My reply to CASA:
I do understand CASA has these requirements for an ATPL candidate but surely more than 6% of the potential candidates can meet them. I currently hold a Commercial Pilots Licence and had a mid 90% average for all my CASA CPL exam subjects. I also hold a Bachelors degree in Aviation and never in all my studies I have come upon an exam this difficult to pass and I'm sure a lot of people are with me on this one.*
Like I said earlier if only 6% of candidates can pass this exam than there will be a significant shortage of ATPL qualified pilots in the near future which would be highly detrimental to not only Australian aviation but also World aviation which I believe is against CASA's interests.*
I do understand CASA needs to uphold a minimum requirement for their ATPL holders but surely a minimum requirement that only 6% of it's candidates can achieve is unreasonable and unsustainable.*
The Aviation Advertiser has now come out with this article, please take time to read it as I believe it sums up the situation pretty well*
Testing to destruction – aviationadvertiser.com.au
The reply you did send me and obviously the author of this article and I'm sure many others, to me sounds like you are assuming the majority of the candiadates were cheating. I find it hard to believe that of the hundreds of people who sit this exam that the most of them would be cheating. For one I ask where would ALL these candidates get their cheat notes? If its assumed from a training school what about all the candidates that self study? And are all the training schools of this subject supplying cheat notes? And if this did happen why has only one person been caught? If cheating did occur frequently I'm sure it would have been picked up a lot earlier and by a lot more people. Don't let one person's actions reflect on the rest of the honest pilot community who use their annual leave and thousands of dollars of their own money to study extremely hard to pass this exam.
I believe it's only a matter of time until the wider public and politicians are aware of this issue so I hope a prompt and reasonable resolution can be made.