A wee Air Law question

[Graham Borland]

Trevor Thom (2006 edition) says that the X signs to mark an unsafe area of the manoeuvering area are always white.
CAP 637 disagrees: it says they're white on the runway, or yellow on the taxiway.
I assume CAP 637 is correct. Is that right?

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Surely nobody cares? All you need to know is "if there's an X, keep off"?

So, a decent and sane examiner, whose objective is to produce safe pilots, won't be asking about the colour of the X in a PPL exam, will he.

[BlueRobin]

Having sat CAA PPL and ATPL exams, the correct answer is whatever it says on the answer paper for your exam. However if the stated answer disagrees, or if there is any ambiguity, with current regs inc. the CAP appeal it.

[dublinpilot]

So, a decent and sane examiner, whose objective is to produce safe pilots, won't be asking about the colour of the X in a PPL exam, will he.

But you're assuming the exams are set by a sane examiner That's a dangerous assumption.

When I sat the JAA/IAA exams, there was one question that asked for the true track between two airports. I carefully drew a line between them and measured the angle. The measured angle included EXACTLY half a degree.

Two of the four possible answers were a few degrees out, but the other two answers were my exactly measured angle (including the half degree) rounded either up or down to the nearest degree.

So I erased my line, sharpened my pencil, drew the line again, and measured it again. Same answer...it was 1/2 a degree out of either answer. Not wanting to waste time I decied to erase it one last time, and decided to take which ever it was closest two. Got the EXACT same 1/2 degree answer.

Then I noticed the next FOUR questions were based on this! One asked me to apply the magnetic variation to the answer, then next asked to apply compass deviation card correction, and one asked to build in the wind correction.

So I followed both potential answers to the first question, through to the next four questions, thinking that apply the adjustments to one of them will give a possible answer to all four following questions, and the other one (the wrong one) won't have a possible answer in the next four questions. No such luck....a possible answer to all of the four following questions for both answers to the first question.

It it was down to just taking a guess on whether to round the answer to the first question up or down, and guessing wrong would mean that I'd not only have that question wrong, but the following four questions also.

I passed, so I'm thinking I guessed correctly.

When I mentioned it to my instructor afterwards, and he said "WHAT??? They don't still have THAT question on it do they???"

I've told that story to people who have sat the exam more recently and have heard that it still exists!!

(I should point out that the IAA exams are sat in a central location at particular times during the year, and are supervised by the IAA. They are not sat at your local club like the CAA ones.)

So you'll forgive me if I'm a little suspecious about sane examiners
For what it's worth, I think CAP 637 is correct. I remember seeing yellow X's on the taxiways at Perpigian (and being told to ignore 'the big yellow x's' by ATC ). And white X's on runways are a common sight.

dp

[Mike Cross]

And the answer is.......
Annex 14 to the International Convention on Civil Aviation says

Characteristics
7.1.4 The closed marking shall be of the form and proportions
as detailed in Figure 7-1, Illustration a), when displayed
on a runway, and shall be of the form and proportions as
detailed in Figure 7-1, Illustration b), when displayed on a
taxiway. The marking shall be white when displayed on a
runway and shall be yellow when displayed on a taxiway.

No doubt someone will explain what they do in the case of 08L/26R Gatwick which is a taxiway most of the time and a runway some of the time.

[Graham Borland]

Thanks folks.

[BigEndBob]

It would also be useful if the specification for any line included that it had to be reflective paint, as on the roads, why don't they follow suit with aerodrome markings?

[Mike Cross]

Maybe 'cos they're replaced by lights at night?

[Kit d'Rection KG]

No doubt someone will explain what they do in the case of 08L/26R Gatwick which is a taxiway most of the time and a runway some of the time.

No, 08L/26R is a runway.

Granted, it is mostly used by aircraft taxying rather than taking off and landing, but it is a runway nonetheless.

Oh, and bear in mind that Annex 14 is not a standards document in the UK, won't you?

[pumper_bob]

Dublin pilot,
if we were talking purely from a mathematics point of view, then the answer to your conundrum would have been the higher value. As 0-4 accounts for the lower half of the value, ergo 5-9 accounts for the upper half of the value. But in the real world the wind would be doing well to be within 10 deg tolerance, so a question of that sort just makes a joke of any pretence of serious examination to establish the competancy of the candidate to navigate!
Hope that helps!
P.B

[dublinpilot]

PB,

I choose to round up for that very reason

As I said, it must have been the correct answer, as I passed

But choosing to round a half of a degree up, or down shouldn't be the difference between a pass or a fail on a PPL Nav exam......as I said....a sane exam setter is a dangerous assumption

dp

[Mike Cross]

Oh, and bear in mind that Annex 14 is not a standards document in the UK, won't you?

Agreed, but we are required to comply with it unless we file a difference.
That's one of the probs. Instead of simply saying "shall comply with ICAO Standards & Recommended Practices" (which is after all the whole point of standards) we have to write our own version.
CAP637 has the dumbed-down version specifying the colours if you want it.

BTW wouldn't you think it odd if the candidate for an ICAO license was told his ICAO compliant answer was wrong because there was a local difference?

Mike