4-5 day ppl exam courses
 

This purely to get some thought and opinion.....
You see a lot of courses offered for ‘ppl theory all 9 exams passed in 5 days including RT practical’ normally costing around a grand for the service. Just to clarify, I did all mine with an ATO over a period of weeks with self study in between classroom sessions and exams a couple of years ago.

These fast track services seem woefully inadequate to me and I fail to see how an ab-initio student can possibly learn and understand the required theory across all 9 subjects in just 5 days. Anyone can learn the answers to the question banks to pass the exams but ALL the required material in 5 days?

My opinion is that these services undermine the importance and requirements of learning the required theory for the PPL. I get that the ppl syllabus is considerably less in content than cpl/atpls but even so, the content and learning requirements deserve more than five days crammed all in and should treated with equal importance and diligence.

Thoughts please.

[QUOTE=TangoAlphad;
(In my defence there were many many many other things in my past that caused older me to question younger me's intelligence..)[/QUOTE]

Yes, I am in that club too.......

Over the years I have seen ground training as unsatisfactory. At one stage there was someone doing ground training over three weekends plus homework. Someone else ran PPL ground training as an evening class at a college of further education, but these days you need a teaching qualification to teach at a college of FE, and it is unlikekt they will consider a FI rating as a teaching qualification.

I was in a flying school recently where one of their PPL students had a pass in the EASA ATPL exams. They were concerned that he did not have the level of knowledge they expected for a candidate on a PPL course!

Initially, EASA proposed a 100 hour ground school for the PPL but as Instructor's don't get paid for theoretical instruction, it crumbled under the opposition.

Our students readily agree to paying for long pre-flight briefings, once it is explained that they will save costs in the air and that I want the instructors to be paid for ground duties. Many clubs and schools do little or no briefing causing an increase in repeated flight exercises.


Those students that struggle with self study for the writtens get one to one ground school and pay an even higher hourly rate. Again, the students benefit as well as our instructors.

Over the years I've had a few students who've been through these courses, some have been very good but many have not retained sufficient of whatever they were taught. One student told me he'd been on a "guaranteed pass" course (in the south) and failed an exam, the instructor/examiner gave him a small amount of tuition on the questions he'd got wrong and then gave him the same paper and answer sheet back. He passed - surprise!

My approach is to first get people to read the book and then to spend time with me so we can go through the important bits of the syllabus as a Q&A, with me filling-in any gaps or improving their understanding. They then take the exam straight away unless one of us thinks they need more study or tuition. The Q&A time varies with subject and how well prep'd they are, min about 40 minutes and max 2-3 hours. I've had a couple of people do 4 exams in a 12 hour day, but they are the minority and were unusually able and well prep'd. Usually people prepare 2 or 3 subjects.
This seems to produce knowledgeable pilots and a very good first time pass rate.

HFD

I always thought it would be a good fall back if you lost your medical or licence.
Advertise course and run evening class at local community school or village hall that could be rented. You would probably earn more than instructing at PPL level.No flying school to run. No responsibility for sending students solo or wondering what a renter is going to do.
I see R/T examiners don't seem to do to badly from the charges i have seen for some ground and practical tests. (My months wage in a day with four candidates. I would have to do 5 skill tests to earn the same amount of money over 3-4 days).

Thanks for all your replies. Good to see that opinion is so one-sided. I think there is definitely an argument for a more structured requirement for ppl ground school and even an argument for qualifications required to teach subjects i.e. current or previously held FI certificate - there are assessed lectures as part of the FI course. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think there is any specific quals needed for this? Or Something akin to a rating in order to teach the theory?

Hardly that. The 100 hour requirement is still included in AMC1 FCL.210; FCL.215 and is applied elsewhere in Europe. All that happened is that the UK CAA issued an Alternative Means of Compliance that removed any reference to a minimum number of hours.

The logic for the 100 hour figure was the credit awarded to the holder of a PPL holder commencing a modular ATP theoretical knowledge course compared with an ab-initio entrant to an integrated course.

To be able to offer these courses you need to be an ATO (Old RF) - complete with a "Head of Training" and a "Chief Theoretical Knowledge Instructor" (These may be the same person, and may not necessarily be known as those post holders). It takes some work to obtain an ATO to undertake this type of training.

To be able to teach on this or any ground school you have to satisfy the CTKI/HT that you have the required knowledge yourself. Some CTKI's may require more in the way of satisfaction than others but you don't have to have a FI Certificate or an AOPA Ground Instructor Certificate (if they still exist)

These courses are not meant to be the whole teach - the student is supposed to have at least read the books before attending. In much the same way as there are brush ups for CPL/ATPL lessons these PPL courses exist and provide, IMHO, a valuable service. I agree, some students don't do the pre-study and some courses are a little 'light on content' but that doesn't mean they all are.

Before too long, the LAPL/PPL exam questions will be totally updated to make them more appropriate and up-to-date.

Current 'question banks' will then become completely useless.

BEagle?

Will Ground Examiners still be able to administer the new exams? (They're a minor but essential part of my meagre income.)

I believe so.

The CAA intended to introduce an e-exam system, but those of us on the LAPL/PPL ExamWG included an unyielding requirement for any incorrect answers provided by an applicant who had passed but with less than 100% MUST be properly debriefed by the Examiner.

"Before too long" ?
 

Beagle,

Timescale please ?

Will this include a move away from the silly 9 exams that were introduced in 2013 because a certain person at the CAA was unable to understand EASA regulations that mean that "exam(s)" could mean as few as 1, and as many as 9 ?

And then compounded it in 2014 when he realised that it definitely stated "no more than 120 questions".

And will it also exclude all the questions taken straight from the EASA CPL/ATPL question bank ?

We want something that tests knowledge that students should know, excludes the could know/nice to know, and it's should not change. No more of this "let's see if we can poke about in the far corners of the syllabus to see how many candidates we can fail" attitude that has been going on in ATPLs for the past 6 months plus.

I expect AOPA to earn their corn on this.

Especially as the current Ground Examiners have not been consulted.

So....can you fill in some detail please ?

And....why not just publish the question bank like the FAA do ? It shows students what they need to know, and puts all these question banks out of business at a stroke.

As soon it is online, no doubt the questions will be on someone's question bank before long and they will change for it.

Timetable? Within the current year at a guess.

'Could know / should know / must know' has certainly been applied. Also an end to an incorrect answer to one question automatically leading to incorrect answers in others. Gone too will be the style of 'The answer is a. 1&3, b. 2&3, c. 1&2 or d. 2&4'.

The Authority invited a wide range of participants when the original project was initiated; however, only a few of us have stayed the course. I haven't personally written any questions, but every single question submitted by authors which have passed initial filtering have subsequently been reviewed by a joint CAA / Industry panel of current and retired GA instructors.

The leaking of questions to external question banks has been a thorny issue and was one reason why an e-exam was preferred. If that cannot be achieved and the new questions are printed, we have asked the CAA to consider prosecuting blatant plagiarism under infringement of copyright. But there should be no incentive to cheat, as the new exams are intended to test essential knowledge, rather than trapping with daft questions about the local time in Bombay or whatever.

Absolutely no support from me for this suggestion. Publishing the question bank just means the vast majority of students just learn the answer with no incentive to understand the theory. It’s effectively what happens now. We should be encouraging a desire to know why something happens or works or doesn’t.

And that's where the examiners should step up to the mark with "and why is the answer C?" What is often forgotten (by both parties) is the requirement to convince the examiner you know what your talking about...

But they have already passed an exam that should be testing that. Is a skills test examiner really going to fail a candidate that has flown well because of a shaky answer? Make the theory exams test theory knowledge. Don’t just encourage a ‘tick box’ mentality.

TA.

I wasn't suggesting that an examiner shouldn't be able to cx a skills test. More that he should have a very reasonable expectation that the candidate already has the requisite knowledge. That should be assured by the theortical exams and I don't believe it can be merely by publishing the questions and letting the candidate learn to tick box C

B61 I couldn't agrree more

"absolutely no support from me for this suggestion"

Why? As what we have at the moment is every single answer on the internet. You could pass every paper with one hours study.

As reassuring as beagle's comments are. The CAA announced when they first went to 9 papers how they consulted with experts. Yet despite being told they were not fit for purpose they pushed them through.

I'm expecting them all to go online. They will remain as 9 exams and the candidate will be billed the same cost as an ATPL written exam. All of which will go to the CAA. And within a week all the answers will be for sale on some android app.

And beagle don't make me laugh about the CAA taking legal action about copyright of exam questions. The CAA don't take any action when a school refuses to release exams results when a student moves to a different school

I have an expectation that every candidate that comes to me for a skills test is ready to demonstrate that they can control an aircraft - but I guess my idea of preparing a student for test is different to others. I've had some appalling candidates in front of me both in terms of theory and practical.

At the end of the day it is my responsibility to assess that candidate is safe and I take that to mean I can check if they can explain separation in class D airspace, can tell me where they can find more information about the DOC of the ADN VOR, can describe the braking system of the aircraft they're flying.

So how does your proposal to publish all the questions prevent that?

One potential, though perhaps costly, method of deterring cheats would be to produce a larger number of exam sets. All would still include the same questions, but the answer sequence would be different. Thus 'the answer to Question 3 is A' might be true for one paper, but not for another with the very same question.

The massive flaw with the EASA system is that they assume because you pass a written test you can remember it all.

Imagine you take Air law as your first exam, and take your last exam 18 months later. You now have 3 years to pass your CPL and IR. And then 7 years Minimum to pass ATPL. That's 10½ years! And they assume you know everything because you passed a written test 10½ years ago? The FAA may have a piss-easy written test, but every flight test has an oral element. Fail that and you don't even go flying...

BEagle, I don't see how that would work. I'm sure people will recognise the questions rather than their number. We need to accept that, with the internet and social media, it's not possible to keep exam papers or a question bank secure.
I think the only approach that will work is to produce a huge question bank, with the set of questions and sequence for any candidate chosen at random from this very large set. The exam could then be sat using paper (my preference) or as an e-exam. There are several ways to implement this, here are some:

• Most controlled: the CAA provide a website where examiners request a set of random numbers which index into the question bank for a particular candidate and exam
• Less controlled: the CAA publish tables of random numbers, from which an examiner randomly picks a set for each candidate
• Least controlled: examiners use a random number generator (such as https://www.random.org/integers/?num...t=html&rnd=new) to produce an index into the question bank

Because the question bank would be very large it would be a herculean task for a candidate to try to learn the answers. Generating the question bank would not be so critical as now and could start with the banks that already exist, such as http://avsport.org/docs/Test_Bank_pvt.pdf.

It's good that the exams are being improved, but I think it's unfortunate that their development has taken so long and has not been carried out in a more open way. I hope the process won't just produce a few new exams because they will probably be on the internet a couple of weeks after being published so much of the effort will have been wasted. The world has changed.

HFD

An even bigger assunption is that the questions asked actually have some relevance. Having vetted ATPL questions for EASA, before they ran out of money and gave up, the quality of the questions was the lowest I have ever seen and on a percentage basis for relevance and quality, well below 30%. On that basis it matters little whether you remember it or not.

Good income though!
 

I run a flying school and totally agree that these courses are NOT sufficient for students;especially those looking to progress to Commercial Training.

It is a 'quick fix' but if the students are finally tested by a 'straight examiner' the lack of knowledge is quickly identified.

It is essential that the basic grounding is right; the ATPL is building on this!

The PPL is NOT a prep school for an ATPL. Too many people have this attitude to it.

It is a leisure licence for the recreational pilot. What is required in terms of knowledge is what is needed for safe operation of a flight.

Does the candidate know the rules of the air, what VFR limits are, how the engine works, what to do if the oil pressure stays low after start-up, how to plan a VFR route, decoding a TAF, what the effect of icing is, etc.

Publish all the facts they are required to know in a Q@A book. If the VFR limit for an aircraft flying at less than 140kts IAS below 300 ft in Class G airspace is 1500 metres, if they have memorised this and know it, then how they have learnt it is IRRELEVANT.

This culture of secrecy advocated is utterly stupid.

The aim is to be inclusive at the private level. The "chop" mentality can be left to the commercial ATOs and the military.

As one that advocates learning why rather than simply what, I hadn’t realised I was utterly stupid. You have a rather unfortunate approach to debate.

Debate ? Opinions are there to be firmly stated, for the removal of all doubt, especially if they contradict a statement by someone else that one does not like or agree with.

After all , this is pprune ! :-)

Thanks. Now I understand. Same trend in universities and the hard left - if you don’t agree with somebody, don’t give them a chance to give their opinion or, if they do get that chance, shout them down.

I thought the Instructor part of pprune would have been more mature. Schoolboy error as I should have known better.

Unless your are at University and write a thesis, all exams are a form of rote learning.
Look how the Government are trying to get students to learn the times table.
I personally would like to see exams in which you need 100% pass mark.
The questions would not be hard but 100% relevant, like collision avoidance rules.
I remember doing such a CAA exam around 1989 amongst the ATPL exams.

Isn't the US system a data bank of 1000 questions and 100 random on day of test?
Good luck if you can remember all those answers without some understanding of the subject. Why should questions be convoluted, most things are black or white.

B61... I entirely agree, the PPL is not preparation for the CPL or ATPL, they are very different qyalifications.. in the 1980s a PPL candidate did a GFT (skill test) and a solo QXC (qualifinying cross coubtry), then in the nineties there was a navigation test and separate skill test. Then at the beining of the 12st century someone came up with the brught idea that the PPL nav test and skill test, which in my opinion as an eximiner is far too long for a PPL candidate to concentrate and maintain good performance over ninety minutes.

On the subject of students records if a student changes schools and the old schoool will not pass on to the new school, the CAA should inforce this.

When I did my UK ATPL's I did them by self study with PPSC, it worked well for me, but it was not for everyone. It took me longer that the intensive courses, but I think I retained more that those who were on intensive courses, that is the case to date,although I might need to revise a compass swing, although I very much doubt that is still on the ATPL syllabus.

I do wonder if there are any PPL correspondance courses in the UK, As to why there does not seem much enthusiasm to teact the PPL theorecticals, particularky by retired pilots, it is probably down to the lack interest in the EASA training PPL training ethos.

The FAA no longer publishes the question bank. But there are a lot of sample tests available that come close.

The US requirement for PPL is one (1) test, 60 questions, 2.5 hours, 70% correct to pass. All electronic. Testing services charge US$ 150. The test results are good for 2 years. The checkride examiner will look at the codes for questions answered incorrectly and ask the examinee appropriate questions.

One exam is a sensible approach
 

Marck,

I agree, 1 exam plus a subsequent oral test is a good idea. Transport Canada have an exam of 100 questions.

It would stop this "bite sized" learning.

The only EASA requirement "is no more than 120 questions across all exam(s)".

So it could be less, and just one exam.

I cannot comment of the 4-5 day courses.
In preparing students for the exams, i have a suite of mock exams and like others my main approach is to get them to a) understand the question, b) understands why the correct answer is correct and c) understand why the incorrect answers are incorrect.
If there any weaknesses then we use the books and the references to remedy them.

The people i feel sorriest for are non native English speakers, for whom the unnecessarily complicated sentences can prove difficult.

Just as an aside, I understand that the Irish Aviation Authority will not accept EASA PPL exams taken within the UK system because they apparently cannot be 'verified' by the UK CAA. So those going on 5 day courses and taking the UK exams beware!

Well that must be a VERY recent introduction by the IAA because as recently as February this year there was absolutely no issues here - the papers haven’t changed so why should the process?

Well that must be a VERY recent introduction by the IAA because as recently as February this year there was absolutely no issues here - the papers haven’t changed so why should the process?

As recent as 2 weeks ago the IAA we’re accepting papers sat with me.