PERFORMANCE EXAM (ATPL) Give us a clue?

[trucky04]

Rumours rumours rumours. Ive heard so many things about this forthcoming exam of mine. They've changed the questions, its really hard, you HAVE to know the book inside out. Also they say one month they're 'wordy questions' and the next they're all Graphy type? I'd like some advice on what REALLY is the deal with the exam and are there any sites to get typical feedback questions? I have 180 Oxford questions which i'm told WILL help. Any advice please?

[Echo T]

Don't panik, just go through the oxford questions and u'll be fine. Also have a basic understanding of what they are talking about.

they do re-word questions and twist things around but as long as u understand the principle u will be fine!

good luck

ET

[OneIn60rule]

1. Know how to use the CAP to find the answers. Most times at least 50% or so of the exam is found in that cap. Just know how to use your CAP and where some of the important things are. VMBE, roll rate and all that is explained I believe in the CAP.

2. Know what happens if you descend at constant MACH and what has to be done to the ANGLE of attack to compensate, increase/decrease and what it means when you are increasing/decreasing angle of attack. Some people are actually shocked when they see the answer!


3. Make sure you know your POF. Know where VIMD, VIMP, stall speed and such are on the diagrams.


4. As in all exams, READ THE FULL F****** question. If it says: Which one of these does NOT effect blabla. If you miss out the NOT part then you are either not awake or you actually think it's the same question you've seen 100 times before. Happens to tons of folks.

5. Go over those 180 Oxford questions.


Cheerios,

[trucky04]

Well thanks for the help. What about any web sites for this sort of thing? Also ive noticed a couple of Oxford questions that are actually wrong! Can anybody else shed any light on Perf?

[Charlie Zulu]

Onein60rule,

Many thanks for pointing out the good news...

Just checked the CAP for the Performance exam and low and behold quite a lot of the formulas, conversions etc are there!

Quick question, is the CAP we have in the during the course the same CAP document as we are supplied within the Performance exam?

I'm finding the "Descending at a constant Mach and then at a constant IAS, what happens to the AoA?" style questions a tad difficult.

Best wishes,

Charlie Zulu.

[OneIn60rule]

The CAP you have now is going to be the exact same one you get in the exam. It will have the same colour scheme for each section. (MEP will be same colour you've seen in your CAP and so on)



Remember that when your A380 is diving/gliding it's actually coming down NOSE first and not NOSE UP. (Which is what usually has to be drilled in the head first)

This is why when you are asked this question:

What happens with ANGLE of attack in a dive if you maintain MACH number from 35.000 feet to 25.000?

Here you note that if you maintain constant MACH it means your IAS will steadly INCREASE (go over the graph if you need to) and since it's INCREASING you actually need to DECREASE angle of attack. Which means, point your NOSE more upwards.
However Descent angle will not decrease, it will instead INCREASE. Draw it out and you'll see it clearly.


Yes, you actually decrease angle of attack because it's relative to the horizontal.




Here's another (I changed the numbers slightly):
What happens to angle of descent when you descend from 36.000 to 24.000 if you maintain MACH number?

Notice it doesn't ask for ANGLE of attack. Again your speed will increase unless you decrease ANGLE of attack (point nose more upwards).


The news I have about the last performance exam is that it was just a couple of more graph questions and there might be more graph questions added. It is highly unlikely that you'll get long winded graph questions since some graph questions take ages to solve and hence they don't use them.


Here's a few more that I made up, well I didn't actually make them up, I changed the figures and text slightly.

What happens with AoA in a climb at constant MACH from 20.000 to 34.000?

If you maintain MACH, your IAS is decreasing. In order to maintain this, you'll need to lower the nose. Lowering nose now means decreased AoA. (Since the nose is already beyond relative horizontal).


Things I believe tends to get mixed up or READ poorly is when they ask as to WHAT HAPPENS TO DECENT ANGLE if you decend at MACH number.

Decent angle and angle of attack will not increase, only one of the two can increase and the other must decrease. The situation here is that in order to inrease your IAS you now need to decrease AOA.
This of course if drawn out shows you that the DECENT ANGLE will now have increased.

I say this because I assume that Decent angle is relative to the vertical. I could of course be mistaken but I've seen two or three questions where the answer is always an Increased Angle of Decent. If Decent Angle isn't relative to the Vertical then I cannot make out any other way for it to Increase (unless I'm really not awake). I basically drew this out to make sense of it and it seems to be correct.


I warn you though, I haven't checked with my instructor to confirm the thoughts about decent angle. :rolleyes:

If you have any doubts about the 180 questions, just post them (NOT ALL 180 questions, just the ones you have a feeling are wrong) and you might see the chaps for other JAA schools reply to you.


Cheerios.

[Alex Whittingham]

Er.....I'm sorry One in Sixty, I know your advice is generally good but you're getting a bit tangled here. If you decrease the angle of attack you point the nose more downwards.

[OneIn60rule]

Are you talking about flying straight and level, climbing or descending?

Clarify.

Flying level, increased AoA means increased induced drag, nose pointing upwards.

Flying level, decreased AoA means reduced induced drag, nose pointing more down.

Climbing, increased AoA would be point more upward.

Climbing, decreased AoA would now be decreased induced drag, nose more down. Until the point point is reached were it again would be increased AoA.


Diving, increase AoA would be point more down. Again being relative to the Horizontal.

If you mean to say that if you fly str8 and level, decreasing AOA would be to point it more downwards then I have no issues with it. However it should be noted that at a certain point you will be increasing AoA. So technically you'll point it more down but now it would mean Increased AoA.





Cheers

[rmmonteiro]

oneIn60,

AoA is the angle between the Rlative airflow and the mean aerodynamical chord, no the horizontal.......

cheers.

RMM

[Keith.Williams.]

One in Sixty,

What ALEX means is that if you look at your previous post you will find that you have got the nose up and nose down requirements confused.

For example your stated that:




"What happens with ANGLE of attack in a dive if you maintain MACH number from 35.000 feet to 25.000?

Here you note that if you maintain constant MACH it means your IAS will steadly INCREASE (go over the graph if you need to) and since it's INCREASING you actually need to DECREASE angle of attack. Which means, point your NOSE more upwards.
However Descent angle will not decrease, it will instead INCREASE. Draw it out and you'll see it clearly."




What you should have said was that to increase CAS to maintain constant Mach in a descent, you must push the nose down in order to decrease angle of attack and drag.


You also said:



"Here's a few more that I made up, well I didn't actually make them up, I changed the figures and text slightly.

What happens with AoA in a climb at constant MACH from 20.000 to 34.000?

If you maintain MACH, your IAS is decreasing. In order to maintain this, you'll need to lower the nose. Lowering nose now means decreased AoA. (Since the nose is already beyond relative horizontal)."



What you should have said was that to decrease CAS to maintain constant mach in a climb, you must pull the nose up to increase angle of attack and drag.

I suspect that you knew what you wanted to say but simply got it all a bit mixed up.

[Alex Whittingham]

I'm talking about all normal phases of flight. The situation you're describing would only happen when you have pushed the stick so far forward you are generating negative lift, in other words the lift vector is acting downwards along with the weight. You only hit this bit of the flight envelope in aerobatics, not in a normal descent. You would be experiencing negative 'g'.

[OneIn60rule]

I now see where it went wrong.:cool:

[High Wing Drifter]

Trucky04,

I have heard that the new questions will be ready for September. However, there are not hundreds of new questions and you won't get them all at once so the current feedback should still be current...so I'm told you understand.

[mick jagga]

Perf is not a huge subject to learn, can be tricky at time's but if you have half a brain you should be able to digest it all. Dont be dependant on the feedback to get you through, this can backfire on you as many have found out. Use the feedback as consolidation as you go through your manual.

If i can pass perf first time round then i am sure you can too, all the best for your exam..... the most important formula you need is RTFQ (squared)

[PFD]

RTFQ (squared)

How true. 'Which of the following is incorrect' How many times have people read, 'which of the following is correct', and lost a mark.

James is spot on when he says "Know the subject" feedback is not infallible.

[Keith.Williams.]

The rumours regarding the introduction of new questions are true, but they will not all appear suddenly in any single month.

The CAA have recognised that too many people are simply learning the answers to feedback questions, instead of trying to understand the subject. A good example of this problem is the old climb gradient question for which too many people simply memorised 16.6% or whatever it was.

They have now cloned this and a number of similar questions to generate 12 versions of each. This will cause no problems for students who learn how to interpret the questions and do the calculations, but will bowl out those who simply use memory tricks.

Learn the subject, know the CAP inside-out and you will pass the exam. By this I do not mean doing 57 practice runs on every single graph. But know where things are (pages 19, 28, 35 and 53 are invaluable) and practice using the graphs to deduce the answers to things like "what is the effect of an increase in....... on ........? In most cases one or more of the graphs or tables can give you the answer to this type of question.

[Charlie Zulu]

I've been away from this thread for a few days...

Thanks Onein60, Alex and Keith for suggestions etc.

[Echo T]

Hiya,

Regarding new questions being introduced, is that for all 14 exams?

thanks ET

[john_tullamarine]

Although I have no familiarity with the UK exams a very useful multi-choice technique to keep in mind is to identify the answers which are wrong ... ie don't fit the question.

At best this may leave only one answer ... the correct one .. or will confirm an initial assessment of the question .. at worst, if the knowledge is a bit lacking, it will reduce the number of alternatives from which the student must make a choice .. one way or another ...

[Alex Whittingham]

Usually correct, JT, but based on the assumption that there is one correct answer and three wrong answers. Just as an example, have a go at this:

Q Why are 'step climbs' used on long distance flights ?

(a) Step climbs do not have any special purpose for jet aeroplanes; they are used for piston engine aeroplanes only.
(b) To respect ATC flight level constraints.
(c) To fly as close as possible to the optimum altitude as aeroplane mass reduces.
(d) Step climbs are only justified if at the higher altitude less headwind or more tailwind can be expected.

[Maximum]

Strangely enough Alex, this (to me at any rate) seems a very clear question and answer - and actually coincides with the real world - I won't give the answer though as I don't want to spoil the fun.:D

(I am of course assuming that the JAA know the correct answer).;)

[Charlie Zulu]

Even I would know the answer to Alex's question above! ;-)

A different example would be:

The Great Circle bearing of A from B is 255
The Rhumb Line bearing of B from A is 084

The Great Circle bearing of B from A is:

A) 093
B) 096
C) 084
D) 099

So as you can see it may be a little difficult if you don't know how to work out the answer to have an educated guess. This is one of the simpler gen nav style questions.

Best wishes,

Charlie Zulu.

[Alex Whittingham]

You think so? (A) is rubbish, as is (D), the choice is (B) or (C). Step climbs are used, rather than cruise climbs, to respect ATC flight level constraints and they aim to fly as close as possible to the optimum altitude as aeroplane mass reduces. So which is correct, (B) or (C)? We have appealed this question four times and been told there's nothing wrong with it.

Your question is mathematical, there is only one answer.

[OneIn60rule]

I believe I have some papers that explain it to be this answer in case you see both options available. Of course I'd have to make a search for it. :rolleyes:

To adhere to ATC procedures, is what I would've put down.

However after I searched for this question on my hard drive I found it was actually the other answer.
:suspect:


I don't agree with the question either since it's a situation of 2 answers being correct without a good chance of figuring out which one is correct, EVEN if you know your subject.


Before I finish, you will almost never be able to rule out 3 of the answers in the JAA ATPL. At most you'll be able to rule out 2 out of four almost immediatly and from there you need think about it for a good 30 seconds.


I'm hoping to see a fairly large amount of replies to this one. :cool: