I'd just like to chirp in here in Nathans defence.
I sat his 6 week course mid this year. The rumour that he simply teaches the exam, is incorrect. I came out of his course with a very good understanding of the concepts behind flight planning and could still recall pretty well all of it now months later.
And as much as I ranted and raved at the time that the 727 is outdated, as Green Goblin said, the methods are the same, regardless of the aircraft type you use.
I did enjoy flight planning, and managed to walk out of the exam first go, with 94%.
What DOES need some changing, is the quality of the graphs/tables etc. that you use for Performance! They are near on impossible to be accurate with.
morno