Mass and Balance exam.

[olicana]

Am I right in thinking at the start if the Mass and Balance you are given a copy of the CAP 696 booklet?
If this is the case does the one given to you have all the definitions of aircraft load/mass states I.E dry operating mass etc as the one issued by Bristol Ground School does.

[chrisbl]

Download it from the CAA website and see for yourself.

[sion22]

CATS Online Demo (http://www.cranfieldaviation.com/go/demo/)


CAP 696: Civil Aviation Authority JAR-FCL Examinations: Mass and Balance Manual | Publications | CAA (http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=33&pagetype=65&appid=11&mode=detail&id=1011)

[Keith.Williams.]

You will be given a standard CAP 696 for the M&B exam, a standard CAP 697 for the Flight Planning exam and a standard CAP 698 for the Aircraft Performance exam. But they will probably be tatty old things because £63 per exam (£66 from 1st of April) isn't enough to get you a new copy!

If you want to know more about the exams, including what you can and cannot take into them, just go into the CAA website and look it up. The Instructions To Candidates will tell you all about it.

[M.D.Heli]

My training notes regarding Pax standard mass classification, states:

MASS VALUES FOR PASSENGERS AND BAGGAGE
An operator is required to calculate the mass of passengers (PAX) and their baggage using either
actual PAX and baggage masses or by using standard masses given in three tables.

Note:
These tables are not printed in the CAP 696 document, so they must be remembered for the examination.

The CAP 696 I've printed from the CAA web site has these tables. Does the CAP 696 you are given in the exam have them or not?

If it has them I can free up some much needed brain space! :\

[Ronand]

Don't worry to much about M&B it's probably the easiest subject after Coms....

[Rodders the great]

Is it though? Surely with there only being ( I think) 20 questions you have very little margin for error? 3 mistakes and your screwed!

I'm ok with mass and balance, apart from those horrible calculation of max traffic load questions. I NEVER get the right answer! Lets hope I never have to do them in real life or there will be aircraft taking off overwieght for sure!

[Ronand]

When I did MB in 2008 I got 100 with barely studying for it.... all those Max weight questions were pretty good explained on the bristol database....

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

"Lets hope I never have to do them in real life or there will be aircraft taking off overwieght for sure!"

Please work on them. :}

[poss]

Last months exam I found the cap supplied to be in very good condition, it was almost new. I'd say don't get complacent about the subject because it is one that can catch you out if you forget a step in your calculations. Good luck :ok:

[Keith.Williams.]

M.D.Heli,

Previous versions of the CAP 696 did not include the standard masses. This is probably why your notse advise you to learn them.

But following complaints from the FTOs who said it is pointless memorising such stuff, the CAA agred to put this material into the new version.

The CAPs that you will get in the exam is exactly the same as the ones that you can download form the CAA website.

[olicana]

Thanks for all the info.

[Bearing 123]

M&B and Comms are by far the easiest and a great way to get you grade point average across the board in the nineties. Don't worry about it! Nothing too tricky in there.

[Rodders the great]

quoute:

" "Lets hope I never have to do them in real life or there will be aircraft taking off overwieght for sure!"

Please work on them. http://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/badteeth.gif

Nah, I'll be fine, they have dispatchers to work all that stuff out these days don't they!

[Dane-Ger]

Don't be fooled by M&B, I was certain I had passed with 100% after the exam only to end up with 82%, my second lowest score.

You only need a couple of questions wrong to be in the danger zone, and the CAA have this wonderful tendency to try and be sneaky with their questions (especially if it is a four point one).

It is not difficult, but it is by no means a coms exam.

[Artie Fufkin]

Nah, I'll be fine, they have dispatchers to work all that stuff out these days don't they! Incorrect!

Every once in a while you have to do a manual loadsheet, I do them roughly once every 2 weeks or so.

The first time I had to do it was on a flight which, for reasons that are too lengthy to explain here, absolutely 100% had to push on time. The computers went down, the dispatcher brought the figures to the flight deck, the captain handed them to me and told me I had 3 minutes.

M&B exam was 18 months in the past and the only other time I had looked at loadsheets was during a 30 minute company training course when I had joined about a few months before.

As Frankly says, work on them. You'll thank yourself one day.

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

Absolutely Artie.

Rodders, what happens when you do a charter to the middle of nowhere where your regular dispatchers are a distant memory, who does the loadsheet? (please don't say the Captain :})

Or as often happens to us, there's a performance restriction, the weather's gash so you've uplifted a bit more fuel, you've got a theoretical full load waiting to get home, can you now take all the pax? It's wise to know in the planning stage, the dispatcher aint going to be with you at the planning.

I know it's a bit of a tangent, but that's what you'll be doing in the day job. :)

[Rodders the great]

Look i'm not going to crash a plane due to it being overweight!! Was talking slightly tongue in cheek. Actually I am ok with them when using a loadsheet, as it sets it all out for you nicely. Its the questions when all you have is a pen, paper and calculator which get me.