PPL Airlaw?!?!?!?!
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PPL Airlaw?!?!?!?!
Hi - I used the confuser to see how my knowledge was developing last night. I thought my knowledge was quite good regarding aerodromes etc and had been using an old Trevor Thom book. I couldn't believe how many of the up-to-date questions were on obscure ICAO articles and annexes - some based on international operations - is this the case in the real exam or are the first 100 questions or so in the confuser misrepresentative? Guess I need to know all the stuff anyway 
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You need to know the obscure stuff.
I used up-to-date Thom books ,answered the questions at end of each chapter,waited until I got most of them correct and then passed exams,.
I wouldn't have a clue about some of the more obscure stuff now!
Good luck
Lister
I used up-to-date Thom books ,answered the questions at end of each chapter,waited until I got most of them correct and then passed exams,.
I wouldn't have a clue about some of the more obscure stuff now!
Good luck
Lister
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I wouldn't have a clue about some of the more obscure stuff now!
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It's a licence to fly anywhere in the world (almost), so yes at this point the questions will seem a bit obscure.
The worst thing about air law is that you are expected to understand it before you experience the need for it.
The worst thing about air law is that you are expected to understand it before you experience the need for it.
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Unfortunately I just scraped a pass when I sat my air law exam in 2006. Recently I re-read the Trevor Thom book and answered the air law q's in the 'confuser', still didn't get 100% 
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Last edited by KandiFloss; 19th Jul 2008 at 13:19.
The confuser is a good representation of the questions that come up in the exam, unfortunately
Care to expand/clarify? Are you suggesting that the confuser should have questions which don't accurately represent questions that come up in the exam?
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Unfortunately, the crap one has to learn for the PPL prepares one very poorly for flying abroad.
To fly abroad, one needs to pick up a whole raft of operational trivia which is not taught anywhere.
The best way to do a useful PPL is to "rent" an instructor for an extended holiday flying around Europe. The resulting course would deliver an excellent all around pilot who would have had a great experience but would cost perhaps twice the UK average of £8k - plus some means of feeding and bedding (for want of a better word) the instructor on the trip.
This is sometimes done in the USA, where an instructor and an examiner can be freelancers. Unfortunately, in the UK, the need to work through an FTO makes this harder, and anyway few UK instructors know about foreign flying.
The above is even more true for the IR. Nothing beats some flying around Europe, picking up loads of operational stuff which is not taught in any IR.
I've done both JAA and FAA standalone PPLs and their respective written exams so can relate both to real world flying, and neither is better than the other. The FAA written is a lot less revision than the JAA stuff. I don't think ICAO syllabus requirements are the problem.
To fly abroad, one needs to pick up a whole raft of operational trivia which is not taught anywhere.
The best way to do a useful PPL is to "rent" an instructor for an extended holiday flying around Europe. The resulting course would deliver an excellent all around pilot who would have had a great experience but would cost perhaps twice the UK average of £8k - plus some means of feeding and bedding (for want of a better word) the instructor on the trip.
This is sometimes done in the USA, where an instructor and an examiner can be freelancers. Unfortunately, in the UK, the need to work through an FTO makes this harder, and anyway few UK instructors know about foreign flying.
The above is even more true for the IR. Nothing beats some flying around Europe, picking up loads of operational stuff which is not taught in any IR.
I've done both JAA and FAA standalone PPLs and their respective written exams so can relate both to real world flying, and neither is better than the other. The FAA written is a lot less revision than the JAA stuff. I don't think ICAO syllabus requirements are the problem.
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Slightly off topic...but do any of you reckon there are private pilots out there who have passed all exams purely by remembering the Q's + A's from the confuser?...(And not doing any proper study? 
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You can't because they are not the same.
The Confuser contains questions which are the same style as the real ones. Occassionally they will be the same. But the multiple choice answer patterns will be different.
If you can revise from the Confuser until you are getting 80%-90% then you are sure to pass the real exams.
It's like the FAA exams - the question banks are public (as they are for the JAA IR) and you can do the same with those. But one cannot learn the answer sequences by rota because they get changed around.
I don't think this is not "proper study". By the time you are getting say 90% with these revision tools, you will understand the subject matter just fine.
"Proper study" might be reading the Trevor Thom books until you are blue in the face, and you will not pass the exams on that. The CAA exams are full of word tricks and quite a few of the questions are ambiguous - it would be difficult to pass the exams if you merely knew the subject! Moeover, the exams were written on the assumption that people swatted from certain material - again if you merely knew the subject from some other source (like having been flying for 40 years) you would have difficulty passing.
The Confuser contains questions which are the same style as the real ones. Occassionally they will be the same. But the multiple choice answer patterns will be different.
If you can revise from the Confuser until you are getting 80%-90% then you are sure to pass the real exams.
It's like the FAA exams - the question banks are public (as they are for the JAA IR) and you can do the same with those. But one cannot learn the answer sequences by rota because they get changed around.
I don't think this is not "proper study". By the time you are getting say 90% with these revision tools, you will understand the subject matter just fine.
"Proper study" might be reading the Trevor Thom books until you are blue in the face, and you will not pass the exams on that. The CAA exams are full of word tricks and quite a few of the questions are ambiguous - it would be difficult to pass the exams if you merely knew the subject! Moeover, the exams were written on the assumption that people swatted from certain material - again if you merely knew the subject from some other source (like having been flying for 40 years) you would have difficulty passing.
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It helps to have a couple of things in the back of your mind. Most of the rules and regulations we have started from a logical source. However years of tinkering have removed much of the linked to the real work and now they are often simply 'rules'. So not much logic or justification.
Then we have the military or perhaps military thinking. We largely work in environments where people learn and then utilise skills. Much of the time in training is about generating those skills. The military and to a large extent the CAA and other quasi-legal organisations use the examination systems to select people. Not to establish skill levels but to wash out the 'inappropriate'.
Hence so many of the word games. It is a way of 'ensuring' that only people with a reasonable intellectual level can pass. So you learn the basic skill and then demonstrate a reasonable level of mental agility to pass the word games.
Will you ever need the answers to the questions in the exams? Almost certainly not - the only positive thing you can say is that the swopping necessary for the word games usualy means the basic undertanding of things like air law usually sticks!
Then we have the military or perhaps military thinking. We largely work in environments where people learn and then utilise skills. Much of the time in training is about generating those skills. The military and to a large extent the CAA and other quasi-legal organisations use the examination systems to select people. Not to establish skill levels but to wash out the 'inappropriate'.
Hence so many of the word games. It is a way of 'ensuring' that only people with a reasonable intellectual level can pass. So you learn the basic skill and then demonstrate a reasonable level of mental agility to pass the word games.
Will you ever need the answers to the questions in the exams? Almost certainly not - the only positive thing you can say is that the swopping necessary for the word games usualy means the basic undertanding of things like air law usually sticks!
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Following on from this.
It is really,really,very important to read the exam questions carefully as they are quite misleading and confusing in that some of the multi choice answers are very similar.
Also when you have finished check all your answers against the question before handing in.
Lister
It is really,really,very important to read the exam questions carefully as they are quite misleading and confusing in that some of the multi choice answers are very similar.
Also when you have finished check all your answers against the question before handing in.
Lister
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Yes one has to read the questions carefully as some are misleading.
That is the military way of doing things, because (in a professional air force in peacetime) you get 100s of applicants for every flying job. So you have to apply some pretty crude techniques to weed out the huge majority.
Unfortunately when this is carried through to the company which you joined after your RAF career in order to preserve your civil service pension (called the CAA) you can't chuck out so many people anymore, but nobody thought about changing the basic techniques.
That's why we have the stupidly elitist IR ground school - a huge memory exercise.
This problem is everywhere, not just in the UK, because the aviation regulatory world has always drawn from the air forces and the airlines (esp. the national flag carrier).
Not to establish skill levels but to wash out the 'inappropriate'.
Unfortunately when this is carried through to the company which you joined after your RAF career in order to preserve your civil service pension (called the CAA) you can't chuck out so many people anymore, but nobody thought about changing the basic techniques.
That's why we have the stupidly elitist IR ground school - a huge memory exercise.
This problem is everywhere, not just in the UK, because the aviation regulatory world has always drawn from the air forces and the airlines (esp. the national flag carrier).
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you get 100s of applicants for every flying job. So you have to apply some pretty crude techniques to weed out the huge majority.
"To avoid hiring unlucky people, automatically throw out half of CVs received without reading them!"
The main use I found for the confuser is that it prepares one for the misleading wording in half the questions. It has nothing to do with knowledge, it seemed to me more a test of comprehension.
Your earlier comment was written in the style of the confuser ... hence my question!
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On the topic of the question styles; I noticed that as I have progressed through the exams I have found them gradualy easier. Possibly partly because the subject matter gets a bit more interesting, but also because I have learned the tricks they try and play on you with the wording of the questions and answers.
A personal favorite was 'How long is a JAR PPL (A) licence valid for?' The answer according to every book I read was 5 years, however the answer on the paper was 60 months.
A personal favorite was 'How long is a JAR PPL (A) licence valid for?' The answer according to every book I read was 5 years, however the answer on the paper was 60 months.
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Seriously though, as a pilot why does it matter whether something was decided in Warsaw 1929, Chicago 1944, Rome 1933 or 1938 Tokyo 1963, Hague 1970, or Montreal 1971? Surely all that matters is what the law is now?
And for that matter, why do we need to know where ICAO HQ is? anyone plan on going there anytime soon?
And for that matter, why do we need to know where ICAO HQ is? anyone plan on going there anytime soon?
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ICAO - formed in 1947 as a result of the 1944 chicago convention.
Who needs more than that?
The rest of the air law content is pretty relevant, types of airspace, rules regarding carriage of goods and so forth, but the history lesson is lost on me.
Who needs more than that?
The rest of the air law content is pretty relevant, types of airspace, rules regarding carriage of goods and so forth, but the history lesson is lost on me.