For those wanting an idea about what's on the current FP exam - I've seen the before (old - a couple of years ago), during (new/broken) and after (current) exams. I just re-sat it and passed – hooray - not a great pass but they do say "anything over 70% is just showing off".
Having seen the range of exams, I think the current exam is similar to the 'old' (pre- all the fuss) exam but I perhaps a little harder. I didn't have much time remaining for double checking anything. The current exam certainly much more do-able than the 'new' ("nothing has changed but somehow no one is passing") exam from around Nov/Dec.
My feeling is that the exam now involves a bit more work (and thus pressure). A couple of the old easy questions about turbulence limits, 2 engine out perf, etc are gone (those marks replaced with more involved planning questions?)
My recent (current) exam had a couple of easy max alt questions ... given BRW x, ISA dev y (or a given RSWT), track/east/west, max level is? Or fastest GS is? I also saw a couple of easy marks for fuel burn or fuel flow for a specified leg. There were 2 or 3 loading questions like … find MTOW or payload or FOB for given situation. Hopefully easy marks. Also a couple of "find the CP" to maybe 30nm tolerance.
Other than that, all the questions were 3/4/5 marks for variations on "complete a flight plan to find landing-weight, or fuel burn, or fuel required, time at, or PNR location". The actual plans were 3 or 4 stages (including climb/descent) or much longer but then you're given some intermediate weights. Seemed to be the old favourite routes and combinations of normal ops, DP, 2 engine, gear-down, yaw-damper, CP, and inflight v. planning – presumably with new questions or conditions.
The tolerances on answers seemed much more like the old exam. None of that silly precision from Nov/Dec.
Now what seemed to work. For many questions my calcs often got very close to one of the official guesses, so presumably most of my calculation methods were good:
- As per the CASA ATPL guide, I rounded all winds to nearest +-10deg/+-5k (even when it was easy to interpolate more accurately).
- As per the CASA guide, I rounded climb conditions to the nearest 5deg and 2 tonne, did not interpolate except to average +10+20 for +15 etc. For hold conditions, I rounded to nearest tonne or 1000' and interpolated accordingly.
- I used the “inflight” figures (fuel flows) for everything, not the “integrated range” tables, except for TAS.
- Several questions featured small climbs, I used the 50kg / 1000' step climb allowance.
- I adjusted fuel burns to nearest degree, using FB x (300+dev) / 300, or 500 for the hold. (NOT rounded to nearest 3 or 5 degrees giving 1% steps.)
- I used accurate tracks and combined multiple legs wherever the winds were similar.
- I calculated adjusted head/tail-winds to allow for tracking into the crosswind. On a Jepps whizzwheel, you do that calc around the edge and I think they call it the effective head/tail-wind.
I can't claim this is all correct (I got some wrong) but it worked for me – and under exam pressure, I make silly mistakes (head <-> tail wind, read computer wrongly, etc), which would account for the errors. Or maybe some exam question/answers are still wrong!
Re recent posts I think you are clearly NOT asked for the most accurate answer / best flight plan. You are tested for conformance to the “official” method. That sort-of makes sense for SOP environments, but it would be better if the official method were more fully and clearly specified.
Now on to Air Law … wish me luck.