Using older edition Trevor Thom books

[Completely Concorde]

I have recently started flying training for my PPL exam and I’m now gathering the books needed to sit my theory exams which I’m hoping to get a few out of the way before Christmas. In order to try and keep costs down, I have been purchasing some of the Trevor Thom books on eBay and Amazon. The books I have bought so far are:

• Aviation Law and Meteorology – 2003
• Flying Training – Think it’s 2003, but may be a later edition
• Human Factors and Flying Performance – 2006
• The Aeroplane Technical – 2003

They are all the ‘new style’ front covers similar to what is sold now.
Do you think they will be ok to use? I’m worried about the Law and Met book being outdated. If I used this alongside something like AirQuiz, would this be ok or do I risk getting some questions wrong due to incorrect information? How about the other books?

I still need to purchase Nav and Radiotelephony – do you think I would be ok to get older editions of these too? And do you think it would be beneficial to buy operational procedures?

Any advice would be great and if anyone has any experience of using older edition books and could share that with me, that would also be perfect!
Thank you.

[flyingman-of-kent]

I appreciate that you wish to save money, but in my opinion this is an area where you should not stint on costs - the cost of the new books will be a tiny fraction of what you will spend in learning to fly!

Whilst the Thom books are probably ok for what you think you want, why learn something that is out of date and then have to learn the correct current information? It is very possible that you could learn something that is significantly different under todays conditions and once you learn something it can be hard to un-learn and replace this with the correct information. Also, do you want to have to re-learn stuff? Bear in mind that it is possible in an emergency that you remember the old knowledge not the new info!

Air Law will most certainly be different from the Thom era, and you will probably find that these differences go right through the books. I know people could say that some things never change, or don't change much but why add that extra layer of difficulty - when you learn something out of an old book and then someone (your flight instructor for example) tells you something different your mind wont be as willing to listen and learn the correct way!!

Don't forget that the original Thom books were written to match the learning syllabus and exam modules at the time, and this like a lot of things have changed considerably.

Good luck, enjoy the experience!!

[Baikonour]

Some thoughts on exactly this topic in an earlier thread.

B.

[worldpilot]

If your safety is paramount, use current aviation books

If your safety is paramount, then you should focus on elevating the level of your aeronautical decision-making and risk management capabilities by using current and up to date information, and not relying on oudated information.


After all, If you can afford flight training, paying for knowledge information shouldn't be an issue. So, buy the current books. It is worth it.


Good luck in your training.


WP

[TCU]

Except some old sources are as relevant today as when they were drafted years ago....Langewieshe's Stick and Rudder remains timeless

[Gertrude the Wombat]

On the one hand, you could save the cost of several tens of seconds' flying, and after all the laws of physics haven't changed over the years. For example, the main changes to book five over a couple of decades appear to be that some of the pictures are now in colour.

On the other hand, there could be useful new stuff in the later editions.

[foxmoth]

Throw away the aviation law, that will have changed and is now far more confusing! The rest should be pretty much the same!

[Completely Concorde]

Thanks for everyone's help. Some of the books i have received are newer than I thought (Aeroplane Tech is 2011 and Law and Met is 2008) but I will replace Law and Met for the newer version.