My view is that anyone of even below average intelligence but with a reasonable degree of motivation can read the syllabus, the recommended reading material and pass the exam.
Similarly, the same applies to morse code, its even easier, my son at four years of age had no problem learning morse code, and that might have something to do with the fact that I started learning it at a similar age.
My message for those who appeared to be more afraid of IREX is to develop a determination to make sure that they know it from one end to the other.
Some of the questions are like really hard, what frequency is the glide path of an ILS? What is quadrantal error? VHF range at altitude. Just which of these sorts of question do they need to be "spoon fed" in order to pass the exam and then promptly forget it all?
There are many other much tougher exams around that pilots don 't have to study for or sit and, there will be things that you have that you have to study because your life and other peoples live can hang in the balance.
The Instrument written exam, is by way of comparison, one of the easier challenges you will face. Everything in the exam you could be asked at employment interview or a captain to check your knowledge.
Fear of the exam will not help you as much as treating it as an adventure in learning where you set a goal of at least a reasonable score of what at you expect of yourself then go and achieve it.
While I had no problem with the IREX, I had a rude awakening with the Canadian Instrument written and the FAA Instrument took up several hundred more hours of study simply because there was so much more practice material around to test knowledge.
When I did my US ATP ride, the examiner I got decided that because I was from down under, that I really needed an education on top of that written exam.
He was right, we spent six hours on the ground before we went flying, he did examining as a hobby. His full time job was a check pilot on B52's which gives you an idea of the dedication he put into his profession.
On the flip side, I've had another examiner go from start up to a rolling take off in 30 seeconds, while he wore real spurs on real cowboy boots in a ten gallon hat, while he yabbered fast and got instant clearances that mere mortals never get. The pre-ride questions were very limited.
I can think of numerous rides where knowledge was checked with a few questions that were a bit like do you want to be a millionaire, they got progressively harder and suddenly stopped . Others who were not able to provide all the right answers, got far longer rides, with lower scores
that you don't want to have on your record.
If you have a pathetic attitude to the IREX then odds are its symptom of something else and
if I was a check and training captain, I'd then be looking at human factors like personality traits, more commonly called disorders.
Passing the IREX, can be and should be an opportunity to become more professional and even if you can score highly on it, there will be plenty of check pilots able and capable of finding a huge list of what you don't know.
No, I won't be running an IREX classes at Moorabbin anytime soon. I'm overseas and flying a desk for a while.
If and when I get back, I will most probably do some ground school training.
These days, its more likely to be developing software based training.
Positive posts please.
Last edited by Ramjet555; 3rd Oct 2014 at 02:54.