JAA ATPL Distance Learning Ground School

[Pilotadler]

Distance Learning Advice to New Students - Bristol GS vs. others

Hello Everyone,

I am an FAA licensed ATPL and Instructor. I work as a freight pilot flying Twin Otters and am a former owner of a California based flight school which was very successful. I am starting this thread to share my experience and advise those interested in JAA distance learning courses.

Currently, I am in the process of converting my licenses to a JAA FATPL. Like many others, the cost of training was my foremost consideration. Approaching the training with this consideration has, however, resulted in costing me more time and money. (approximately an additional 1500 GBP)
Choosing a quality ATPL Distance Learning school should be an aspiring commercial pilot's first consideration for the following reasons.

The JAA standards of theoretical learning are much higher than those of the FAA. The 14 tested subjects of the ATPL are highly extensive and time consuming to study. Ground instruction for the FAA written subjects can be accomplished in a time frame of less than 90 hours; whereas, the JAA requires approximately 720 hours. The possible number of FAA questions for the Private, Instrument, Commercial and ATPL range between 2500-3500. Those for the JAA 14 written exams are over 16000 exceeding the FAA by approximately 80%.

Any newly established JAA distance learning groundschool (in the range of 6-8 years old) will not have enough years of experience in which to standardize and catch flaws in their own written material. The written material for each subject is developed to teach in a classroom environment and not at the distance learning level meaning that these materials will contain a lot of classroom instructor notes. A subject material may consist of nothing more than instructor notes without written, detailed explanation. These types of materials are handled best by instructors during oral explanation in a classroom environment.

For example, it is important to explain formulas so the student thoroughly understands the material and any subsequent teachings. The following formula is important to understand INSTRUMENT and GENERAL NAVIGATION subjects.

Distance = 60 x COSIN Latitude x Number of degrees in Longitudinal change
A distance learning book should provide a layman explanation of each part of this formula.

In my experience, I had enrolled in Naples Air Center's JAA Distance Learning program. The program sent me classroom notes as materials on each of the 14 JAA subjects, and I spent countless hours trying to understand formulas such as these. Because the books were horribly written, I was forced to purchase additional reference material. So I purchased a CD from Bristol Groundschool in the amount of 350GBP. It was an organized CD that helped me to understand things clearly. The CD included all of Bristol GS self written texts and interactive animations and illustrations. To add, the NAC distance learning website consisted of quiz questions that were not pertinent to the end-of-chapter reading material. I was always confused. There were also word for word written similarities between Bristol GS CD and Naples Air Center's texts as if one copied from the other.

At Naples Air Center, the Head of Ground Training understood his school's material was not well written and switched to Jeppesen. Jeppesen material is very detailed; however, it contains too much information that is not necessary to learn and will not be, otherwise, tested on the JAA exam. Each Jeppesen text ranges between 350-500 pages. These texts are excellent because they are full of information and detailed explanation; however, for the distance learning student, the Jeppesen texts contain too much unnecessary reading information making the student easily overwhelmed and confused about the information that needs to be "understood" at a comprehensive level for the exam. As classroom material, the Jeppesen texts are a valuable tool to both the instructor and student on an interpersonal basis in a classroom environment. For the distance learning student, the abundance of material is daunting. I would also have to question the new NAC distance learning website. The quizzes are based on an Italian JAA exam database as the NAC Head of Ground Training had explained. It is a new program. I do not think NAC has had time to plug the proper questions from the database to the relevant Jeppesen study chapters. Their last website demonstrated this concern. It is in my opinion NAC is conglomerating confusion -again- by throwing things together into this new program.

In conclusion, I have been impressed with Bristol Groundschool as a Distance Learning provider. Bristol Groundschool has been in the market much longer than many others and has nearly perfected their course. There will not be any running around to understand the studies as a "self learning" student. I will be leaving Naples Air Center and continuing my JAA studies with Bristol as well as using the Jeppesen texts as guides of supplementary reference. Bristol Groundschool offers a free sample CD and I recommend ordering it. It is sent for free. It provides examples of end-of-chapter quizzes with questions straight from the JAA exam as well as animations.

I did not write this post to merely complain. It was written to inform all those spending exceeding amounts of money to fulfill their dreams to fly professionally because, at one time, I cared about my students. Be careful and do not skim on costs. It will bite you in the end. It bit me.
Good luck to all Distance Learning students. Feel free to write anytime.