Best Advice in tackling ATPL' exams...

[Scoobster]

This is a bit of a thread on gauging best advice's/tips on the ATPL...

After much deliberation I have decided to crack out the ATPL exams as Distance Learning due to various commitments. Recently a newly qualified PPL.

I am still deciding if I will go the whole way CPL/IR/ME/JOC etc but have always given myself the 'pep talk' that I would at least get the ATPL's and CPL out the way.. even if i decide to pursue flying as a Instructor/Fun/Corporate etc.

The minimum was always going to be the ATPL/CPL..

I have to say though that I am 80% sure that I will end up going all the way. A risk I know, lack of job security I know, state of industry I know etc etc

As a 'DL' what is the best advice of cracking out the ATPL's?

Practically possible in 6 months?

Here is what i know...

* Should aim to get 90% above.
* Volume of work is high - not a problem as I am used to this.
* Sit within the 6 sittings rule.
* Maths and Physics might be challenging - Will prep for this.
* Take your time? 12 months if needed?

Thanks.

[paco]

Two bits of advice really - don't underestimate them, and constant refreshing is the key - don't treat the subjects as individual items in their own right. The 6 months plan would work if you planned on doing at least 6 hours' study per day. Maybe you can have Christmas day off :)

[Transsonic2000]

Practically possible in 6 months? That's really tough!!! Possible yes, but don't take it as a general guide line! As already mentioned, don't underestimate the work and time you have to put in. I underestimated that as well, it took me much longer than expected due to a few hardships in my private life, but finally I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

[OhNoCB]

Do you have any other commitments currently? What school level of maths/physics do you have?

My advice for them would be to take it seriously, ask lots of questions to whoever can answer them, if you can do anything extra at all to help learn stuff then do it (I only had the opportunity once or twice, but going and seeing some mid-maintenance aircraft with cowlings off etc and speaking to engineers helped me with a bit or two.) Use question banks to brush up but ONLY TO BRUSH UP. I don't know the current state of the exams but when I did them, the guys and girls who tried their best to learn the material and then turned to the banks in the run up to the exams did far better than those who rushed through the material and did the same questions over and over.

With regard to the first two questions I asked I will give my personal experience.

I had decent GCSE grades in Maths and Physics and 'OK' A level grades but nothing great. I didn't find any part of the maths or physics challenging. The physics is mostly about understanding some basic principles and if you can get your head around some basic trigonometry and formula manipulation I think that covers most of the maths.

I was working a mix of part-full time when I was distance learning (0 hour contract, sometimes 35+ hours a week others <16) and I managed the exams from the day the books arrived to the day I gave in my last exam in 7 months with a 1 month break in between the 2 modules. If you have no commitments then 6 months or less should certainly be possible, if you are working full time I would say it would be very tough.

[harveyst]

Scoobster, good luck within all and I hope it goes well. Just a quick question, who did you decide to do the course with?

[TizerTheAppetizer]

If you've passed the 7 PPL theory exams, how much of a help will that be towards understanding the ATPL theory?

[cavok_flyer]

Very little. ATPL is much more in-depth. Sure some of the VERY basic navigation skills help, but everything else is very intense. VFR Communications is essentially the same.

[Scoobster]

Do you have any other commitments currently? What school level of maths/physics do you have?

Sorry for the late response...

I have to do a day job also, pay the rent and right now even paying the ATPL fees are a bit "tight".. money I could use towards something else.. which always nags at me but I guess spreading it out over the 3 module system with the distance learning provider helps..

Just shy of £1k to kick start the process.. at least I am left with the shirt on my back :}

Failed Maths.. when I mean fail.. totally flunked Maths.. science was one grade better than the result of Maths :} but since then I have come a long way!!

[Scoobster]

who did you decide to do the course with?

I am hoping to run with Pro Pilot shortly..

[gpiper]

My personal opinion, during my PPL training I have read all the books supplied to me. I gained a lot of knowledge and even after 7 months after I finished the PPL, when I began the ATPL theory I can honestly say that there are a lot of common things with PPL, which made life much easier since I was able to understand what was happening around me.

People tend to say that comms and some MET and POF is similar if not the same with PPL, if you go through all the material of each subject you will discover that around 60% of the ATPL syllabus is based on PPL, the rest are new subjects hence the difference between 9 subjects for PPL and 14 for ATPL, plus an in depth understanding which you will not find in the PPL.

Bottom line is that if you are good in maths, physics, ATPL is just another course. It depends on what you want to achieve, if you want to learn something start reading the books and solve problems online, if you you want to just pass the exams then start online question bank. The CAA is changing the exams slowly therefore you might find it safer to go through the whole syllabus with the guidance of your instructors. After all you want to be a pilot in a commercial jet, you need to be aware of everything!

[paco]

In the UK, the PPL questions have been largely pinched from the professional exams anyway.

[Alex Whittingham]

I think gpiper sums it up absolutely correctly. The only thing I would add is that the maths and physics assumed does not go beyond GCSE, so free revision sites such as the BBC can be useful.

[Scoobster]

around 60% of the ATPL syllabus is based on PPL, the rest are new subjects hence the difference between 9 subjects for PPL and 14 for ATPL, plus an in depth understanding which you will not find in the PPL.

Am I glad that I actually sat down and read/studied and re-read every PPL book and made an effort to understand the PPL material rather than just going through question papers!

I got stung slightly when the syllabus changed to EASA and no one in my school was sure about what to 'expect' from the new PPL papers so I was the guinea pig for Nav and POF!

Looking forward to these ATPL's in terms of covering the material more indepth.

For anyone else with the Maths/Physics issue there is a CD that I picked up off ebay.. Maths for teachers or something or another!

Will see how I get on with that.

[Manfred Von Holstein]

I've been out of the game for a long time, and did my CPL and ATPL exams pre JAR. A lot has no-doubt changed in the interim. Be advised though, iirc that back in my day that it was necessary to get all your flight-test and exam passes achieved within a year of each other. Assuming a similar regime is in force, you will need to have a budget in place that allows you to conduct both the flying training, testing and passing, and the exam tuition and passes, within the time-frame now required. (Whatever that is now)

[Gpro]

Split your exams up and instead of doing them all in 2 sittings, sit them in 4-5. That way you can concentrate more on individual subjects. This is how I tackled them and got around 96% avg. good luck

[paco]

Don't do that! You are only allowed in the exam room 6 times. You don't want to be leaving any exams to the last shot! 3-4 exams at a time is best.

[Gpro]

So do it in 4! Calm down paco.

5 was a worse case scenario.

[paco]

Don't worry, deep breathing....

I've seen even 5 get too late - the last sitting for Nav in the last session is not a good scenario!

[Gpro]

Oh I agree, leaving gen nav, met, pof or perf to sitting 5 would be change of underpants territory.

I did mine in 4 , got all the "easy" ones sat in 1-2 then split the others so I could concentrate on 2 subjects a month.

[shinigami]

wow, finished 7 in my first sitting last month, my plan is to finish 4 this month and remaining 3 in march...hopefully :) i enjoy most of the subjects but some of them are just useless and boring.

[byrondaf]

I completed my ATPL exams distance learning, I finished them in just over 8 months, ended up with a 90%+ average over 4 sittings. Some exams can be question-banked to death so do so where you can. I remember RNAV and Ops procedures being banked. I grouped them into manageable sittings.

Ops, Law, Met, HPL, IFR Comms, VFR Comms
POF, M&B
GNAV, F Planning, Perf
RNAV, Instruments, AGK

Wouldn't worry too much about Physics, just a basic understanding of a few principles, which would be explained in the books/CBT you decide to use. Maths, just make sure you can do basic maths, estimating, multiplication, division etc. nothing too onerous.

Anything you get stuck on, I found a few second hand Oxford CBT's on ebay. Absolute gold for Met.

My best advice would be to actually understand the material as much as you can, but if all else fails, hammer the question bank...(I used BGS)

[paco]

"Some exams can be question-banked to death so do so where you can"

Not any more.

[byrondaf]

Not any more.

Quite a few guys here that have done the new style exams said that they hammered the question bank for some subjects and it worked. Admittedly I did my exams last year and finished in April before the electronic exams, but apparently it still works, just not as dead-cert as it used to be.

[cavok_flyer]

@ paco

I wrote Air Law, OPs, IFR & VFR Comms in Germany 2 weeks ago and those questions were 1 -1 from Peter's EXAM databank. GNav on the other hand was basically all new questions. :ugh:
Going to do Planning, RadioNAv, Human, A/C Gen Knowledge, W&B, Performance, and Aerodynamics next.

[paco]

One of my students did Met last week and 50% of the questions were not seen before. Some authorities are behind others, but that is the trend now.

[Alex Whittingham]

Interesting how they do that? Didn't the UK CAA make a big thing about saying that everyone had to use the EASA CQB? We were told that was why all the defective questions came back in. Are all the NAAs using different question banks again?

[Scoobster]

Is anyone currently with ProPilot on the DL program?

Have you had to use any other suplimentary material?

[byrondaf]

One of my students did Met last week and 50% of the questions were not seen before. Some authorities are behind others, but that is the trend now.

To be fair, even in my exam, half the questions i hadn't seen. I made sure I fully understood Met and was glad I did for the exam. Any of your students done Ops, RNAV and Air Law? They were big bankers for me.

[paco]

At the moment Law and Ops seem not to have changed too much, but Ops is changing anyway with the changes in legislation and I am currently working on new questions as we speak. They are probably the only subjects aside from comms that you just have to rote learn anyway.

All the other subjects have changed or are changing.

Alex - not sure what different authorities are doing. Some of them are still paper based certainly. Being behind was the only reason I could think of for some people reporting that their exams were the same as some of the commercial databases. But then I checked and realised they were referring to the subjects I just mentioned.

[Straighten Up]

Hi Scoobster,

I'm with ProPilot doing DL, and have found it very good so far. The set up here is 3 modules.

1 - POF, Met, M&B, HPL, VFR Comms, IFR Comms
2 - GNav, RNav, Perf, Flight Planning, Air Law
3 - AGK, Ops, Instruments

I started in Feb 2014, and am working on Mod 3 now. The revision classroom weeks are very good (I'm doing the mod 2 revision this week) and really help consolidate the knowledge. I took all of the Mod 1 exams in 1 sitting and am looking to take all the Mod 2 exams in 1 sitting (maybe not Air Law). I haven't hammered the QB - ProPilot give you 1 year access included (best to get a bit of the way through Mod1 before activating), but think for Air Law , Ops and RNAV as Byrondaf mentioned I will have to as there is just so much information to absorb and it's not like you'll ever need to know in your professional life, how many lights there are across the threshold or which Annex number covers Dangerous Goods.

Best of luck, it's hard work but so interesting (mostly) and rewarding. I wouldn't try and force yourself to squeeze it into a short period of time, you have 18 months and if you are short of money for this, I'm guessing you won't have £15k+ to throw at a MEIR. If you are working full time, I can't see that you would be able to get through it in less than a year, unless you did nothing else with your off time.

[Scoobster]

Books arrived today...

Picked one up at Random Air Law... Jeez... The size of that book.

Still time to get cracking. Onwards and upwards and all that jazz.

[Massi]

Hi,

Started my ATPL on April 11th 2014, passed the last exam on Feb 5th 2015, got 93% average.

English is not my mother tongue, I've a full time engineer job and took 3 weeks vacation in summer.

I think that if you work 3 hours/day plus 10 hours on week ends 8 month is far sufficient.

Good luck buddy !

[Kevin31]

Books arrived today...

Picked one up at Random Air Law... Jeez... The size of that book.

Still time to get cracking. Onwards and upwards and all that jazz.

Hi

Just found this post and wondered how you got on with the exams or if your still going please? Looking to start mine in new year just bought the maths and physics as prep?