Poor ATPL Manual's

[Jimmy5]

Has anyone else used the Oxfrod Aviation General Navigation ATPL manual? I've just finished reading through it and was amazed at the number of mistakes there were. I personally find the subject difficult at the best of times, but being faced with a book where, even when you think you understand it, your not sure you can trust your knowledge because so much has been wrong makes life even more difficult.

Has anyone else found this or have I got a duff copy?

James

[Superpilot]

Oxford's ATPL material has been this way for years. The proofreader should be shot. If indeed they employed one!

[hughesyd]

your right on that one. Good job i was in a full time groundschool when i did my ATPLs in Madrid. They used the Oxford books,riddled with mistakes. If i had been distance learning i would say i would have made some mistakes and misinterpreted tsome of the info given. I found radio Nav book a nightmare!!. Oxfords books are information overload with twice as much crammed into them as say, Bristols, which are much more condensed into need to know and clearly explained information.

[acuba 290]

what kind of mistakes are there? I used this book additional to Bristol notes and found it very useful :ok:

[agent.oen]

Looks like I'm not the only one to find the Oxford books to be really bad. I'm currently studying the ATPL and our school makes use of the afore mentioned books. We use the latest editions (2008) but these are so full of mistakes and errors it makes one doubt about the professionalism of the school! Just a few examples:

uncountable typos - brackets opened but not closed, characters that should be in super/sub script are not formatted as so (e.g. 100C instead of 10 degrees celcius)
end of chapter exercises having incorrect values inserted in tables (values are inserted under the wrong columns) - this is especially evident in the Gen Nav book
missing chapters!! Chapter 4 is missing in my Gen Nav book! Luckily it's an easy chapter.
The list goes on. And apart from these errors, I find the books to be wayyy too detailed.

A.O.

[poss]

Sadly it's not just OAA's manuals that I've had the displeasure of having to get my head around just because of poor punctuation. It would seem we have to spend half the time trying to dicipher the text when really a comma here or there would have sufficed.

[mb2ai]

Oxford ATPL books are a dream compared to the absolute rubbish others make and supply to their students. Its a shame that many schools still do this and have used the same books for years, class after class. This is also aapparent for DL books, I cringe at the quality od notes given in residential classes and feel so sorry for the distance learners with smaller modular schools.

From my experience Oxford and Bristol are the best for this.

Happy bristolling!!

[bsal]

I'm using the 2007 edition of the OAT books and there is only a couple of minor spelling mistakes nothing else really to complain about.

[agent.oen]

Well the poor state of the Oxford manuals has now proven to be of hindrance in my first ATPL test. The exact same question found in the Electrics book was asked in a test held at my school:

A NICAD battery shows a high temperature after engine start, this could be an indication of:

thermal runaway
it is not connected to the battery bus-bar
normal temperature during charging
depends upon the outside air temperatureOxford book suggested answer: 1
Actual answer: 3

Result, I ended up losing :mad: marks in my test because of this. I wonder just how many more potential 'examination penalty' mistakes lurk in these 14 books.

AO

[boeing320]

i thought the books were basically really good, with good clear explanations - but - there are lots of proof reading type errors. LOTS. If you've had plenty of technical education already, you can spot most of the mistakes or likely mistakes and not just take everything at face value, but for someone going there straight after doing arts A-levels or for distance learning, i imagine it doesnt really help them much...
Dont know why they havent sorted it out - it wouldnt take a huge effort to get some independant proof reading done before publishing it.

i did the oxford aviation ground school a couple of years ago, the full time course. some fantastic instructors and its actually not bad value for money considering its a six month full time course. The flight training there is rather expensive so i went somewhere else, but the ground school boys were great - all of them real characters and good at teaching the stuff.