I have to side with beechie! Although John you have some very fair and vaild points... the Flight planning exam is aged, We are in a computer age and have people sitting in an office punching these numbers into a computer for us, otherwise we have the FMC to help us out in flight...
So except for learning the concepts and understanding why we enter in the information we do, whats the real point in figuring out all the
we have to in the exam? I'd like to hear of anyone in a modern airliner that during an emergency similar to the questions has actually taken the time to work it all out on paper...
Its cause CASA are to lazy to update the exam i say!