Depth of Knowledge for Meterology
Thing is we're being told -" you are all managers now," but the end of the day you are still hurtling through the air at x miles a minute and if you are deficient in the "airplane pilot" -aspect of the job you will at some point get your backside bit., MSc or not
I'd actually argue that CBT is way too shortened these days, and there's sod all chance to do that old fashioned thing of gaining a real understanding of the topic ... I'm not on about the "old fashioned" engineering stuff like relays for essential AC buses, it's the lack of time available to really get into the guts of the modern stuff like autoflight modes and what they really mean that I think is a training shortfall.
As for the MSc..nice to have, once you've learnt everything about the aircraft, the route network, ops manuals etc (
) but one outfit I know of tried to impose an a "own time" correspondence business course, didn't work, people frankly didn't have time to do....and that company certainly are not going to sanction all their pilots going off to do a "proper" MSC.
I'd actually argue that CBT is way too shortened these days, and there's sod all chance to do that old fashioned thing of gaining a real understanding of the topic ... I'm not on about the "old fashioned" engineering stuff like relays for essential AC buses, it's the lack of time available to really get into the guts of the modern stuff like autoflight modes and what they really mean that I think is a training shortfall.
As for the MSc..nice to have, once you've learnt everything about the aircraft, the route network, ops manuals etc (
) but one outfit I know of tried to impose an a "own time" correspondence business course, didn't work, people frankly didn't have time to do....and that company certainly are not going to sanction all their pilots going off to do a "proper" MSC.
As others have said you need to get your head down, acknowledge that it's time out of your life when you could be learning, doing something relevant, pass the exam, then dump the irrelevant stuff and get on with learning how to be a pilot.
On a recent conversion I was horrified at the lack of information about the aircraft systems, concentrating on awful calls and SOPs but if you want food on the table you just get on with it
On a recent conversion I was horrified at the lack of information about the aircraft systems, concentrating on awful calls and SOPs but if you want food on the table you just get on with it
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If this is the calibre of up coming airline pilots, I'm rather glad that I'm 77 years old and unlikely to have to sit behind such morons.
Hopefully, by the time you are sitting in the left seat I will pushing up the daisies.
Hopefully, by the time you are sitting in the left seat I will pushing up the daisies.
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You've had some extremely thorough and valid answers from the likes of PM, Tryingto...and others, people who like you no doubt use apps, iPads, smartphones, etc, some of whom are graduates of scientific disciplines, many of them also pro pilots with thousands if not tens of thousands of hours under there belt....do you not think they might have just perhaps a clearer and more comprehensive view of what is actually required for the likes of the PPL/ATPL, further training and even routine line operations? I only ask because even though it seems you have yet to gain your PPL you seem somewhat convinced that everybody replying here is wrong and/or over the hill and out of date and you are the only one marching in step.
(Written on an iPad).
As has been explained to me numerous times the same stuff is going to crop up at ATPL so it's better for me to learn it now, (which I have been the whole time people have been questioning my intelligence and aptitude) without issue. Quite why this thread hasn't died is beyond me.
This thread strikes me as simply the difference between learning something and accessing the same info from an electronic device. We all know that the younger generation seem to need to have their smartphones welded to their person at all times and therefore they assume that info needed can always be accessed. Of course the batteries never run down............................................!
PS to above: to all those who have kindly offered advice - why not just let the chap make his own mistakes? The learning experience will be much enhanced.
PS to above: to all those who have kindly offered advice - why not just let the chap make his own mistakes? The learning experience will be much enhanced.
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Very true! My original asking came from the fact I revised only the questions in the book. When it came to the exam, the questions weren't the same, and the knowledge base didn't work. I just scraped a pass on Air law. Didn't want to repeat the same thing in the rest of the exams so wanted to get an insight into what was actually being examined. However, now i can answer the questions having made all the notes from the book without looking at the questions first. So really, problem solved,learn the subject, understand it pass with ease, move on. Even greater given the motivation now that learning it prior to ATPL will make ATPL easier. Still a little confused as to how someone thinks it's 2nd year degree and someone thinks it's about A-Level. Ho hum.
I would say that the level of understanding required is sub-A-level, but the volume of material is nearer second year degree.
In other words - it's mostly about memorisation, and lots of it.
However, as you've already realised - question spotting is a mugs game. Learn the subject properly, then delve into question banks.
On met specifically - you will never know enough about it, but it's worthwhile trying to. I nearly got caught out by a sea fog today, sonetime this evening I'll get the books out and see what I forgot about how it forms.
G
In other words - it's mostly about memorisation, and lots of it.
However, as you've already realised - question spotting is a mugs game. Learn the subject properly, then delve into question banks.
On met specifically - you will never know enough about it, but it's worthwhile trying to. I nearly got caught out by a sea fog today, sonetime this evening I'll get the books out and see what I forgot about how it forms.
G
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Ghengis the engineer. Advection, airflow off a warm land surface over a cooler sea
Or tropical maritime air moving towards the pole over cooler ocean or meeting a colder air mass.
See I have been learning
Or tropical maritime air moving towards the pole over cooler ocean or meeting a colder air mass.
See I have been learning
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I'm sure Genghis knows the books stuff, as do the people who write the forecasts. But the problem is these things are not forecast. I think what happens is that slack surface pressure gradients unexpectedly allow air close to its dewpoint to flow over land. Then given a temperature drop of a degree or so and a pressure drop you get instant fog. I have seen fog like this form over the vale of Aylesbury and a few years later at STN. On both days the forecast was CAVOK and on both days the viz dropped to less than 100M with little notice. But the first occasion was the most stunning. The fog "front" moved at about 50 knots when the surface wind was only about was just over 10 knots. I saw it from just above the top of Dunstable Downs in a Ka18.
We also suffer from Fret where we live, again rarely forecast. Summer's day convection is to blame. Again slack pressure gradients and light winds generally prevail. It often starts with inland rising due to convection. As it does so it is replaced by cold sea air full of salt nuclei to move across a cooler sea inland. I'll also guess that the lower layers become more saturated as they move across the parts of the sea closest to the coast. The slight rise of the air as it crosses the coast (due to vertical pressure gradient and topography) reduces its pressure sufficiently to allow it to reach its dewpoint.
Whichever sort of fog it is, it is still scary if not forecast.
PM
ps. Here's a question - Does an air mass reduce in pressure as it is made to move? I haven't a clue. I'll guess it does.
We also suffer from Fret where we live, again rarely forecast. Summer's day convection is to blame. Again slack pressure gradients and light winds generally prevail. It often starts with inland rising due to convection. As it does so it is replaced by cold sea air full of salt nuclei to move across a cooler sea inland. I'll also guess that the lower layers become more saturated as they move across the parts of the sea closest to the coast. The slight rise of the air as it crosses the coast (due to vertical pressure gradient and topography) reduces its pressure sufficiently to allow it to reach its dewpoint.
Whichever sort of fog it is, it is still scary if not forecast.
PM
ps. Here's a question - Does an air mass reduce in pressure as it is made to move? I haven't a clue. I'll guess it does.
I can't speak for anybody else, but with 3 pilots licences, 2 aeronautical engineering degrees, an average sized brain and a job that can require me to use any of that knowledge (and then some!) most days - I am constantly on catchup about theory and very regularly needing to look up, refresh, rethink a lot of it.
And if I'm honest, also pretty unsympathetic of anybody in either science or aviation (as I work in the overlap between the two) who really thinks that "this is irrelevant, I really don't need to know it". In this hellishly complicated field of aviation - we will NEVER know as much as it is beneficial to know. Absolutely none of us.
So, some point this week when I have time, I'll have my CPL met notes out, and if that doesn't work look deeper, to try and understand why I nearly got caught yesterday in a sea fog that formed in a 20+ knot south Westerly starting a few miles off the south coast, was advancing about half the wind speed, dissipating over the mainland but not the Isle of Wight, and all vanished an hour or two before dusk.
Which fortunately did not give me a serious problem, but had I not seen and thought about it building ahead of me, and not been prepared to do as much analysis as I could in flight, and significantly change my planned routing, might have seriously screwed my Sunday up.
And, strangely enough, I had no expectation of needing any knowledge about sea fog on Sunday, nor any material in the cockpit that allowed me to look it up. So I was totally reliant upon what was in my head.
G
And if I'm honest, also pretty unsympathetic of anybody in either science or aviation (as I work in the overlap between the two) who really thinks that "this is irrelevant, I really don't need to know it". In this hellishly complicated field of aviation - we will NEVER know as much as it is beneficial to know. Absolutely none of us.
So, some point this week when I have time, I'll have my CPL met notes out, and if that doesn't work look deeper, to try and understand why I nearly got caught yesterday in a sea fog that formed in a 20+ knot south Westerly starting a few miles off the south coast, was advancing about half the wind speed, dissipating over the mainland but not the Isle of Wight, and all vanished an hour or two before dusk.
Which fortunately did not give me a serious problem, but had I not seen and thought about it building ahead of me, and not been prepared to do as much analysis as I could in flight, and significantly change my planned routing, might have seriously screwed my Sunday up.
And, strangely enough, I had no expectation of needing any knowledge about sea fog on Sunday, nor any material in the cockpit that allowed me to look it up. So I was totally reliant upon what was in my head.
G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 10th Apr 2017 at 11:30.
However, could you not accept that what you are learning are vital building blocks to properly learning about met, such that you can use forecasts and reports and actual conditions outside the window to reliably assess flyability? (As Genghis evidently did)
Last edited by Mariner9; 10th Apr 2017 at 12:03.
If you're going on to do your ATPLs, why not study to as much a level of detail from the start? You seem to be worried about a lack of a syllabus (and I have some sympathy) but the learning objectives for the ATPL exams are readily available. Have a good look at them and then you will see the breadth and depth of knowledge you need to gain.
There is much that you will disagree with having to learn (I still don't know why I had to learn which Annex for the Chicago Convention is which when it can be looked up - its not as though its something I'm likely to need in the air!) but that won't exempt you from having to do so. There is also a huge amount where it would pay to go deeper. In the end, it all depends on your approach - learn to pass the exams or be as professional as you possibly can.
There is much that you will disagree with having to learn (I still don't know why I had to learn which Annex for the Chicago Convention is which when it can be looked up - its not as though its something I'm likely to need in the air!) but that won't exempt you from having to do so. There is also a huge amount where it would pay to go deeper. In the end, it all depends on your approach - learn to pass the exams or be as professional as you possibly can.
https://www.bristol.gs/atpla/learning-objectives/
G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 10th Apr 2017 at 13:12.
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If you're going on to do your ATPLs, why not study to as much a level of detail from the start? You seem to be worried about a lack of a syllabus (and I have some sympathy) but the learning objectives for the ATPL exams are readily available. Have a good look at them and then you will see the breadth and depth of knowledge you need to gain.
There is much that you will disagree with having to learn (I still don't know why I had to learn which Annex for the Chicago Convention is which when it can be looked up - its not as though its something I'm likely to need in the air!) but that won't exempt you from having to do so. There is also a huge amount where it would pay to go deeper. In the end, it all depends on your approach - learn to pass the exams or be as professional as you possibly can.
There is much that you will disagree with having to learn (I still don't know why I had to learn which Annex for the Chicago Convention is which when it can be looked up - its not as though its something I'm likely to need in the air!) but that won't exempt you from having to do so. There is also a huge amount where it would pay to go deeper. In the end, it all depends on your approach - learn to pass the exams or be as professional as you possibly can.
PPRuNe is full of self-appointed sky gods, wannabes, sciolists, has-beens and never-will-bes with the occasional helpful and informative poster.
It's amazing how many of them pontificate from on high about subjects ranging from learning by rote every single symbol it's possible to encounter on an area weather chart to knowing the entire ATPL syllabus inside out, bemoaning the brats of today who only hit the bank enough to scrape a pass.
You seem like a fairly smart person - as you have realised, the signal to noise ratio in the various theory exams you will have to sit isn't always great.
A large amount of the content in some subjects (especially met) is helpful and important though, so I suggest learning the basics and more and trying to have a solid understanding of it is of value to any pilot. Learning the arcane symbology or the more boring and irrelevant details by heart - not so much.
As someone else suggested - do what you need to pass the exams, then do your best to keep learning and improving as a pilot to gain a more thorough understanding of the important stuff.
It's amazing how many of them pontificate from on high about subjects ranging from learning by rote every single symbol it's possible to encounter on an area weather chart to knowing the entire ATPL syllabus inside out, bemoaning the brats of today who only hit the bank enough to scrape a pass.
You seem like a fairly smart person - as you have realised, the signal to noise ratio in the various theory exams you will have to sit isn't always great.
A large amount of the content in some subjects (especially met) is helpful and important though, so I suggest learning the basics and more and trying to have a solid understanding of it is of value to any pilot. Learning the arcane symbology or the more boring and irrelevant details by heart - not so much.
As someone else suggested - do what you need to pass the exams, then do your best to keep learning and improving as a pilot to gain a more thorough understanding of the important stuff.
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PPRuNe is full of self-appointed sky gods, wannabes, sciolists, has-beens and never-will-bes with the occasional helpful and informative poster.
It's amazing how many of them pontificate from on high about subjects ranging from learning by rote every single symbol it's possible to encounter on an area weather chart to knowing the entire ATPL syllabus inside out, bemoaning the brats of today who only hit the bank enough to scrape a pass.
It's amazing how many of them pontificate from on high about subjects ranging from learning by rote every single symbol it's possible to encounter on an area weather chart to knowing the entire ATPL syllabus inside out, bemoaning the brats of today who only hit the bank enough to scrape a pass.
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If your object is to learn just enough to pass the exam, bear in mind that the exam you take will have somewhere close to 20 questions. However the exam papers are not just that same 20 questions, there are maybe 100 or more questions spread among several different exam papers. Which paper you are given will depend on pure luck.
The reason obviously is to ensure that the student studies the entire subject rather than just the few questions they have been swotting up on.
This may or may not be your intention, I personally couldn't care less.
You seem to prefer to ignore advice that you don't want to hear and thank those who seem to agree with you.
To get some idea how important the entire weather situation is to pilots, try walking into the club bar at any gliding club and listen to the deafening silence when tomorrow's weather comes on the TV, and try making conversation to the guy next to you at the same time.
If there is one subject that you could pick to complain about to pilots, meteorology is the wrong choice. Air Law, fine, who cares a damn about the Chicago Convention, or what spares I can carry across international borders, import tax free.
Theory of flight. Boundary layers, Benoulli and his mates, so what? Until, It's a hot day, are we going to clear those trees with a tank full of fuel and two of us in here? Am I going to stop before we hit the bushes?
And so on.
There's a lot more to it than passing exams and treating the whole thing as a waste of effort because YOU can't see the point.
The reason obviously is to ensure that the student studies the entire subject rather than just the few questions they have been swotting up on.
This may or may not be your intention, I personally couldn't care less.
You seem to prefer to ignore advice that you don't want to hear and thank those who seem to agree with you.
To get some idea how important the entire weather situation is to pilots, try walking into the club bar at any gliding club and listen to the deafening silence when tomorrow's weather comes on the TV, and try making conversation to the guy next to you at the same time.
If there is one subject that you could pick to complain about to pilots, meteorology is the wrong choice. Air Law, fine, who cares a damn about the Chicago Convention, or what spares I can carry across international borders, import tax free.
Theory of flight. Boundary layers, Benoulli and his mates, so what? Until, It's a hot day, are we going to clear those trees with a tank full of fuel and two of us in here? Am I going to stop before we hit the bushes?
And so on.
There's a lot more to it than passing exams and treating the whole thing as a waste of effort because YOU can't see the point.
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To the OP. The background knowledge you learn for the PPL (if learnt correctly) will make your ATPLs 70% easier. The ATPL syllabus is simply an extension of the PPL syllabus, in far greater detail. The background knowledge you will have will allow you to sail through the ATPL exams whilst still having the understanding that you will require for a technical interview at a later date.
I won't deny that a large percentage of the ATPL syllabus is out of date and not relevant to the 21st century. However, the basics required for PPL will not only make the rest of your training easier, but they'll save your life too. Don't ever take the short cut, learn everything you can.
Now as I have started preliminary watching the videos on ATPL subjects in my idle hours, alot of what is said makes sense and isn't a big jump.
Thanks to everyone for contributing,you really made a difference. Happy flying.
jg,
As others have said, much of what one has to learn seems meaningless. I remember when doing my flight navigators course having to learn about soft iron rods and how to swing a compass. But you never know when this knowledge might be useful - many years later I had to swing a compass on a boat in the Med. But I digress!
Meteorology is all about knowing the element in which you will spend your working life. The more you learn about it the safer you will be. There are many things in the atmosphere which can be a hazard to the unwary, not just cloud bases, visibility, wind, icing, turbulence, etc. The more you know the more likely you will be able to cope.
And you never know - you may come to love meteorology. I did.
As others have said, much of what one has to learn seems meaningless. I remember when doing my flight navigators course having to learn about soft iron rods and how to swing a compass. But you never know when this knowledge might be useful - many years later I had to swing a compass on a boat in the Med. But I digress!
Meteorology is all about knowing the element in which you will spend your working life. The more you learn about it the safer you will be. There are many things in the atmosphere which can be a hazard to the unwary, not just cloud bases, visibility, wind, icing, turbulence, etc. The more you know the more likely you will be able to cope.
And you never know - you may come to love meteorology. I did.
