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PPL study books, post EASA changes, reviews, opinions etc..

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PPL study books, post EASA changes, reviews, opinions etc..

Old 13th Mar 2014, 14:43
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Lightbulb PPL study books, post EASA changes, reviews, opinions etc..

I'm going to do PPL+NR next year and obviously that involves examinations, so I was wondering what the best books are to study from, bearing in mind the changes in the exam structure that EASA brought in recently.
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Old 19th Mar 2014, 00:08
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Sorry to bump this thread but does anyone have any opinions on this?

I am due to fly to the US in 4 weeks to do my PPL. I bought the Oxford Aviation Interactive CD-ROM training material and have been going through it quite happily. However, today i bought the EASA PPL Exam app for my phone and have been doing the airlaw and operational procedures questions.

Whilst the grand majority of the air law questions did relate to things that were covered in the airlaw cd-rom, the opposite is true on the operational procedures! It seems that there is a lot of material that is now in the Operational Procedures exam that is not covered in the Oxford Operational Procedures cd rom training material. This has got me pretty worried and i am concerned i have wasted money on the CDs.

The flight school i am going to suggest the Trevor Thom books and have them listed on an Amazon wish list but to be honest looking at the books on this wish list it doesnt look like they cover the new material either!

So can anyone suggest either a full series i can get that will cover everything or, even better, maybe just the books in a series that i would need to fill in the gaps from the Oxford CDs.

Any help / opinions etc.. would be very much appreciated!
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Old 19th Mar 2014, 02:56
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bearing in mind the changes in the exam structure that EASA brought in recently.
Don't blame EASA for this one. The UK CAA, our 'Competent' Authority, have made a complete dog's breakfast of the new exam structure.

I recommend the AFE books. They are both the least expensive, and the easiest to read, but It doesn't matter which series of books/CDs you buy, the titles wont fit the new exams, which now cover items from a selection of the volumes.

On top of that, you now have nine exams that you have to pass in six 'sittings'. A 'sitting' consists of any ten consecutive days.

If you think that's complicated, it gets worse.

Any exam you fail, can't be re-taken in the same 'sitting' that you originally took it. Any re-take starts a new 'sitting'. This means that if you fail an exam in the last of your six sittings, you can't re-take it, even if it's your first attempt at that exam, as there are no 'sittings' left!

The good news, (I can't believe I just said that!) is that the Robert McPhee EASA Exams App. has pretty much all the current exam questions and answers on it, and will almost guarrantee you a 100% first time pass in all the subjects.

Armstrong:
Hold off on buying any books for a while. I think that there will be some changes to the exams and books in the next few months.
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Old 19th Mar 2014, 07:00
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This "sitting" nonsense is actually EASA's fault. I recently took a theoretical exam in Sweden and had an extensive discussion with our Authority about the exact meaning of the word "sitting". They were quite unhappy about it and claimed it was the result of a compromise in EASA where some "major countries" in Europe absolutely wanted to keep their old exam system.
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Old 19th Mar 2014, 09:06
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Thank you Mach Jump for your reply.

So, taking blame out of the equation for the minute and also the EASA PPL app which i see more as a reinforcing knowledge / identifying weak points tool rather than a learning tool, the material that i have to learn for all the exams has not really changed its just that the material in each exam no longer aligns with the old syllabus structure?

So, for example, the Operational Procedures questions in the app have a lot about evacuation procedures in the event of an emergency and questions like what order to do things in the event of smoke coming from the engine when on the ground. The Operational Procedures section in the Oxford CD-ROM is limited to operation of an aircraft, distress and urgency, aircraft accident investigation and noise abatement procedures and does not cover any evacuation procedures etc.. So, if it is just structure that has changed, everything i need to know to pass the Operational Procedures exam will be covered in the other CD-ROMs?

Back to apportioning blame - whist i understand that it is not the CAA / EASAs responsibility to provide learning material i wonder if there was any consultation with any providers in an attempt to ensure there was training material out in time for the changes. It seems to puts people who take the exams after the changes come into effect and before there is re-aligned training material at a disadvantage! Anyway we are where we are and i will have to overcome it if i want to get that license!!
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Old 19th Mar 2014, 10:49
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This "sitting" nonsense is actually EASA's fault
The problem is not with the 'sittings'.

My understanding is that EASA originally intended that there would be one exam of 120 questions, with six attempts (sittings) but then the UK CAA decided, without any consultation with the people who produce the books/CDs, to introduce their re-division of the subjects into nine exams and the EASA 'six sittings' requirement at the same time.

This is partly EASA's fault, as they allowed the National Authorities to devise their own versions of the original requirement, and, not for the first time, the CAA have come up with the most administratively complex and onerous version.

They originally defined a 'sitting as a period of just one day! Then after howls of protest, were kind enough to extend it initially to three days, then to the maximum allowable under EASA of ten days.

Itchy, you are right . The books/CDs still cover all you need to know, but the content of the exam may no longer come from the book/CD with the same title.

Last edited by Mach Jump; 19th Mar 2014 at 11:01.
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Old 19th Mar 2014, 12:03
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Mach Jump, is the exam app of McPhee recommended for all national authority exams or only the UKs ones?

Regards.
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Old 19th Mar 2014, 14:04
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I can't comment on the app, but all EASA countries are supposed to take their exam questions from the same question bank.
There will of course be differences (language, map and way points used for nav etc) but the same content should be covered.
If you're talking about questions, I'd look at AirQuiz - Online Practice Examinations for Pilots . Their bank of questions is much larger, and they don't pretend to provide copies of the actual questions, but equivalents.

Training wise, the content itself isn't supposed to have changed, so any set of text books should work, although I don't know anyone who has exclusively used those DVDs. As others have said - the information has been split across different exams, but the laws of physics and the aircraft themselves haven't changed!

Just remember - the aim should be to learn things - not just pass the exams.
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Old 19th Mar 2014, 14:34
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...is the exam app of McPhee recommended for all national authority exams or only the UKs ones?
Just the UK ones. Each National Authority set their own exams, and each have completely different questions.

...all EASA countries are supposed to take their exam questions from the same question bank.

Sadly, they don't come from an EASA question bank yet.
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Old 30th Mar 2014, 06:00
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Okay, hang on. I'm confused with this sitting thing (and structure in general).

  • If I want to do the nine units, do I get a 'sitting' time period of 10 days to complete them?
  • And if I fail one unit, I have to do that unit in another sitting (or would I have to do all the units again)?
  • How many questions are in each unit? 120 questions in a single exam for the original EASA proposal doesn't seem enough and in 9 units that would equate to just about 13 questions per unit. Surely it must be a bit more intense than that.
The whole thing seems a bit of a mess. I was looking through the Aeros shop recently and the books they offer seem to cover the old exam structure. Whilst all the information is there, the books don't fit the exams and having read the problems between the CAA and publishers, I now understand why.

To be honest, until it gets sorted out, I may as well hold off on PPL+NR training until next summer/autumn until the dust settles and everything is sorted out. At least I can save up enough cash to cover the hours building and MEP rating. The app looks like a useful tool though.
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Old 30th Mar 2014, 08:01
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Okay, hang on. I'm confused with this sitting thing (and structure in general).
I can tell you how the Swedish CAA does it -- of course the UK CAA may interpret the EASA rules differently.

If you want to do all units, you have all of 6 "sittings" to complete them. BUT as you are not allowed to retake a unit in the same sitting, you should try to do all units in as few sittings as possible and not spread them out.

If you fail one unit, you have to do that unit in another sitting. You don't have to retake the units you have already passed unless you run out of sittings OR have failed four units (I'm not 100% certain about the number here) -- then you have failed the entire exam and have to retake all units after a new approval from your ATO.

E.g.: Suppose you spread out the units and take 2 in sittings 1, 3 and 5 and 1 in sittings 2, 4 and 6. Suppose that you pass all of them except the last. You would then have spent all your sittings and would have to retake all units but only after a new approval from your ATO...
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Old 30th Mar 2014, 12:35
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I think I get this. Here's an example


1st sitting
Unit 1 pass
Unit 2 pass
Unit 3 Fail
2nd Sitting
Unit 4 Pass
Unit 5 Pass
Unit 6 Pass
3rd Sitting
Unit 7 Pass
Unit 8 Pass
Unit 9 Fail
4th Sitting
Retake Unit 3 Pass
Retake Unit 9 Pass
Final result is a pass - and all sittings (up to six of them allowed), should be done within 10 days according to UK CAA rules.

Last edited by ArmstrongR; 30th Mar 2014 at 12:48.
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Old 30th Mar 2014, 13:07
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all sittings (up to six of them allowed), should be done within 10 days according to UK CAA rules.
No.... Each sitting is a period of 10 days starting from the first attempt on a unit in that sitting!

The AMC to FCL.025 states:
(e) ‘Sitting’: a period of time established by the competent authority within which a candidate can take an examination. This period should not exceed 10 consecutive days. Only one attempt at each examination paper is allowed in one sitting.
So this means that if you fail a unit on the first day of a sitting, then you have to wait (in the UK) 10 days until you can make another attempt on that unit. If you fail the unit on the last day of a sitting, you can make another attempt on the next day!

To make things even more fun, the Swedish CAA interprets a "day" to mean a working day, so in Sweden a "sitting" is 14 calendar days!

This is all sheer lunacy!


PS. A correction to what I wrote earlier:
If you fail one unit, you have to do that unit in another sitting. You don't have to retake the units you have already passed unless you run out of sittings OR have failed four units (I'm not 100% certain about the number here) -- then you have failed the entire exam and have to retake all units after a new approval from your ATO.
It should not read "failed four units", but rather "failed four attempts on the same unit".

Last edited by AirborneAgain; 30th Mar 2014 at 13:08. Reason: Typos
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Old 30th Mar 2014, 13:11
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I think I get this. Here's an example
Yes. That would work. You can also retake failed units in the following sitting, together with the 'new take' ones.

My plan is to have students take 3 units in each sitting, then there would be enough slack in the system to accommodate any failures.
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Old 11th Apr 2014, 17:55
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Okay, I get it now. Here's an example.

Sitting 1 - 10 days
Unit 1 - Pass
Unit 2 - Pass
Unit 3 - Fail

Sitting 2 - 10 days
Unit 4 - Pass
Unit 5 - Pass
Unit 6 - Pass

Sitting 3 - 10 days
Unit 7 - Pass
Unit 8 - Pass
Unit 9 - Fail

Sitting 4 - 10 days
Retake Unit 3 - Pass
Retake Unit 9 - Fail

Sitting 5 - 10 days
Retake Unit 9 - Pass


PASS.

6 Sittings of 10 days each. Units can be divvied up in to those sittings but you cannot retake a failed unit in the same sitting.
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Old 11th Apr 2014, 22:12
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The World is slowly going bonkers!
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Old 12th Apr 2014, 00:39
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lol, tell that to everyone speculating on the MH370 thread....
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Old 12th Apr 2014, 13:11
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And exactly how is this meant to produce better pilots?
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Old 12th Apr 2014, 18:51
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From what I gather, within the new PPL syllabus EASA appear to have split 'Air Law' from 'Operational Procedures' and 'Comms' from 'Navigation', so older books may cover the new syllabus. As such but I'm unsure as to the detail required for each one and if I consider using the books based on the old syllabus, my fear is that I might miss information that might be required for the new exams.

It seems madness to me that the CAA hasn't informed publishers in advance to allow them to gear up for the new EASA system. I'm in a bit of limbo right now so I've had to kind of put it off for a year until everything falls into place.
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Old 6th May 2014, 20:41
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Any updates?

Apologies for commenting on an older thread, but can anyone provide any updates?

I'm hoping to start study for PPL ground exams but unsure where to seek material given the recent changes. I was discussing this today with the school I'm likely to stick with and there was no mention of the "sittings" issue at all.

Are things any clearer at the moment?
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