£718 - Am I dreaming or what ????

[Superfly]

Well this is the fare asked on the CAA purple booking form for the ATPL ground exams, £718 to sit 14 bloody papers !!!! I might have been ignorant or something but I never expected it to be so expensive !!
Can anyone confirm this ? Yet another rip-off from the CAA !!! I'm well pissed-off about this bad "coup" on my wallet :mad: :mad:

[socrates]

Yup, and its marked by a computer. Not any computer, these things have to be super-computers in order to determine whether the correct mark has been made out of the 4 choices.

No wonder CAA stands for Cash And Agro.

[ickle black box]

The CAA exams work out at £51 each. This is a lot less then the Microsoft MCP exams, which cost about £70 each, and MS are famous for charging a fortune. I think you need to do 8 of these to get an MCSE (The main qualification for decent IT staff). Considering the MS ones are done, and marked on a PC, it makes the CAA look reasonable.

Still wish they were less though.

ickle

------------------
If God had meant man to fly, He would have given him more money.

[foghorn]

socrates,

You forget that they have to pay for the hours and hours of time it takes to pore over the results and remove the duff questions from the OK ones.....

[Superfly]

Ice Black Box - Unlike Civil aviation in the UK that revolves only around the CAA, the IT world (fortunately) doesn't revolves only around MicroSoft and these MCSE stuff are not mandatory ! you can get your way into IT without having a single MSFT cert and being a competent IT staff... As far as Pilot licencing is concerned the sad thruth is that the CAA is in a position of no-concurrence , easily earnt money init ???
working out the maths > an MCSE is 7 modules X £70 = £490 , still huge difference with the CAA charges ......

Superfly

[CaptainCrunch]

Last year I had a few months off so I packed myself off to India to do an MCSE. It took 4 weeks and cost me 5000 poundingtons. Oh, and I failed one of the stultifying dull exams. Neither the knowledge or the certificates were any use and as a management consultant I should have known better. This year I'll be spaffing my hard earned by going to South Africa for a PPL course costing half what I paid for my MCSE. Also, a PPL will probably look a damn sight more impressive on the CV - and the beer in SA doesn't taste of mozzie repellent. I hope.

Yours aye,

Cap'n Crunch

[little red train]

I can't see a direct saftey issue in only the CAA Holding Exams.

In the States there is compition, the ATPL cost about £50 and the results are within 30seconds on lasergrade.

I've seen Two exams where they forgot push the "Jumble" button on the computer, all the answers were A! French Annexes, incompete and unchecked questions ect. I think the argument for a lowering of standards wouldn't be applicable!

PS I got a bargan £700 set of ATPL exams!, the price was increased shortly after :)

[ronchonner]

it s cheap! it could be more expensive...
do nt you want QUALITY! if you pay more, that means you have more.you will have for your money and when you will have your paper, you will be proud to be what you are!in europe, you log how much money you spend for a job,not the hours!!! ;)