Originally Posted by
john_tullamarine
The question is based around a 737/A320 type aircraft.
That's understood and quite fine. However, for the purpose of the theory work, it really doesn't matter if we were to use a Vanguard for the sample aircraft. Or a Grand Commander. Or whatever.
In such an aircraft the most you’d be expected to do on the load sheet is to work out where to sign it.
Hopefully your comment is tongue in cheek. Else one could only caution that such an attitude would not fare well at court following a mishap ....
the returns from these exams are diminishing every day.
The returns should be the acquisition of potentially useful knowledge but I guess we must be from different philosophical backgrounds ?
Learning in extreme detail how the inner workings of gyroscopic instruments work… Why?! It’s just wasted knowledge which is dumped the second the exam is gone.
Perhaps your training was far more maintainer based than what we have over in the Antipodes for the pilot folk. The typical pilot systems work is relatively trivial, geared very much toward block diagrams which have only the vaguest relationship to the real kit and only intended to provide the pilot with a notional overview of what is what ...
If this was what and how it was taught, and what was tested, then that would be brilliant. An actual overview. I’d have no problem with that sort of teaching, block diagrams as you say.
But in today’s exam regime your students would all be dropping out of your school after bombing the exams for not being able accurately calculate declination angles in the polar regions using nothing more than a pencil sharpener and a rubber band.
It would be equally fine to use any aircraft, provided that detailed questions weren’t based around the specific fit of, say, a Vanguard. The actual questions aren’t generic, they’re not an overview, they’re not just broadly theoretical. They’re ridiculous. Recently the aircraft in vogue was the 737-400, you better know it’s memory items and understand it’s avionics fit to be able to pass.
As Rudestuff uses in their example you will literally be expected to recall the orbital parameters of GPS satellites, the exact frequencies and layout of an ILS array, and learn to memory(!) the exact number of fire extinguishers and crash axes an aircraft with 300-349 seats must be fitted with. You will be tested to a level of detail that most staff involved in the production of parts couldn’t answer at.
And your comment about the use of modern load sheets missing the point about what you actually do in real life. You get the load sheet, sense check it, sign it. The computer does a far better job than a pilot at calculating trim effects of 5 tonnes of fish than we would do with a dry wipe pen, laminated load sheet and some red string.
I’ve no doubt that people were devastated at the removal of sextant useage techniques from the syllabus or the loss of the need to learn morse code. It’s always going to be the same, an inability to embrace change and progress, regardless of what the change actually is.
When the NDB is finally removed from service and the questions taken out of the exam bank we’ll have the same old comments ‘it’s terrible, how could Sully possibly have landed in the Hudson without knowing the frequency band of inner, middle and outer market locator beacons?!?!’