Atpl flight planning suspended

[farmer dan]

hi all,
Long time listener, first time caller. So I just checked the ASL website and apparently the Atpl flight planning exam cannot be sat until further notice. Anyone got any info or ideas about this?
Thanks,
Farmer Dan

[glenb]

I have heard some pretty wild rumors going around about this one. I rang someone about it, in CASA this morning. Quite simply i believe it is a technical issue. NOTHING more, nothing less.

[diddly squat]

The old, "Gone Tech" issue.... Pull the other one. :ok:

[Wanderin_dave]

Looks like Flight Planning is up and running again - Home - Tasman 3 Customer Portal (http://aslau.aspeqexams.com/)

[Tiger 77]

I believe CASA were uploading the new exam questions which are based on the Boeing 767. It just took a few hours to get the new exams in the system. About time they stopped using the 727 for this exam.

Cheers,

Tiger.

[NIK320]

What are you basing that on?
CASA (http://www.casa.gov.au/scripts/nc.dll?WCMS:STANDARD::pc=PC_90074) still list the 727 performance manual for that exam.
Could make for an awkward time if they are 767 questions.

[compressor stall]

They were going to a 767 when I did mine. And that was the mid 90s!

[kalavo]

I honestly don't understand this fascination with the exam changing from a B727 to a B767... the aircraft type is irrelevant, it's the concepts they're checking you understand. They could cross out B727 and call it the Echo MkXII... it won't change the fact you burn a different amount of fuel for normal, 1-inop or depressurised.

[Capt Fathom]

When I did Flight Planning, half the exam was based on the Super King Air, which was quite practical. The other half was based on the Echo Mark ??
Or was it the Seagull?

[Oktas8]

I honestly don't understand this fascination with the exam changing from a B727 to a B767

It's quite simple. Adult learners like to see the relevance of what they are learning. If you can provide that, learning outcomes improve. That is, students learn more stuff and they remember it better. It's a measurable fact.

Now we all know that the content of ATPL Flt Planning has only passing relevance to real life. But if the aircraft is at least one that is being used in Australia, there is a certain interest along the lines of "I might fly this one day". Or at least "I might fly an aircraft like this one day". The B727 fails on both criteria; the B767 is arguably more contemporary and matches what's in the Systems syllabus.

The A320/A330 is probably the best option for the ATPL syllabus, not least because - I'm told - Airbus offer the technical specifications for free, so students wouldn't have to spend $50-ish buying the utterly & mindlessly irrelevant Boeing B727 book. (Whose pages are reasonably soft and quite absorbent, which gives it its one and only known use outside CASA.)

[xxRED BARONxx]

Tiger do you actually know this is correct or are you just speculating...?

[xxRED BARONxx]

Just called CASA and they said the B727 is still used for flight planning and I was the third person to call up and ask whether the B767 had taken its place.

[Volumex]

Damn it man - this is the internet. We are not interested in the truth.
Actually ringing up and finding out data from a real breathing humanoid is just not right.

Get back into your e-box, and don't go trying to find the real answer - we are hear to argue about crap until we forget what we are arguing about.



Is green = sarcasm on here, or is it just a BT thing?

[Roger Greendeck]

It's a BT thing.

[Checkboard]

When I did Flight Planning, half the exam was based on the Super King Air, which was quite practical. The other half was based on the Echo Mark ??

The Echo Mark IV and King Air were from the CPL exams when I did them.

... As I said on the other thread, if you are flying a 767 (or even a 727) you will be using computer flight plans these days - so both are "unsuitable".

Perhaps they should base the exam on a jet GA type - something in which you are still expected to manually plan - something like the Westwind.

[NZPilot91]

I believe it was 'offline' for about 3 weeks due to cheating. Exam answers were being passed around and had landed in the hands of a CASA worker. The exam has been redone with new questions (still 727) and back online.

[cooolridge]

I was told by a reliable source that CASA suspended ATPL Flight Planning because someone was caught in the exam with cheat notes containing exact CASA Flight Planning questions and answers.

Because of this CASA had to take the exam off the system for a week and put new questions and answers in because if one person had exact questions and answers for the exam then many more could.

As a result of this a reputable ATPL theory school which usually had 50% of its classes in Flight Planning pass had only 3 out of the 36 students of the last course pass this exam with the new questions and answers. So the pass rate of 50% of 36 students has gone down to only 8% of 36 students. This means that the new exam has incorrect answers of the questions given or the new exam is far too hard.


If this is going to continue to be the pass rate for the new ATPL Flight Planning exam than Australian Aviation won't have any more ATPL pilots which might be a good thing for CASA in the short run because their going to get a lot more money for people re-siting this exam but bad in the long run for the obvious reasons.

If anyone has had any experience with this new exam please feel free to post on this forum or pm me.

[Dangnammit]

If you are properly trained and taught how to work out an answer, then it should not be a problem. Bad luck if you fail, chin up and try again.
If you have access to CASA questions and you fail because they changed them in the exam (which they should be continually doing imho), then you must accept that you reap what you sow. If you put nothing in, you get nothing out.

[27/09]

As a result of this a reputable ATPL theory school which usually had 50% of its classes in Flight Planning pass had only 3 out of the 36 students of the last course pass this exam with the new questions and answers. So the pass rate of 50% of 36 students has gone down to only 8% of 36 students. This means that the new exam has incorrect answers of the questions given or the new exam is far too hard.

Or it could mean the "reputable ATPL school" was teaching to just the old answers and not the syllabus.

[mates rates]

Or we could go back to THE OLD system.Hold the exam 4 times a year always a completely new exam and you had to wait 2 months for your results.

[Howard Hughes]

Or we could go back to THE OLD system.Hold the exam 4 times a year always a completely new exam and you had to wait 2 months for your results. And while there at it they should make the publications free again, "hello publications send me a new set of AIP & charts, what's that? Yeh might as well send me some new binders while you're at it"!;)

[cooolridge]

There's a petition here for CASA to remedy the unexplained 94% fail rate of over 100 ATPL candidates. 89 have signed it so far, please sign also if you agree:

Remedy unexplained 94% fail rate of over 100 ATPL candidates Petition (http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/remedy-unexplained-94-fail-rate-of-over-100-atpl-candi.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_178828128925369_569828_17919251 2222264#f298594e94)

[cooolridge]

My reply to CASA:

I do understand CASA has these requirements for an ATPL candidate but surely more than 6% of the potential candidates can meet them. I currently hold a Commercial Pilots Licence and had a mid 90% average for all my CASA CPL exam subjects. I also hold a Bachelors degree in Aviation and never in all my studies I have come upon an exam this difficult to pass and I'm sure a lot of people are with me on this one.*

Like I said earlier if only 6% of candidates can pass this exam than there will be a significant shortage of ATPL qualified pilots in the near future which would be highly detrimental to not only Australian aviation but also World aviation which I believe is against CASA's interests.*

I do understand CASA needs to uphold a minimum requirement for their ATPL holders but surely a minimum requirement that only 6% of it's candidates can achieve is unreasonable and unsustainable.*

The Aviation Advertiser has now come out with this article, please take time to read it as I believe it sums up the situation pretty well

Testing to destruction – aviationadvertiser.com.au (http://www.aviationadvertiser.com.au/news/2012/11/testing-to-destruction/)

The reply you did send me and obviously the author of this article and I'm sure many others, to me sounds like you are assuming the majority of the candiadates were cheating. I find it hard to believe that of the hundreds of people who sit this exam that the most of them would be cheating. For one I ask where would ALL these candidates get their cheat notes? If its assumed from a training school what about all the candidates that self study? And are all the training schools of this subject supplying cheat notes? And if this did happen why has only one person been caught? If cheating did occur frequently I'm sure it would have been picked up a lot earlier and by a lot more people. Don't let one person's actions reflect on the rest of the honest pilot community who use their annual leave and thousands of dollars of their own money to study extremely hard to pass this exam.

I believe it's only a matter of time until the wider public and politicians are aware of this issue so I hope a prompt and reasonable resolution can be made.

[Up-into-the-air]

This problem has been about for a long time, extending to the 90's as well. I had three goes at the CPL exam, progressively becoming worse in my score, ultimately giving the exam up and going on to other things.

In things aviation, I have 15 renewals of my CIR and twin quals to PA31-350 level.

I have technical University qualifications [two degrees] and a post graduate adult education qualification and could not fathom at the time why casa and it's exam system was designed in such a way that it was "un-educational".

The issue is that - the "responsible" casa person at the time, when I questioned him, about one question, when we agreed that "a" and "b" were incorrect, a lengthy discussion ensued about the question and I said "d" was correct, he said "c" - ultimately, he fessed up and said the reason "c" was correct was that he wrote the question and "c" was correct.

I think that tells us a lot about the system, as it ensued that he had no adult education qualifications and was "of the opinion" that the students should not get their actual questions and answers back to improve the educational value.

Further, I had the exam re-marked and 5 questions [casa's answers were struck out as "incorrect"] or likely to be misleading.

I missed by one question.

The Future:

We must work towards a clear assessment system for aviation exams. The US-FAA system has an open system, with a "known exam question bank" with a set number asked on a random basis.

This enables the student to review his/ her understanding and where an obvious lack of understanding is present, a proper review can take place.

The system needs a very serious review now, with a proper educational basis for the questions to be made by a properly trained person, no ambiguity or double meanings, no purposeful making of answers to be misleading.

I believe that it is important for the new entrants to the industry not to start with a vexed view of the aviation regulator, over their flawed exam process.

If there is a training organisation "rorting" the system, the flight test routine, CAR 217 process and the renewal process will "weed out" those people, with the range of assessors that we all meet in our careers.

We need to address this and Paul Phelan's article goes a way to exposing the problems, as did Boyd Munro in the mid-90's, although the regulator did not keep to their side of the bargain:

To prevent this happening and improve the exam process, as was agreed to at the time.

[B]Nothing has changed - Mr. casa!!

[Oktas8]

I share others' low opinion of CASA's exam process.

However, there's no way that I would welcome an open question bank. If this happened, it would be possible to pass by buying a copy of the question bank and learning it. (I don't mean memorising every question, but memorising the ones that seem tricky to the reader.) No longer would it be necessary to actually study the syllabus, or attend ground school.

No. All that is necessary is to have the exams written and marked according to university standards. If a topic occupies 5% of the syllabus, it should form about 5% of the exam marks. If graphs provided are written in thick ink on poor quality paper, the acceptable answer range should be widened accordingly.

Not least, exam papers these days should be moderated by qualified experts in the field of education.

[Catmeow]

I heard the same thing as Coolridge.
I sat the exam last week and failed miserably. I self studied using a couple of different text and knew the content well. The exams questions were nothing new and I was comfortable tackling each questions. There were three questions that I was unsure of the answer as accuracy led me to two possibilities, but this certainly wasn't enough to fail. As far as I'm concerned it's an exam you get 100% in provided you know your stuff and are accurate.
There have been a lot of complaints going around and CASA are yet to answer peoples questions. A lot of theory providers are in the same boat, they don't know whether casa have changed the method or if there has been a stuff up on casa's end with the updated exam.
For those who are thinking of sitting the exams I would recommend sitting tight until casa has resolved the problem, because in my opinion you'd be damn lucky to pass and you may as well select answers at random as you'll probably go just as well.

[Catmeow]

Has anyone heard about CASA remarking some exams and finding that it was actually a pass? Trying to find out if these people appealed their results or if it was something that casa discovered....
Any infor would be great

[Bothmags]

Heard a rumor that CASA went back to the original Flight Planning questions. Anybody confirms this?

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

Oh Dear Mr 'HH',

How about strolling up to the Briefing Office at your local Secondary Airport, and picking up a new set of FREE VTC's, VNC's, ERC's,...oh, and a couple of WAC's please....the WAC's were less than $2 each...Here's $10.

Get me 5 please.

Keep the change....

Ha Ha Ha..... :} :}

[ebby1028]

Bothmags, it would be interesting to see if they have. Sure has beena down hill slide since Nov.

[drpixie]

See http://www.pprune.org/dg-p-general-aviation-questions/500820-something-answer-aft-8.html#post7706947