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Old 5th Jul 2006, 11:12
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PPL Exams!!

Aaaaaa,I can't believe it.I passed my flight test about 2 weeks ago and all I had to do was pass the PPL exams.I managed to pass the Met,Airframes and engines and principles of flight,but I can't pass the airlaw exam,I've written it twice and failed twice even though I've studied my ass off for it.Tomorrows my last chance otherwise I got to go through my flight test again.Any one else had the same problem as me?Its just so frustrating!!!
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Old 5th Jul 2006, 11:26
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I'm sorry for your situation but I don't think your flying school should have let you get to that stage.

In the UK, many schools will mandate that Air Law has to be passed before they allow first solo (although that's not a legal requirement). Most schools will also require that all exams have been passed before you do your final skills test so I am surprised that your school let you take the skills test with having passed so few exams.

If nothing else, I suggest you have a word with the Chief Instructor as I would think that some responsibility lies with them to hopefully give you some extra tuition (free!) to help you through this last exam.

Air Law is tough because it's boring. You just have to learn by rote. However, having some flying experience now, you should find it easier. I passed Air Law with the grand total of half an hour in my log book!

Cheers

Whirls
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Old 5th Jul 2006, 12:27
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montoya i am in a similar position to you, i have failed my air law exam twice, i cant understand why i have as i have been revising for months and am well clued up on the subject!! it is soooo frustrating as i am ready to do my first solo. however i have found that becuase i have already failed twice i am worried that i will fail again, hence me having to go to gatwick to take it which i really dont want to happen...
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Old 5th Jul 2006, 12:38
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Originally Posted by Whirlygig
I'm sorry for your situation but I don't think your flying school should have let you get to that stage.

In the UK, many schools will mandate that Air Law has to be passed before they allow first solo (although that's not a legal requirement).
That's certainly the case for me. My Flying school expect Air Law to be completed before your 10th hour or thereabouts. Makes sense really, why would you be allowed to fly solo when you don't know the law of the air.

It's just like driving without knowing your highway code!

Which study book are you using? The Trevor Thom books come with Q and A, I imagine if you pass that you will pass the exam.
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Old 5th Jul 2006, 12:42
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PPL Confuser.
Practise the question in the Confuser and you will pass all the PPL ground exams. Guaranteed.
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Old 5th Jul 2006, 14:06
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also AFE book "Questions and Answers Simplifyer" helps a lot. Questions there are more like real ones in exams
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Old 5th Jul 2006, 14:29
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Have a look in LASORs

An applicant may not take the skills test until ALL of the associated theoretical knowledge exams have been passed.

So am I missing something???

Edited to say, this been the JAA PPL

<<edit: I wondered when somebody would mention that. Quite correct.>>
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Old 5th Jul 2006, 15:26
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My instructors drilled in to me the following:

RTFQ - read the f****** question

RTFA - read the f****** answer

I thought it wa very harsh, until i faile dmy air law a second time. My 3rd attempt i done exactly what they said a few times over. I was amazed to see how many questions seemed ambiguos, but after reading them over and the answers it started to become very clear on the actual answer.

I personaly thought it was a very sneaky paper. If you have the minimas, signals and maths for pressure settings in you head you should be good to go.

Just be very carefull on what you interperate in the question.

Good luck.
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Old 5th Jul 2006, 17:15
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Thanks for the replies guys.I find that they try and trick you with the way they ask questions and they will give two very similar answers and one thats a bit different,this sometimes makes you think its one of the similar ones,but it ends up being the other,very sneaky indeed!Some questions that are not in my book that I learned from(South African Air Law for the PPilot) seem to pop up every now and again,which doesn't help.I'm just going to try and take my time,read carefully and hope that I can get it right third time around.If I don't then I've got some serious work to do!
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Old 5th Jul 2006, 21:30
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yeah best of luck montoya! i hope i get it 3rd time round as well!!!
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Old 6th Jul 2006, 00:21
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I'd just like to 2nd the PPL confuser, VERY good book

just curious, where are you learning?

Ben
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Old 6th Jul 2006, 07:41
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Exclamation

You have my sympathy Montoya, as I too hated airlaw; to each question there seemed to be pretty much 4 similar answers. I bought the oxford aviation training dvd on airlaw and sat the mock exams over and over and over again until I knew the subject backwards.

I would strongly suggest you do this as having to go to Gatwick to take your airlaw will be very tedious.

I'm also slightly mystified as to how you've got so far without having passed this. At BAFC at Booker, you aren't allowed to solo without it and there is a large notice in the aircraft log room that says "candidates are not to be put forward for the GST UNTIL ALL relevant exams and requirements for hours have been filled". Common practice at most clubs, I think. On a pragmatic note, I suspect that if you went and bent one of the club's aircraft, I'd be worried that the insurers would decline cover, given that you haven't passed the relevant exams, and I don't think that I would want to be in that position. Time for a word with your CFI I reckon.

Good luck!
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Old 6th Jul 2006, 08:18
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I'm also going through the exams. I have airlaw, about to write Human Factors.

I studied airlaw until I could answer the questions in the back of the thom books when my girlfriend read them out while we were driving places. I then got the confuser and to my surprise started scoring quite low. This was because I was skimming the questions and answering too quickly instead of really taking the time to understand exactly what they were asking. I also signed up to airquiz.com and did a few practice tests on there which caused me to score low yet again! I hit the books again out of fear heh. Eventually I was getting 85% just about every time on the airquiz site. I wanted 100% of course but it seemed out of my grasp so I wrote the exam at this stage of preparedness. I passed with 87% which was very close to what the mock exams were indicating I would.

A couple of the questions asked about things I had not seen before such as minimum equipment levels for certain flight conditions. I took a best guess but never did find out which ones I got wrong, my instructor said they don't go over the questions you get wrong or didnt understand (bad idea in my opinion - surely a contributor to unsafe flight!!). Still I passed and I assume the things that I hadn't seen before (in either confuser, thom, or airquiz) were just things I would have picked up had I studied from the AIP direct (which I actually did do to a point but that thing is MASSIVE and very difficult to determine exactly what applies to lil' ol' PPL students like me).

splatt
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Old 6th Jul 2006, 12:34
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Originally Posted by splatt
I took a best guess but never did find out which ones I got wrong, my instructor said they don't go over the questions you get wrong or didnt understand (bad idea in my opinion - surely a contributor to unsafe flight!!).
Certainly if you fail they are not allowed to discuss individual questions, just say generally what areas you need to brush up on (e.g. air space classification, lights and signals). If you pass, however, they are allowed to discuss the specific questions you got wrong (and i believe are encouraged to). I just don't know off-hand where this is definitively set out. As you say, just because you passed doesn't mean you don't know something quite fundamental to flight safetly.
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Old 6th Jul 2006, 17:25
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Yay!!!I passed! I'm so happy. I took the written exam instead of the computer exam and found that there were less "surprise" questions.Thanks for the help guys and good luck to you jamie2004 and everyone else writting at the moment.
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Old 6th Jul 2006, 20:04
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Well done Montoya

Only just noticed that your profile says your in Durbs in South Africa. Are you doing an SA licence? We are all wondering how you got to the skills test before you had written all the exams and this might explain it. I was in Ballito not so long ago actually, nice place! Bit humid for a capetonian like me, but then what am I saying, I now live in the UK!! Hehe.

All the best,

splatt
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Old 6th Jul 2006, 23:30
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Don't keep us all in suspenders, what score did you get?
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Old 7th Jul 2006, 07:11
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Yeah,here we just have to pass a pre-solo quiz before flying solo,which includes some law.We have the choice of doing our exams before or after the skills test.We are also advised to complete progress tests every 10 hrs flying time,however me being at school still,I didn't have time to study for them,so I left them until the end.
Yeah the humidity here is terrible in Summer,but now(winter) its perfect flying weather,sunny,cool,still.
Oh,my mark.I JUST made it,got 75%!
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Old 7th Jul 2006, 07:28
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Anything over 75% will do (and arguably anything over 75% is wasted!)....well done!
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Old 17th Jul 2006, 21:32
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PPL Grond Exams

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