Is it me.. atpl met

[345789]

I find myself asking, getting my head around some of this atpl met jargon can be quite boring, and therefore my interest levels to self-study it are low.

I am getting through some of it but not quite at the pace I had anticipated. I am using AFT notes.

To be honest I would hedge my money against flight planning/ nav. Or anything with some concepts of mathematical spirit. But I continuously hear people around me saying met should be the easiest subject by far..

The real test will be when I sit the exam in a few days..

[Tarq57]

Your profile info/post history reveals not too much, so forgive me for asking, but are you actually interested in the subject, from a practical standpoint?

It is, after all, the environment we all live in, and pilots work (and play) in.

I was lucky in that I learned about basic weather theory starting at age 12 when I realized I could probably afford to start taking gliding lessons, soon. Dry adiabatic lapse rates became a breeze by 13. I've since always been interested in Met, because it is a daily occurrence to watch theory meet reality.

[Howard Hughes]

I have always found Met and Air Law most practical and useful of the ATPL subjects!:ok:

[Wally Mk2]

Agree 'HH' Met was/is useful (prolly the most useful) but really when it all boils down to it the ATPL exams contents you use little in ones day to day flying job.
All the stuff you need to know is in a few dozen pages of the AIP, the A/C's QRH/FCOM's & the Co's Sop's. The rest you can leave at the training college on yr way out:-)

Hands up those that have an ATPL or Senior Com Lic (back in the good 'ole days) for yonks & could pass all the exams now? Here's the number 5 delete one number at a time if you think you can:E


Wmk2

[lilflyboy262]

And then we have to go and prove that we can speak english after taking these tests...

[PLovett]

And then we have to go and prove that we can speak english after taking these tests...

Well its obvious that those who set the questions can't. :ok:

[waren9]

To be fair, I also found the topic about as much fun as eating dry weet-bix. I studied most of my CPL theory in a classroom and had a very good teacher for the subject, so I came out with a reasonable mark. I self studied for the ATPL exam.

As Wally/Tarq57 says, 90% of what you eventually know is experience/local knowledge, combined with a few pages of the AIP/rule books.

There's not really an easy way around the exam mate. Find a quiet place sit down and learn what you need to know to pass it. Its the tip of a fairly big iceberg.

[MetGirl]

Slightly off topic sorry, but do you guys think there would be much demand for a block ATPL Met course? I know there's other outfits around that do some of the other subjects, but you don't often see them specifically advertising Met (in NZ at at least) - which makes me think there's not the demand for it.
I've been thinking for a while I'd be keen to run a course (have the qualifications, just need to get the rep for getting people through the exam).

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

Hi Wal,

I can actually remember doing my CPL's in Nov '65 at the Bondi surf Lifesaving Club Pavilion - there were 5 exams - Engines and Airframes were separate then - later combined to Aircraft Performance and Operation, I think was the new title.

We were asked to 'tick' the Met exam for the degree of pass required - 'CPL or SCPL'.

I ticked SCPL - and got it - whilst my mate was not quite so confident....
But we both got the 5 in the one sitting.:ok:

And, you're quite right - again - its something we use everyday in our 'hard working Australian Family environment.......OOOpps Is that a fog or a BIG CB I see ahead?? Alternate...alternate....:}:}

But honestly, MET is probably the only one I could give a rats about now....and certainly the only one I could even read, let alone 'pass'....or was that ...'pass on the lot'..!!
The rest is all 'mechanical' now.....

Cheers:ok:

[Wally Mk2]

...........geeeez 'grifo' how many wings where on ya planes mate WAY back then?:E:E
I think if the met man had windows in his office he could forecast much-a-betta:)
The funny thing about Met right thru from Pvt to ATPL is that it's still a cloud, it's still fog etc......never could distinguish between a pvt cloud or a commercial one:E

Luv the old stories Griffo, keep 'em comin':ok:



Wmk2

[sixtiesrelic]

Like Griffo, I sat for my CPL subjects at about the same time.
I was all full of enthusiasm about Met and looked for clouds to identify them.
Remember the altitudes they reckoned mid level and high level clouds lived. Mid level at I think, thirteen thousand and high level ALL the way up to thirty FIVE thousand feet! ... saw the tops of CBs in the late afternoon orange sunlight at seventy thousand a few years later in the September afternoons at Moresby.

The Super Connie was the biggest and most complicated aeroplane the College of Civil Aviation course taught us about back then. IT had precessable gyros that you could set the amount of precession in.

The plane I started on had six wings Wally ... four around me with lots of struts and wires and two little ones down the back near the tail. Didn't have a wireless set or and artificial horizon, so we kept our eyes peeled outside all the time and got to love 'up there in the cool clean air' and get the thrill of coming down through the inversion ans smell the earth again... coal and wood smoke, wattle flowers and gum trees.
Taxiing ... you'd get the delicious waft of burn't 80/87 avgas and Vacuum Greyband oil from time to time.

With all the Met exams I passed, I was full bottle till the day after the exam and then geostrophic and cyclostrophic forces slipped out because I wasn't allowed to sit and make weather forecasts before a flight. I had to get one from MET and use only THAT for my flight planning.

Of course we started smellin' a rat with the forecasts when we got some experience and carried extra fuel because WE reckoned 'fog was gunna form for sure with the wet and dry bulb being that close at this hour' even though the Met blokes weren't forecasting any. That knowlege came from crusty old pilots who taught us what they knew. You know ALL about that at PH in winter Wally.

Since I forgot all the big words in Met decades ago, I've mentored a couple of young keen pilots and they've asked the same old questions I had and they can't believe it when I answer, 'Can't remember... never used it".

Met exams give us a smattering of useful knowledge which we build on, but it's just another way of seperating the slow learners from the fast ones and the keen from the 'I thought I might like to be an airline pilot one day' schoolboys.
It's just a step in the ladder to the higher license because ya've gotta pass something to prove you are smart.

[Capt Fathom]

Once upon a time....

Late one chilly winters night, I was in the Briefing/Met Office at Brisbane Airport preparing for a flight.

The Met boys were in the process of changing shifts.

The arriving Met Officer walks through the door and says..'Evening all. A bit of fog out there!'

Met Man behind the counter looks up in surprise and responds with.. 'There is?'

Right. I might just go out side and take look for myself!

Classic.

[Arm out the window]

In one of the classrooms at the flying school I last worked at, there's a big rectangle drawn on one window in Chinagraph labelled "TAF", and a smaller one next to it labelled "TTF". They would be at least as accurate as the official bureau forecast!:)