Air Law - PPL

[trustno1]

I am currently doing my PPL and so far I have 8.5 hours, 2 of which has been in the circuit. I have been preparing for the Air Law paper in advance of going Solo using the Trevor Thom book. I had planned to sit the Air Law paper in about 2 weeks. Over the weekend I was advised that TT's book might be a little dated due to the onset of JAR. I was advised to get my hands on a copy of Jeremy Pratt's book which arrived today courtesy of Transair.
From your experience does this book cover all of the syllabus for the new JAR Air Law paper . Is there anything else I should be doing in order to ensure that I pass the Air Law paper first time. Secondly, if anybody out there has mock papers of the new Air Law exam I would be forever grateful. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[Pezah]

Trusty

I am in the same boat as you at the moment. One of the instructors at my club said that there is a new TT book containing a JAR supplement. He recommended that I don't bother buying the new one as the new section is relatively small. The people at the club would give me the bits that I was missing.

I don't know yet how much more is in this new book because I haven't looked, but I would have thought that there is not a great deal difference other than new definitions etc. Maybe someone else could shed some light on this.

Good Luck with your exam when you take it.

[DB6]

BUY THE JAR PPL CONFUSER and learn all the questions in there. Air law is **** , just like all law, there is no logic to it, and it's the one exam where there's no point trying to understand the subject. So just learn it parrot-fashion, trot out all the utter **** about the 5th freedom etc and they'll be happy.
Cheers DB6

Bridges were built to be flown under.

[Luftwaffle]

Different country, different exams, different laws, but here's my advice.

Disregard the folk who misinterpret, mistype and misadvise you on air law and go straight to the source. Study for air law by reading the actual aeronautical regulations and standards. They change faster than the study books, and any typos in them are law.

Two years down the road when your boss says you're good to go and you know you're not, you should know how to pick up the actual book of regs and show who is right. It's your licence.

[Tallbloke]

DB6 is right, the JAR PPL confuser is the way to go. I did my law 3 weeks ago and passed. Apart from anything else, there are some nonsense questions in the confuser which are repeated on the paper.

[BEagle]

The 'PPL Confuser' is most certainly NOT the 'way to go' but can be of use with exam revision . Get yourself a PPL textbook with the appropriate JAR supplement - especially for Air Law - and DON'T rely on out of date textbooks. If you think that just memorising what you think are the right questions and answers from the exam papers is the way to become a pilot, then you are fooling yourself. You do need some working knowledge of Air Law - although I do also query the relevance of some of the content of the JAA PPL exams. Unfortunately the recent CAA ruling on the minimum time between re-sits is just going to encourage the 'cram, exam, dump' approach to learning.

[This message has been edited by BEagle (edited 22 June 2000).]

[Otto-Pilot]

I used Thom (JAR updated version) and then the PPL Confuser for revision. It's not the most exciting subject, but there are bits in Thom which aren't in the Confuser and vice versa. I wouldn't recommend using the confuser only - all you're doing is learning the answers rather than the subject. It might get you through the exam, but there is more to being a pilot than passing the exam

[DB6]

BEagle, if you're talking about the 2 weeks, 4 weeks thing that came out about a month or 3 weeks ago I believe it's been rescinded.

[Tallbloke]

Beagle
In the original post trustno1 mentions that he/she/it already has Jeremy Pratt's book and asks if there is anything else he/shg/it should be doing. The JAR PPL confuser is a valuable addition to the the text books you mention, I would not suggest that anyone who can answer all the questions in the book but has no other knowledge is in any way fit to fly.
In my opinion the academic side of learning to fly is not about learning by rote, but the fostering of common sense coupled with knowledge gained both from text and your instructor.
However I think that it helps to have some sort of idea about what sort of questions you will get, and further more you will see how good is your knowledge of the law before you waste time and money sitting an exam you may not be prepared for. I cannot think of any discipline where mock exams are discouraged.

[Pezah]

BA CEP ;)

Seriously though surely the point is to know the correct answers anyway. Even if it crammed in. The problem arises when you forget what you learnt 5 minutes after you have your pass.

[The President]

I have to say BEagle that I disagree. All Air Law is top quality sh+t. Whilst it is not unreasonable for pilots to learn air law, it is unreasonable for the CAA to test it in the way that they do.

Questions like:

Anti collision lights on fixed wing aircraft under 5700kg registered on or before 1st Aptil 1988:

a) Are not allowed
b) Are advisable but not required
c) Are mandatory
d) Are optional

incite a need to learn what the questions are. In the above example, I ask you to explain the differences in (b) and (c)- as far as I'm concerned (and I am a very literate person), 'advisable but not required' is pretty much the same as 'optional'.

Questions like this are designed to catch people out, and this is just not a fair method of assesment.

Simililar questions which have to have been designed by an utter b'stard who wants to catch people out are ones like that asking what the 'glide clear' rule is (2000ft above congested areas(?), I don't know, I always fly as high as I can). Then a question is asked presenting the possible answers as 1500ft, 600m, 1000ft and 1000m. That is also a very counter productive method of assesment- seeing as I have never, and I never intend to, refer to altitude in metres.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Air Law is riddled with 'catch-em-out' questions. For this reason I believe that the assesment of air law is, at all levels, very much an assesment of how much you don't know, rather than if your level of knowledge reaches the required standard. For this reason I can fully justify my action in learning air law parrot fashion from the confuser for my PPL, and doing as many practice q's as poss for my PPL/IR.

The CAA really need to look at their methods of assesment- as far as a fair test of someone's knowledge goes... well, let's just say if OFSTED were to go through it with a fine toothed comb, they would have a field day.

[BEagle]

Well, Mr Pres. I have to agree with you in some areas!! The question technique employed by the CAA does seem designed to trap rather than to test fairly. And yes, it is utter bo££ocks having to learn the dimensions of the stripes on the streamers flown beneath tethered kites (10cm red and white on an 80 x30 cm streamer at not less than 100 m intervals !!) and the correct sequence of lights to be displayed at the mooring site of a tethered balloon flown at more than 60m above the ground by night*!! There needs to be a common-sense filter applied to most of these exams so that only practical, essential parts of the syllabus are actually tested.
By the way, the answer to your example was 'optional'. 'Advisable but not required' is too subjective to be the correct answer - no doubt such lights would be considered very, very advisable by the Acme Rotating Beacon Company, but less so by the pilot of a 1909 Bleriot Monoplane!! This does, as you so correctly point out, show how utterly crass some of the questions are. But at PPL level things aren't so bad and Ken has done quite a reasonable job - but I do think that more Right-of-Way and suchlike questions rather than 'bureaucracy'-type questions should have been asked. The 'PPL Confuser' may help with revision, but it should be used to assist, rather than replace, study of proper text books.

*2 flashing red and one flashing green lights arranged in an equilateral triangle with 25m sides at the mooring site with the green light indicating the downwind direction!!

Why on earth do we need to know this?? So that we can report illegally parked barrage balloons to the CAA??

[This message has been edited by BEagle (edited 24 June 2000).]

[Tallbloke]

So should trustno1 go out and buy the PPL confuser or not?

[V2]

DB6 says "Air law is **** , just like all law, there is no logic to it, and it's the one exam where there's no point trying to understand the subject."
President says: "All Air Law is top quality sh+t"

(Leaving aside DB6's daft generalisation about all law :rolleyes: ) you both nonetheless ignore BEagle's advice at your peril.

The CAA's approach to testing your knowledge of Air law is, I agree, "top quality sh+t" but it is necessary for your own sake to know those parts of Air Law which are applicable to your area of flying.
Generally, what we quickly cram and learn "parrot fashion" is just as quickly forgotten. By all means, use that approach to irrelevant parts, but only for those parts.

You'll find that professional pilots do actually know their Air Law quite well.
Why? Because safety depends upon us all knowing the rules by which we fly, and, it helps you keep your hard-earned licence! :)

[The President]

I think the important thing to realise, as BEagle points out (in one form or another), that there is a big difference between what the CAA expect us to know and what we need to know.

What we need to know: (for example) Red lights on the left of the a/c, green on the right. White ACLs are for fixed wing only, but if you see a red ACL, it can be a chopper or a fixed wing.

What we don't need to know: I refer to the post given by my honourable colleague some moments ago!

I personally believe that air law should be taught in a series of points, not in a fashion reminiscant of 'this is the law:'.

Therefore, a whole load of meaningless tosh becomes...

To do this, this is what you must have:
+ A thing
+ A jobby
+ One of these
+ Two of those.

If, however, you're only doing it at this time, then you need not have A jobby.

(I hope that serves as a fairly generic explanation)

I personally found the confuser very good at teaching things in that format... with the added bonus of being able to see what the questions are at the same time. For this reason I maintain that I was doing no wrong in learning Air Law (specifically)* from the confuser. Therefore I personally would recommend that trustno1 buys one.

BEagle, thank you for your comments on my 'advisable'/'optional' dilemma!

[trustno1]

No need to pose that question, I bought the Confuser during the week. So now I am armed with Pratt's book, TT's book and the confuser. I let you know how I get on. On the subject of the Air Law paper, my instructor seems to be pretty happy with my circuits. My lesson over the weekend included practicing EFATO, landing without flap and landing on a grass runway, all done within the hour. He told me to get the Air Law paper under my belt as soon as possible.
Finally, what do you think of the picture on the front of the confuser. Does any body have a copy of the Irish Register, and if they do, does EI-HCR exist. Who are the pilots pictured, and were they happy to be on the cover.

[This message has been edited by trustno1 (edited 26 June 2000).]

[fastback]

Perhaps someone could tell me what relevance (or why should a ppl applicant need to know about) the "Chicago convention" and not to forget the "Tokyo convention" has to do with flying around the UK.

It was bad enough learning it for my cpl`s let alone some one doing a ppl

[V2]

IMHO, absolutely no relevance whatsoever.
That's one of the (many) absurdities of the CAA Law syllabus/exam system which distracts from the things which really are important.

[trustno1]

Just to say a big Thank You for all your advice. I managed to get 38 out of 40 correct. The other good news was that I went solo on Saturday after 11.2 hours instruction. I did a few touch and go's and then the Instructor asked me to go off and do one circuit by myself. I know some people have said that they really enjoyed their 1st solo and even sang all the way round. I was so occupied concentrating on my instruments and flying that it was all over pretty quickly and did'nt really have time to enjoy the feeling. I made up for it yesterday when the instructor asked me to go and do 3 circuits with full stops in between. The weather was good with a small crosswind. I'd even go as far as saying the landings were 3 of the best.

Thanks to all.

[This message has been edited by trustno1 (edited 07 August 2000).]

[This message has been edited by trustno1 (edited 07 August 2000).]

[V2+10]

Well Done for Saturday!!

[Leon Jabachjabicz]

I passed JAR Air Law exam with the AFE JAR Supplement - peace of old ease!

I believe that the CAA are p£ssed off with PPL CONFUSER and are deliberately making it difficult to get hold of past papers. So I guess that makes them out of date.

Good luck, you won't need it, the few exams I had to sit were easy!

LJ

PS Missed your last, well done!

[This message has been edited by Leon Jabachjabicz (edited 09 August 2000).]