regularly scoring 100 % on the discs quiz, my first attempt on an AirQuiz AirLaw 'exam' yielded a miserable 65% . . . I got the ones I knew right ( obviously !), but I would estimate that 40% of the questions subject matter, had not even been covered in the OAT package. I took the whole lot back and bought the books, without a quibble from TransAir ( I suspect I'm not the first ? )

So the health warning is '' it doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin '' and as someone observed earlier - if you use it, read the books aswell. (In fairness to OAT, my instructor tells me that they do produce some other courses wihich apparently are excellent)

[mazzy1026]

Hi Kev - bloody hell it took me ages to see this thread, amazing what goes on when you don't look! Sorry for not posting in record speed!

A lot of good advice has already been posted here really but there is so much said about the Air Law exam, and I found that for this reason alone, I seemed to work a lot more before it. I found myself reading the entire AFE book for the second time, and to be honest, there was still a lot that didn't sink in, for example certain distances and dimensions of airspace and cloud distances etc. My best advice to you from a personal point of view is to do some flying first and get a feel for what's going on and absorb what GA is all about, that way, when you come to do the exam, you can apply some of your skills and knowledge that you have learned. That's me anyway!

Don't rely on the Confuser alone, a no-no for any exam really - but use it as a planning tool and don't enter the exam until you can answer every question in there - it doesn't take that long to go through the chapter a few times, reading the answers you got wrong.

Welcome to the forums Stik....

Best of luck and let us know how you get on,

Lee :ok:

[kevmusic]

I have to thank all you guys for your input here. I see much reading/writing/watching CBT packages ahead! :} (- that's got to be one of my favourite smilies!!)



Why the wait for your flying training? (I admire your patience though)

I have to save the money first. I have been some way there before and was forced to stop through lack of finance to complete. Not a happy bunny.

I should be ready to re-take in a few weeks time & I'll let y'all know how I do.

Kev

[Stik]

Third lesson today - did climbs, glides, and levelling off from each . This is going to sound stupid, but I ride a motorbike 25000 miles a year ... right hand back increases throttle ..... oops !! ( have to get my head around that 'soonish' I think ) Really enjoyed it though . . . and the best bit -

passed Airlaw first go ... !! Pleased as a very pleased person.

I used the Thom APM manual (after taking back the OAT discs to transair . . see above .. .) , along with practice tests on the Airquiz site, and the PPL confuser. Both these 'exam aids' were useful, the style of the confuser being closer to the real exam paper I took.

[Hampshire Hog]

I'm actually trained as a lawyer, so feel kind of qualified to answer this one!

There is no alternative to hard graft for learning law. Remember studying the highway code when you learned to drive? It's just like that, but air law is far worse!

Needless to say, I was pretty nervous about the embarrassment that would follow failing the air law exam, so I studied well. The AFE book explains most of the course in a more user friendly way than the Thom book, but Thom does the detail and you might get a question not covered in the AFE book.

I have never done a PPL theory exam without doing the confuser several times over first. There are a couple of errors in the set answers (so check against Thom or AFE if you're not sure), but if you're doing ok with the confuser, you will pass the exam.

Finally, if you are really struggling, you will probably find some bits of air law stick more than others - depending on your preferred learning style and personality type. Learn the bits that seem to come easily well - most people find the (quite practical) rules of the air easier than rules about international navigation and flight planning - and yes, you do need to do the old fashioned stuff about signals squares and flares/light signals. Then go over the more difficult stuff. Even I find the ICAO rules about international navigation obscurely written - and the CAA like to ask equally obscure questions about them!

HH

[kevmusic]

Thanks, HH, for a meaningful & useful reply (not that the others haven't been! :O) But sorry for being dim - & I've been meaning to ask this for a while - what is the AFE book?

Kev

[Bahn-Jeaux]

Just passed mine first time yesterday after 2 weeks of studying. (Thats when I got the book and started my flying training)
I started off with reading and re-reading the book until I was fed up, then putting it down for a few hours and starting again.
I then used the confuser and went through the questions.
The ones I got wrong or struggled with I noted down then went back to the book to re-read those sections again.
Followed that with an hours ground school after which I was asked if I wanted to try the test. I bit the bullet and hey presto..Air Law in the bag.

[mdc]

Kev,
This is the AFE Book:
http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/1874783136.02._PE34_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Jeremy Pratt, The Private Pilots Licence Course: Air Law, Operational Procedures, Communications: v. 2 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1874783136/qid=1144846257/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/026-7903629-2676432)

[femaleWannabe]

I felt the need to resurrect this thread as I've just started reading my air law book and can now understand why everyone dreads it so much! I'm using the AFE books but haven't bought the questions and answers yet (not decided between this and the ppl confuser - might get both), so I've just been reading the questions at the end of each section.

After 4 years of a computing degree (most boring degree on earth) I thought I'd become pretty good at absorbing boring and dry information (IT law is pretty dire) - but the first couple of pages about the "Articles" are hellish and that's just the first chapter. I have no idea how I'm going to remember all this - probably just by reading it all over and over again and doing the questions :\

Good luck to everyone studying for it!

[DRJAD]

I think you'll find that not everyone dreads it!

Anyway, if you read the texts diligently and think about what the various items of legislation are trying to achieve, you'll find that, since it is pertinent to a subject in which you are interested (aviation), you will be able to remember it.

After all, the legislation is there to enable safe flying, something we all aspire to.

Happy reading :D

[Will Hung]

I did it 9 years ago, 1 hour before excercise 14, and then it was the easiest test of them all. Has it changed dramatically since then ? The technical test was the most difficult for me, but then I guess we're all different.

[IO540]

After all, the legislation is there to enable safe flying

:confused: :confused: :confused: :yuk:

Not that amount of it, DRJAD.

[femaleWannabe]

I'm all for learning the important bits that enable safe flying, but I can't believe you actually need to know and remember a whole textbook worth! Maybe you do, I don't know yet. If it was put across better and explained why you needed to know each fact, it would make life a little easier... I learn things best by thinking them through logically, but air law seems to require you to remember a big list of facts and figures! Ah well, I'll just have to keep reading and hope it sinks in :rolleyes:

[Happy Wanderer]

At the end of the day, whether we like the material, the textbook, the theory, the way it's put over or whatever - it has to be passed!!

I passed my Air Law last Wednesday (got 95% pass rate) and I got through using the AFE book above and The Confuser only - in my view, you don't need anything else.

What I did was read ALL the chapters in Platt's book and made notes as appropriate, attempted ALL the revision questions after each chapter, and did ALL 167 Air Law questions in the Confuser. A useful (but pretty sad :8 ) exercise is to divvy up the Confuser questions to the relevant chapters in the AFE book - it's time-consuming, but gives you a good idea what areas to concentrate on and the style of Qs asked. In my experience, most of the exam questions you'll do in the paper will be very similar, if not identical, to those in the Confuser.

It worked for me!

Best of luck anyway.

HW

[DRJAD]

Exactly, Happy Wanderer, it's a requirement, so there's no point anyone agonising over it - just do it. After all, there's not a great deal in the PPL syllabus (IIRC it only runs to half of Thom Book 1), quite apart from anything else, why should these examinations, or indeed any examinations, be made easy?

(I take your point IO540, but isn't better to be equipped with too much, rather than to err on the side of too little.)

[IO540]

why should these examinations, or indeed any examinations, be made easy?

I would suggest that when someone makes a case like the above, for wholly gratuitously "sorting men from sheep", they should pick a field (no pun intended) that is less regulated than aviation.

I am all in favour of gratuitous barriers when it comes to entry qualifications to the local masonic lodge, for example. I'd also have no qualms with an ISO standard regulating the thickness range of the masons' leather aprons. And it would create thousands of jobs, in some parts of the UK.

But aviation? This is already the most anally retentively regulated piece of human activity. Does it matter if I have to be 500ft away from a cloud if above 3000ft, but below that I can go right up to it, or whatever? Nobody who actually flies gives a flying **** for half of this stuff, because it serves no purpose. A PPL not being able to go into Class A, or D without a clearance,is all good and important stuff, but the rest is rubbish which is quickly forgotten.

[Fuji Abound]

Regulations exit so we conform, without regulation there would be chaos.

Examinations exit to ensure practitioners conform to a minimum standard.

The reality is we “forget” most of the material we learn to pass the exam, but we have a better idea where to look to find what we have forgotten.

Fortunately with experience we remember enough so that we conform most of the time.

As with most exams, you will apply very little of the Air Law you learn to pass the exam. In fact as IO540 says, you will apply less compared with almost any other exam.

Learn it well, in whatever way it takes you to pass. When you have at least 500 hours under your belt you will have worked out all the important bits and nearly forgotten all the unimportant bits. However, if you ever have the tea without biscuits interview you will hesitate before admitting just how far away you were from those clouds!

:confused:

[IO540]

I think the probability of getting an interview without biscuits in which the precise vertical or horizontal cloud spacing is being questioned, is vanishingly small.

As usual one comes back to the FAA. They supervise an order of magnitude more private pilots than the rest of the known universe put together, yet they don't have planes plummeting down from the sky, despite their pilots not having to learn this nonsense. I have done both the standalone FAA PPL and a JAA PPL and there is no comparison as to the applicability of the content to actual flying. The FAA has only one written exam, JAA has 6 or 7 yet the FAA covers more "flying" stuff in its single exam than JAA does. With FAA you also get the oral so you do actually have to know most of it.

[Fuji Abound]

"I think the probability of getting an interview without biscuits in which the precise vertical or horizontal cloud spacing is being questioned, is vanishingly small."

Agreed - I think the point I was trying to make, and one on which we agree, is most of the air law is nonesense. However theys the rules we have to work by and by learning it we keep at the back of our minds those things we shouldnt do or at least shouldnt own up to doing :uhoh: .

Of course, if you did, maybe the clouds would mysterioulsy "vanish" - funny thing clouds.

[kevmusic]

The thing that really narks me about the subject of Air Law is its very vastness. Learning it is like painting the Forth Bridge: you get to the end of Thom & find you've forgotten Rules of the Air! :mad: And that's without the blasted pink AICs.

For a time-strapped individual this makes learning & retaining a long job that requires method. I am now looking at long-term learning & retaing of this information by setting up a format of learned chapter headings with trees of sub-headings & paragraphs. Hopefully this will lead me on to a memory-chain of facts which will spring to my fingertips.

Well, that's the theory........

Kev.