Met Exam

[G CEXO]

I am almost through PPL Met. I have the exam hopefully next week and would like a bit of information in what to expect in the exam.

As far as I understand, its 20 questions with an hour time limit. Not bad when you've recently sat Aircraft General with 50 questions :ok:

Heres the question:

Will I be given weather charts in the exam in order to explain weather fronts?

I expect questions on METAR, TAFs etc so not to worried about that.

Any chance on questions on Air Masses, thunderstorms etc?

I know its quite a "how long is a piece of string" question but, as you guys have probably sat these exams, you can give me an idea on what to expect and the definite areas I must thoroughly revise.

Thanks for reading my thread and any advice information will be greatly appreciated. :)

G-XO

[eharding]

As ever, the relevant volume of Thom is your friend, and the Confuser is your confessor. Read the book, making notes as you go. Work through the examples at the end of each chapter. Then try the Confuser exam. Repeat until you can score at least 98%.

As for specifics, post exam, my experience is that thunderstorms are very bad, and if the weather is murky enough to make you think you really ought to be being paid money to go out and fly in it, then unless you have the bits of paper to prove you can be paid the money to go out and fly in it, and someone is offering you lots of money, then your best bet is to knock it on the head and do something else.

The best sort of clouds are the sort you can fly a loop around....Cumulo-Loopus.

Best of luck with the exam.

[BackPacker]

The toughest questions I remembered from the Met exam are questions where you get a METAR and one of those Metforms (215 I believe). You then have to say from which area this METAR is.

Decoding a TAF (what will the conditions be at suchandsuch time?) is childs play in comparison.

[Whirlygig]

Agreed Backpacker but I don't remember any of those sorts of questions for PPL; it's more a CPL/ATPL type question!

I do remember a question on dry/saturated/environmental lapse rates where you had to say at what altitude the cloud would form!

Cheers

Whirls

[BackPacker]

Yeah but that's just a number to learn. 400 feet times the difference between temp and dew. You don't have to remember the calculation behind it although when I read it, I found it very interesting.

Likewise, there are a few other numbers that you simply have to learn:
1 mb = 30 feet (actually a little less than that, and a lot less once you go higher up)
ISA = 15 degrees and 1013.2
spiked lines are cold fronts, lines with half-circles are warm fronts
anticlockwise (left) round a low, clockwise round a high on the Northern hemisphere
one-line TAFs: everybody goes flying, two-line TAFs: those with IMC/IR go flying, three-line TAFs: everybody stays on the ground and bitches about the weather.

[Captain Smithy]

Nice rule of thumb there BackPacker!

The Met exam isn't too bad actually, I seem to remember a question where you are given the F215 and on it is marked a route from say A to B and you are asked, judging from the forecast conditions shown on the F215 if it will be OK to fly or not. As long as you've studied you'll be OK!

P.S. If you haven't already done so sign up for the online Met Office Aviation briefing service... it's totally free and it lets you get used to AIRMETs, TAFs & METARs F214 &F215 etc. I found it a great help for doing my Met exam. Also comes in handy for when you come round to doing the planning for your Nav exercises!

Good luck with the exam.

Smithy

[G CEXO]

Thanks for the input, much appreciated. :ok:

one-line TAFs: everybody goes flying, two-line TAFs: those with IMC/IR go flying, three-line TAFs: everybody stays on the ground and bitches about the weather

I havn't come across this before, could someone possibly explain?

G-XO

[NeuterCane]

Have to quibble with BPs statement re relationship between 1 mb and vertical distance:

Quote:
1 mb = 30 feet (actually a little less than that, and a lot less once you go higher up)


BP is right that 1 mb (15 C, 1013.2 mb) is a little less than 30 FT (27 FT), but the vertical distance per mb becomes greater with increasing altitude:
1 mb = 37 FT @ 10000 FT,
1 mb = 48 FT @ 18000 FT,
1 mb = 58 FT @ 24000 FT,
1 mb = 104 FT @ 39000 FT, all of course assuming ISA applies through the depth.

Of course, if BP meant that for a constant depth of 30 FT, the pressure difference becomes less with increasing height, then BP would be correct - but I didn't quite read it like that.

I recall in ATPL, the relationship 96T/P (T= temperature in Kelvin, P = Pressure in millibars) would give the vertical distance in feet for 1 mb. Multiply by however many millibars you want a vertical distance for, but it is only valid for 'small changes in pressure' - so should be valid for 1 or 2 mb difference I would have thought.

Cheers,