Toughest ATPL Subject???

[Vone Rotate]

Hi all,

I was very pleased when the postman came a couple of weeks ago... 92% Performance, 93% Principles of Flight and 99% for AKG.

Started my next phase straight away... Radio Nav seems ok... Comms, no problems, Air law, ok ish just very boring then I got to Instruments and Gen Nav..:ugh::ugh:.

Is it just me or do these two especially gen nav seem a lot more involved/ harder than the others??

I plan on taking the exams in June with a week at London met in May but right now Gen nav seems a bit out my depth...

What subjects did you guys and girls find tricky???

By the way good luck to all who should get March's results next week:ok:

[SAA]

Many would say Gen nav, but personally I found Met the hardest.

Good luck:ok:

[coodem]

Gen Nav very simple once you understand the concept. I too found Met the hardest. Easy once you understand all the basic concepts. but a lot of them

[captain_rossco]

Easy???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[flightlevel1985]

I sat Met, Instruments, PF, Coms, HP and AGK in Feb and they all seemed straight forwards enough (although the post man may say different next week :\) Started Phase Two, Air Law is boring, as per usual and Gen Nav seems really hard upto now. I seem to understand the stuff, but the example questions in the Oxford books seem really heavy going and confusing ...

[Whirlygig]

Instruments isn't too bad and I had a very good tutor for the brush-up course. Gen Nav is time-pressured in the exam so you need to be on best and intimate terms with your whizz-wheel and there were aspects which I found hard. Met similarly but again, the tutor for the brush-up course did well to get across some of the principles!!! :} I also found AGK difficult because the subject is vast and I don't have a mechanical leaning! And neither have I ever flown a fixed wing aircraft!!

Different strokes for different folks - if I went on % marks, then the hardest would have been Ops Procedures! :\

Cheers

Whirls

[Mikehotel152]

I'd say Gen Nav too, but only really because of the time pressure. Why on earth give you only 2 hours for what amounts to a 3 hour paper? What's the point?

Contrast this with the 30 mins you are given for the two Comms exams and hour for Human Performance. It took 3-4 minutes to do each Comm exam and 20 to do Human - and that's doing it twice just to be sure. :rolleyes:

I found Met ok, but then I did do Met during the first year of my Geography Degree, so I might have had a head-start.

[PS: I'll stand corrected on the time given for the Gen Nav exam. Suffice to say that you don't get long enough by half!]

[clown82]

Largely depends on your learning style and personality. I personally think Meteorology is a tough one. First of all because it's large en second because I find the theories incoherent.

Others have no problems at all with the MET subject but are having difficulties with Principles of Flight, Radio Navigation or Air Law because they can not see the "logic" of it.

By the way, General Navigation is based on a few basic principles. As said earlier, get very close friends with the Flight Computer and Bristol. Get to know the basic principles, i.e. high school geography plus the extras like Grid / Polar Stereo / Lambert / Mercator projection and related terms like constant of the cone, convergence.

[acuba 290]

don't say that Human Performance is very easy and enough time! For you, english speaking maybe yes, but it is very hard to read and remember all this special english words, i never saw before in my life... So it is ok, that they give enough time, it is really hard for non-native english speaking people

[Mikehotel152]

I sympathise acuba! Any of the exams are far more difficult for non-English speakers because of the grammar mistakes in the questions. IMHO this is the CAA being illiterate and/or deliberately obtuse. :rolleyes:

It's bad enough if you do speak fluent English, let alone if English is your second or third language!

[n90bar]

Gen Nav, without a shadow of a doubt!

[tupues]

canbarteen

[Captain_djaffar]

I will agree that General NAV is a bit tricky,

I dont know why I found the Inertial navigation systems part quite bulky and heavy subject.:*

MET in second position.

The rest of subjects can be dealt more easily with from my point of view.;)

[hobbit1983]

Gen Nav gets my vote - damned Mercator charts....

Possibly Instruments & Met in second place.

[acuba 290]

hobbit1983 (http://www.pprune.org/forums/member.php?u=108514)
exactly in that following +1 ;)

[Doug Down]

Hi and thanks for your comments - I have just started ATPL and in the 2nd week feel like I'm wading chest high in treacle - well and truly stuck in General Nav.

I now know that this is perhaps the worst subject - the information just doesn't seem to want to go in - however many times I read it, the questions in the progress tests stump me every time.

Convergency / Mercator / Plotting / Scale / Lamberts / Oblique Mercator / Variation / Rhum Lines etc etc

Is this level of information included on purpose for any special reason apart from to cause frustration??

Jeez :{

Here's looking forward to the smily subjects.

:)

[captainsuperstorm]

I struggled a little with Nav and met.long time ago...
all Passed, but in my point of view, the hardest was "how to find a job"paper, which is the last paper you have to pass when you receive this BS of blue license from these lazy chaps at the gatwick CAA.

[zondaracer]

I Personally found gen nav easy but I have an extensive math background, I was the first one out of the exam around the one hour ten minute mark, but I walked out near last in meteorology and I thought I failed, but was happily surprised with a passing mark. To each his own

[BFLIGHT]

Doesn't sound as though these get any easier. For me, God Bless the instructors at Oxford ATS ground school. I would never have understood half of it without their excellent teaching. Mind you that was in 1973! Not a hope of passing now, since I am retired. Good fortune and may all the right answers come to you guys (and gels).

[Halfbaked_Boy]

Found Gen Nav easy.

Operational Procedures... A nightmare.

[Abbey Road]

Toughest ATPL Subject???Actually, it may be more worthwhile discussing 'Most Pointless ATPL Subject'. And there is plenty ........ :rolleyes:

[chrisbl]

Gen Nav has the potential to be tough but I found my best friend was Pythagoras. If you could develop a right angled triangle then usually the problem is solved pretty easily.

[Lightning Mate]

Actually, it may be more worthwhile discussing 'Most Pointless ATPL Subject'. And there is plenty ........

Since I teach a lot of this stuff, go on then..............

[Mr Grimsdale]

Found Gen Nav easy.

Operational Procedures... A nightmare.

Ditto, that and Air Law. Both important but my god, mind numbingly dull and in places a bit contradictory.
Overall, the ATPL exams were a damn sight more interesting than the main job at the moment.:ok:

[CAT3C AUTOLAND]

The bloody lot were a piece of cake, and why did you get 1 wrong in AGK? However, I thought there were 50 questions?

:E

[Lightning Mate]

and why did you get 1 wrong in AGK?

Sorry - there is no JAA professional examination titled AGK!!

You have a fervent imagination, so I wonder what examination you thought you sat!

[BitMoreRightRudder]

Aircraft General Knowledge?

[D O Guerrero]

It's by no means the hardest, but the one that can :mad: you up the most is Mass and Balance. One question is worth something like 15% of the marks if I recall correctly, so make sure you get it right!
Other than that, I thought performance was quite tricky...

[Lightning Mate]

BitMoreRightRudder:

Aircraft General Knowledge?

Doesn't exist my friend.

I think you mean Airframe and Systems.

Trust me - I know a little about this stuff........

If you don't believe me then PM.

[BitMoreRightRudder]

I seem to remember one of the subjects being referred to as AGK when I did the exams but that was a while ago.

[CAT3C AUTOLAND]

Lightning Mate, on my ATPL exam results sheet its actually called Airframe, Systems and Power plant.

You missed a bit off. ;)

[greenslopes]

U.K ATPL if there be such a beast anymore, or has it been rolled into JAR?
I've achieved the UK ATPL and Australian ATPL, and found the UK version required a much greater depth of knowledge with stricter penalties for not passing first/second attempt. Some of the subject knowledge was quite removed from aviation in the 'modern' era. Moving plots determined off a sea chart, mathematical formulae for compass correction, knowing the required display for a tethered ballon to name but a few.
Can't say any were a piece of cake. I do remember during my nav exam a candidate beside me having a brain fart and sitting dumbfounded for 15 minutes...... poor sod!

[Brakefire]

Met... lots of work, harder than the rest I felt:\

[Captain-Random]

Studying Mod 2 with Bristol now and i'm finding POF a bloomin' challenge to say the least :ugh:

[BoeingDreamer]

POF was the hardest in my opinion, was questions and answers that could be very tricky to understand, half of it because of the way the sentences were formulated. English not being my first language it could be tricky.

Gen.Nav and Met seemed hard when started, and to my teachers and my own shock I get 100% on both of them!

Looking back at all the exams, probably could have done better on them all, but getting 1 to 3 wrong per exam was not that bad either.

Airframes and Systems was also pretty hard, because of the 4 subjects you need to study. But if you study enough, they all are relatively "easy"

The QB does help, but understanding is of importance!