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DarkSoldier
10th May 2008, 16:52
As I am soon enroling to do the ATPL ground studies I am interestd to find out from those of you who have already taken them which subjects did you find most difficult.....i.e. which would need that little bit of 'extra attention'?

In fact it may be easier if you just list what you thought were the worst 5

Thx DS

bajadj
10th May 2008, 17:12
in order of hardness!!

gen nav.
met.
aeroplane performance.
theory of flight (only because of exeptionally poor instructor)
systems (not actually hard at all, just loads and loads of subjects within a subject)


most want to stick pins in your eyes boring: radio nav, air law, ops, parts of instruments.

most completely pointless (modular) VFR/IFR comms (already have a RT licence what is the point of these 22 question exams @ £62 each??)

Nearly There
10th May 2008, 17:15
Its impossible to say really, from my class some excelled in some subjects others didnt, apart from the comms papers, people finish these papers in around 3 to 6 minutes once you get to Gatwick! not heard of anyone resitting them, although Im sure someone out there has!

Dont be overwelmed by the course once you start, its looks like to much to do and its a steep learning curve, but by the end you are ready for the exams even though it wont feel like it.:{

Enjoy it, and have a social life, dont get into the habit of revising till late in the night, it does you no good, nothing worse than trying to get to sleep with formulas and info running around your head!

Dont stress about it now, whatever school your with will monitor your progress and advise accordingly.

Best of luck and enjoy.:ok:

Genghis the Engineer
10th May 2008, 17:20
A lot of it, I think, depends upon how your mind works.

Personally I enjoy anything relating to calculations and understanding how stuff works / problem solving. So, for me, PofF, Nav, P&P, M&B were all just good fun.

On the other hand, being required to use my memory a lot I struggle with - so Law and Operational Procedures were incredibly tough.

Met was somewhere in the middle - half memorisation, half understanding.


But, I know a chap who was an accountant by first profession (as you'll probably guess, I'm an Engineer) and so used to working with regulations - he found law very easy but really struggled with anything related to PofF and Nav.

G

(Disclaimer, I did CPL, not ATPL).

Whirlygig
10th May 2008, 17:29
My five : Met, Gen Nav, Aircraft Systems ('cos it was fixed wing based and I'm not!! plus it's a vast subject), Operational Procedures (again, largely irrerlevant for a helicopter) and Air Law for being tedious.

GtE is right about ones own preferences and it does depend on your own strength. A friend (a software engineer) found HPL quite difficult!

Cheers

Whirls

Dane-Ger
10th May 2008, 18:01
subjects like ops and air law were, for me, feedback subjects. After reading the notes I concentrated on the Bristol database. This left me time to concentrate on tougher subjects like Met and try to understand all the theories and principals involved in it.

I'm only half way through the ATPLS just now, but this worked for me, giving first time passes in Mod 1.

DarkSoldier
10th May 2008, 18:58
some interesting answers - thanks guys...

I did think it's a bit of a subjective question but it's always good to know what others thought...

I remember from my PPL that Met was a bit of a pain but I did (in some twisted way) enjoy Nav.

Didn't get on with Law that much despite being in the legal profession.... often others would find me asleep clutching my air law book :zzz:

daria-ox
10th May 2008, 19:00
I havent actually started my ATPL yet but I think they're a little bit hard. You write them to work for an airline so they can't be easy but Im sure that if someone really wants to pass them, they will get the motivation to learn ans pass them all without a problem.

Mohit_C
10th May 2008, 19:44
I'm currently doing my ATPLs and have done about 6-7 months. Personally I don't think any subject is hard...like some of you have said it's just lengthy and you need time to go through the subjects. Well at least I can say this up to now.:)

Piper.Classique
10th May 2008, 20:23
Worst five in order
Morse code
Morse code
Morse code
Morse code
Morse code
But this was in 1990
Do you still have to do it, or have teh CAA finally left the 19th century?

bajadj
11th May 2008, 00:59
the caa have left the 19th century!! no morse code at all in ATPL's now.

jb2_86_uk
11th May 2008, 07:33
- .... .- -. -.- ..-. ..- -.-. -.- ....- - .... .- - :ok:


.--- -... :8

RJC
11th May 2008, 08:00
Language, please!

(Decoded with the help of Wikipedia I might add!)

jb2_86_uk
11th May 2008, 08:09
coded, also with wiki :D

Morse code is a little bit "before my time"

JB

chrisbl
11th May 2008, 12:34
I averaged 92% for the 14 exams over 2 sessions and 20 months on distance learning on the back of a very full time job.

Easiest were Gen Nav, Flight planning and Human Performance
Most boring air law and Ops procedures
Most pointless Systems
Most ridiculous Comms (should be one paper)
Most interesting Met

Biggest tips - understand pythagoras and the properties of triangles ie the sum of the angles =180 and be able to perform simple transformations

a+b=C
a=?

The ATPLs are not rocket science and it is the volume of knowlege required that is the filter not the difficulty. There is a sort of conspiracy to make the whole thing more difficult than it really is.

There are not many people who having spent £3k+, are going to say it was easy.

acuba 290
11th May 2008, 17:13
@chrisbl (http://www.pprune.org/forums/member.php?u=70769)

gen nav - easiest one? what are you talking about? := :ugh: :)

Shunter
11th May 2008, 17:43
I was thinking that... So you found great circle and grid nav, conical projection charts all a walk in the park huh?

bajadj
11th May 2008, 17:57
gen nav:

Given: Position NDB (55°10´N, 012°55´E) DR Position (54°53´N, 009°58´E) NDB on the RMI reads 090°. Magnetic variation = 10°W. The position line has to be plotted on a Lamberts conformal chart with standard parallels at 40°N and 48°N. Calculate the direction (T) of the bearing to be plotted from the NDB.;

a. 272

b. 262

c. 265

d. 258

VFR comms:

What is the piece of equipment required if you are asked to "squawk 7700" ?

a. transponder

b. vacuum cleaner

c. a goat

d. I couldn't take it any longer lord i was crazed, when the feeling came upon me like a tidal wave.

gen nav clearly the easiest!!! :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Shunter
11th May 2008, 19:08
That would be funny if it wasn't so ludicrously true...

Q. The control tower has authorised you to take off, what did they say?

a) Ride that horse, cowboy
b) On your marks, get set, go
c) 12" deep pan with extra ham and a diet coke
d) Cleared take-off

VCOM and ICOM are a joke. I want my £120 back :mad:

Spit-Fire
11th May 2008, 21:07
I'm currently doing ATPL's and sat VFR/IFR Comms on friday, they are a complete joke and should be given for free or at least 2 for the price of 1 (CAA take £63 each for them).

Can I ask what your secret is if you found Gen Nav the easiest subject?

chrisbl
11th May 2008, 21:36
I was thinking that... So you found great circle and grid nav, conical projection charts all a walk in the park huh?

Not a walk but not that difficult but different things suit different people. Perhaps being that bit older as well helped. GEN Nav was bang on my average.

Whirlygig
11th May 2008, 21:49
Perhaps being that bit older as well helped
Eh? I've certainly found that age was not on my side as I am trying to learn and retain new stuff!!!! We do lose brain cells as we get older; some quicker than others admittedly!!!

Cheers

Whirls

chrisbl
13th May 2008, 21:12
I learnt my maths and geography back in the 60's and 70's and the sort of stuff you find in Gen Nav was what we did back then. PET and PSR basic stuff. Having spent a number of years in Finance numeracy skills are high. Hence the reason Gen Nav was not difficult.

Also why the memory stuff like air law and Ops were were a drag.

coodem
14th May 2008, 19:26
I too found gnav easy, once you understand the basics, its straight forward, just the same questions asked in different ways with diff figures.

I doubt it would have been so simple if I was doing it DL, like most people.

I just had a good instructor that explained it in a way that made sense to me

Rhyspiper
14th May 2008, 19:35
bajadj, Nice one!

I swear I got that question on VFR, I make sure that I never leave without my vaccum cleaner incase that my radio fails!! :D

bajadj
14th May 2008, 19:40
I know Rhys, it's a toughy!! I fell into the trap and put d as it was the longest answer! Imagine my surprise when i found out that you don't actually need to know the lyrics to Meat Loafs "paradise by the dashboard light" in case of an emergency!! apparently squawking "Bat out of hell" is an acceptable alternative!! I was so close!!!

maxdrypower
15th May 2008, 17:25
Well , being quite at home with my level of stupidity and lack of intelligence , I can say without a care in the world of what anyone esle thinks , but Im finding the first seven almost impossible , HP&L is in there , that is just the most utterly mindblowingly fxxxxxg boring subject ever thrust on mortal man . Performance is being hurled at us like poison arrows and im so behind the curve I can hardly see it . Met is one long continuous string of theories and confusing facts , POF is lovely if you can get round the maths (which I am **** at) . Ops is bollocks and mass and balance seems to be dragging like a good un .
My big bug bear is maths and as such I am really struggling (Yes I know most will say its simple ) to me it is not and it makes the work so much harder.
Still we plod merrily on

Lurking123
15th May 2008, 17:45
Met - if the dooberie increases, the thingymijig decreases. Therefore the wotsit rate also decreases meaning that the such-and-such remains the same. Obvious really. Oh, and I really don't give a Flying F*** what the weather with probably be on 4 June in Darwin.

Instrument - Gyros, I'll leave it at that. :bored: On the other hand, no. Why do they think that we all aspire to fly a bleedin' B737?

HPL - I have a degree in English and don't understand some of the question structure.

Gen Nav - actually, its OK. Get you sin/cos sorted and make sure you have a sharp pencil and a sound understanding of the CPR5.

Leezyjet
15th May 2008, 18:21
The hardest thing in the ATPL's is the volume, and sifting through what you really need to know as opposed to what is nice to know. Certain things very rarely get tested, but as it is in the syllabus, it has to be covered in the notes.

I started doing it self study, and you try to learn everything because you don't know what is tested and what isn't, but I switched to Residential as it was taking me far too long to self srudy, and also on a residential, they skip over the stuff you don't need to know, and concentrate on stuff you do. I would recommend anyone who can afford time/money to do residential rather than self study - especially if you are not very mathematically minded other wise, like I did you will struggle doing it alone, then got p#d off with it and then it will take you longer. I had self study for 18 months and only got half way through mod 1. Residential, I was all complete in 8 months !!.

Gen Nav - I failed the first time by 1 question :mad: Didn't even understand the subject then either !!. Spent the next month going through it at home by myself, and then really got to understand it, and got 95% at the 2nd attempt which was the highest out of the whole class, and I'm no brain box - I have a memory like seive !!. There are alot of formula's to remember but they are very similar, so you have to remember to use the right one to get the right answer but once you have cracked this, your half way there - te rest is CRP-5.

Met is pretty straight forward, although by no means easy but it's the one subject you WILL use every single day in your career, so best to try and understand it. I found that remembering the frontal diagram and the ELR/SALR/DALR diagrams and then sketching them down quickly on the rough paper once the examiner says "go" can answer almost 50% of the questions just from those 2 little things !!.

PofF is pretty tough to understand at first, but once you understand the lift/drag formula then the rest kind of falls into place.

Air Law is boring, same with Ops. Just lots of facts and figures to remember.

Mass and Balance - Easy - only about 3 things to remember and alot of them are in the book you get in the exam anyway ;)

Instruments, again some technical bits, but if you sift through all the rubbish, there isn't a whole heap to remember.

AF/S - fairly straight forward although the electrics part is pretty complicated.

Radio Nav - boring, not too much to remember.

Flight Planning - Pretty easy. Just remember the ETP/PSR formula's, and almost all the rest is in your Jepp !!.

Performance can be tricky, not too difficult but is quite technical and alot of terms and formulas are very similar leading to confusion

Comms - waste of time and money. Enough said.

Once they are all over you will wonder what it was you worried about. They really are not as hard as you build them up to be in your mind.

:ok:

JB007
16th May 2008, 08:19
Once they are all over you will wonder what it was you worried about. They really are not as hard as you build them up to be in your mind.

Very true Lee. I found, although thought it would be the other way round at the start, the real test of your character was the next bit...

CPL/IR/Interview/Type-rating...:eek:

Laroussi
16th May 2008, 09:09
Thank you Leezyjet, your comments are most welcome and appreciated, although very hard to digest at the moment.

I've just started with CATS distance learning and boy does it look a HUGE task from where I'm standing.

I'm starting to think maybe residential is the way to go.

Treeshaver
16th May 2008, 11:38
the biggest joke is that when you get on to propper airline flying you realise that you have no reason to know 99% of the crap you learn for these exams!

When have I ever / will I ever say for example "hmmm, bit of fog today, must be a high environmental lapse rate."
"hmmm, better make sure on this approcah to check that the approach path lighting is spaced every 10 m, with a stop bar every 300m"
"hmmm, are the registration markings on this aircraft the required 30cm high?"
In reality you need to know very little, which is why I think the Americans have for once got it right. As far as I know they dont need to learn half the crap we JAA pilots need to. Very sensible indeed.

Treeshaver
16th May 2008, 11:40
What frequency band is a vor? Hf. lf, etc?

Why the fook would I ever care about that!? Just dial the number on the chart into the flaming nav box!

youngskywalker
16th May 2008, 12:54
Sadly even the FAA are not imune to having to learn pointless crap. For the oral part of my FAA multi/IR I had to learn all the frequency bands for all the NAV and Comm kit. No big deal in comparison to the JAA crap mind you.

Artie Fufkin
16th May 2008, 18:22
Sometimes a good test of common sense though. We got a question in our Systems exam about something that no one in the class could remember seeing in our notes / mentioned by the instructor which caused a mass scratching of heads in the exam room.

Like everyone else I didn't know the answer, but remarkably, I was the only one to spot that it was sandwhiched between questions on ignition systems, and only answer "(c) Magneto" had anything to do with ignition systems! :ugh:

BTW I thought Gen Nav was easy too! One third CRaP 5 questions; easy. One third instruments questions; small bank of feedback covered every single one. Final third proper questions; listened to what my instructor said came up regularly and I had an easy peasy pass.

Leezyjet
16th May 2008, 20:28
I found, although thought it would be the other way round at the start, the real test of your character was the next bit...

CPL/IR/Interview/Type-rating...

Well mine is starting soon, and if you have read my other thread you will see that I'm already facing a test of character and I haven't even started the flaming things yet !! :hmm:

Artie Fufkin

Reading your post there, I remembered another reason why I failed Gen Nav the first time round, I'd concertrated so much on the actual Nav stuff, I'd forgotten that there were elements of instruments in the exam too, and hadn't learn't those bits or even the gen knowledge bits thoroughly enough.

:\

Nashers
18th May 2008, 16:30
agree with lee. the main one i had a hard time with was gen nav. not my best subject. needs quite a bit of work but dont forget the other exams.

met has alot of stuff in it to cover but for me its just boring so took longer to learn.

Principles of flight is another one that u just want to get over and done with.

flight planning is also another big subject but very very simple. alot of answers are in the jeps which you take in anyway.

performance is pretty simple once you get the basics in. not much more difficult than the ppl graphs.

instraments was pretty interesting some good stuff to know

air law and ops was loads and loads of numbers and facts. i was quite lucky as the tutor had a good way of teaching it.

mass and balance very simple to learn. infact i just spent 2 days revising the subject as there are only like 4 things to remember and i got 100%.

IFR/VFR comms a bloody waste of the 1 hour i spent revising them and the 62 quid i paid for EACH, just for the privilage of sitting in a room colouring in boxes for 3 minutes...

F117A
20th May 2008, 14:30
Hardest 5 - Instruments / MET / POF / PERF / Gen Nav

Thw worst 2 are definately Inst and MET.. The stupid things you should know about gimbals and gyroscopes is pointless but they drive you crazy.

johnc21
6th Oct 2008, 20:58
I like this thread - some nice views here.

I recently got my hands on all Jeppesen ATPL manuals to get a head start on the mass of information to take in.

It would be great to know what really needs to be known and what doesn't.It is so difficult to decide what is needed and what is not.

Anyway I guess I will just read everything and I will have to go residential at some point anyway...

Artie Fufkin
6th Oct 2008, 22:44
Reading the above posts on VFR comms made me laugh.

Would you believe me if I said I have met someone who admitted to failing VFR comms?

bsal
6th Oct 2008, 22:49
I'm half way through the ATPL's doing distance learning, and so far Gen Nav has been the most difficult, Air Law was very boring but not hard, Airframe/Systems is such a vast subject but very intersting so isn't too bad. Instrumentation was easy enough and Met is my best subject so I really enjoyed that one. As everyone else has said both Comms exams are an automatic pass. Mass and Balance is basic enough.The first time I opened the boxes and saw all 14 books :eek: was a bit overwhelming but all in all the ATPL's aren't that difficult once you get stuck into them.

L'aviateur
7th Oct 2008, 08:07
The scary thing with the General Nav, it's at a fairly basic level compared to what it could be at.

Rj111
11th Oct 2008, 15:55
Is there anyone who has done their ATPL exams who was also a former IT person and has done a microsoft MCSE exam?

Bit of a long shot i know, but if you have done how would you compare the two? As i have done many of the latter it would be interesting to gauge the ATPL with something i know.

Shunter
11th Oct 2008, 17:19
I have a load of IT certifications, including an MCSE (which many find highly amusing given my extremely low opinion of MS products). The only similarity between the 2 exams is the fact that they're multiple choice.

Rj111
11th Oct 2008, 17:58
Well i was thinking workload really. :8

Shunter
11th Oct 2008, 20:07
Some are easy, some are hard. VFR/IFR comms are a joke, General Nav is tough, stuff like Air Law/Ops is just brute force fact regurgitation (how many fire extinguishers per pax, vortex spacing etc..). Some require decent maths, some just require you to pull the answers from the CAPs provided, plot distances or extract specific figures from airport plates. They're all a little bit different.

Lazy Gun
12th Oct 2008, 17:04
Mmm lets see...

Ops... I found it difficult to read since it almost put me to sleep.

Airlaw- it really DID put me to sleep. I feel lucky, it could have been a coma. In retrospect, Airlaw aught to have a health warning on the front cover.

PoF- not so bad but I found in the exam the CAA were really trying to mess with my head.

Met- not so bad. Some of it I found fairly interesting.

Gen Nav- dare I say it... I also found that one easy but I am a sick person and I like maths. :}

Comms - a joke. Why the hell do we have to do the comms if we already have an RT license anyway!? I thought comms required a special mention since it was a complete waste of my time.

Regards,

LG

sleepingpilot
12th Nov 2008, 08:36
Guys, if you study, you will pass. Thats the end of it.
Got em all in the first try and an average of 93% from all 14 of the courses.

I think the ones you should be afraid of are the ones you need to memorize, ops, airlaw, HPL etc. Cause once you "LEARN" and "UNDERSTAND" the ones that need to be learned and understood then its just like a block of legos, you know what you need to do, just solve the dam question.

And yes you DO need to learn all this stuff even if you dont use it at all because there should be a line of respect for you job and its history. If you think its just too much and you dont need to know it then choose a different job. If not then everyone would be a pilot. Actually I dont get those pilots (or wannabees) that complane about the workload and too much info bull** cause its actually a whole lot of fun knowing/learning all that stuff.

Another TD
12th Nov 2008, 22:07
I enjoyed studying the ATPL's. Its all about learning a new trade. I wish to spend the rest of my working life doing this and therefore I find it interesting enough for me to want to know as much about aviation as possible,yes some subjects are a pain but knowledge is power and it's better to have an understanding than to be in the dark (shame morse is not tested anymore, that was tough in the CAA exams but what a sense of achievement and you do need it in the IR test). Somebody in this thread stated that the systems exam was pointless!!! Do we really wish to spend 14 hours in an A380 flying across the oceans and not have any idea how it works. You should try the 3 month Boeing 777 systems course that I'm on at the moment now that is interesting or am I just sad :)

sleepingpilot
12th Nov 2008, 22:32
loll
no you just love your job..

Mikehotel152
13th Nov 2008, 11:04
Hey Sleepingpilot, did you sit behind me in the exams? We got the same percentage...:suspect:

In all seriousness though, all subjects are reasonably easy to learn. They're just a bugged to remember a few months after you pass them!!!:rolleyes:

CY333
15th Nov 2008, 12:38
i am doing the distance learning and gen nav=nightmare.Have not done the met yet but honestly i am having hard time with nav.Thinking to take up extra help on it.Especially great circles.

tbavprof
15th Nov 2008, 13:38
Apparent drift of gyros? WTF?-it's only apparent if you are a stationary observer on the Earth's surface. Why the hell is this essential knowledge for a pilot?

Doug Down
29th Dec 2010, 23:17
Hey CY33, I am exactly where you were in 2008 and was just wondering how you got on . . .

Is it all in the past now??

Sciolistes
30th Dec 2010, 07:01
And yes you DO need to learn all this stuff even if you dont use it at all
Nearly all the ATPL knowledge is either required or useful later on. OK maybe no grid navigation, but pretty much everything else.
Apparent drift of gyros? WTF?-it's only apparent if you are a stationary observer on the Earth's surface. Why the hell is this essential knowledge for a pilot?
Because without knowing it one wouldn't understand how to navigate with a DI or with a failed IRS in attitude mode.

shocko1
17th Feb 2011, 16:42
ha ha ha ha brilliant:)

CAT3C AUTOLAND
17th Feb 2011, 19:05
The bloody lot were a piece of cake :E.