Here is an example from another thread that highlights the ideas or lack of knowledge that I am seeing more and more in new pilots. (don’t get me started on instructors that teach or proliferate these ideas, I think it’s the blind leading the blind some times)
“It doesnt matter whether you have 2 pax or 50 pax, Glide distance is UNAFFECTED by WEIGHT.”
As has been said by others, Bob Tait will get you to pass the exam, only just, nothing more, nothing less. This may be great in the short term but will bring you unstuck when you go to get your first job and the owner/chief pilot is a GA veteran that starts asking all kinds of hard questions about aircraft systems, air law and met. They are going to expect a lot more then just enough knowledge to get 70% in an exam. Or when you’re at an outpost and the internet (if you have it) goes down, do you think you’ll be a able to get an idea of what the weather is going to do off the synoptic chart on the back page of the local paper? If you walked into a hangar and asked for oil could you answer the lame when he asks what type?
What I am getting at is that CPL exams are not like high school history, this is information that you will need to know and you will need to know it well to be a good pilot and to get the jobs that you want. When you have X number of passengers sitting behind you and red lights start flashing, they are going to expect that you know your stuff and can deal with it. In my opinion Bob Tait does not give this level of knowledge and a lot of new pilots I am seeing do not have this level of knowledge. Ask a new CPL to explain an impulse coupling and you will get a rude shock, mention a Vortex Generator or boundary layer and their eyes start to glaze over.
At the end of the day an aircraft is not unlike a truck, it is a piece of machinery and you need to know how to work it. If you asked a truck driver about their rig I bet you they could tell you how everything runs and how to fix it. That is what I expect of budding new GA pilots that are about to head out and get jobs flying into all kinds of far away places.
Anyway I have managed to rant my way off topic. My words of advise are that you are about to become a professional pilot, this is knowledge that you will use everyday of your life and may one day save your life. So do yourself a favour and study hard, learn it all and want to learn more then just 70%. That passion for knowledge is what sets pilots apart from great aviators!