CATS aviation Nav preparation
 

I am preparing for the Nav using CATS CBT material, but the test requires me to refer back to UK ICAO Aeronautical charts, which was not given to me as my ATO is in Spain. Even Airquiz expects you to have this chart to answer a few questions.

Did anyone face a similar situation, and how did you resolve it?

Buy the chart?

Loads of online pilot stores carry it.

G

don't know if that should be the way to go as I am a non-UK PPL student and doing the training in Spain.
I thought that CATS material for self-study should be self-sufficient.

I think that the UK CAA exams explicitly say that you need a UK Chart to sit the exam.

(This is either the southern or northern England chart - both Airquiz and the CAA exams have set the questions relative to things on the overlap between the 2, presumably so that neither southerners nor northerners can complain that they are discriminated against. As long as you're not Scottish...)

If they told you that was the case even when you did UK CAA exams and they have not provided a chart, you may want to take it up with them.

In the meantime, a chart is about £15 and easily posted, so in the grand scheme of things...

B.

And I think you need the particular out-of-date edition that the exam questions were written for, so just buying a new up-to-date chart may not hack it? - do we not expect to be given any necessary charts with the question paper?

But in the meantime, use a reasonably up to date one for the learning material.

If you can't afford £16 for a current one, look on eBay for one a couple of years old.

G

I believe that the exam questions are changed quite often (if nothing else, to keep them relatively secret...), but using a couple of years old chart should not be the end of the world.

The questions tend to be things like:
- distance between 2 aerodromes
- magnetic/true track between 2 aerodromes
- what is located at xx°N yy°W (typically a mast or a disused airfield)
- what is the highest point within 5nm of XYZ aerodrome
- what does the symbol at xx°N yy°W mean and what would you do if you flew close to it (e.g. glider, bird sanctuary etc.)

Some of those things may have changed recently, but most of them probably not.

B.