With the current CAA concern over Infringements, one has to question the wisdom of reducing the Navigation exam to a worthless entity. The naive belief that the Examiner will check all the missing items is simply pie in the sky; so long as the candidate can produce a series of headings and times, how they acheive this is of little consequence, they could simply traspose it from a tablet. EASA places no specific distances on the navigation section and GM1.FCL1015 recommends the following times:
(c) When planning the duration of a test, check or assessment of competence, the following values may be used as guidance:
(2) 90 minutes for LAPL(A) or (H), PPL and CPL, including navigation section;
so how is the Examiner supposed to check anything?
The latest papers seem to be just more of the same, some questions obscured by waffle and what relevance is an aircraft with an 80 Kts stalling speed to an ab-initio PPL student?
In complete contrast, a brief look at the FAA questions reveals Sanity, Simplicity and Relevance (SSR). The BMAA has always produced the Microlight question bank, relevant to their purpose, and then printed by the CAA. Maybe there is a lesson here. One instructor commented yesterday, I no longer know how to justify all the the stuff I now need to teach to pass the exam!