PPL Nav Exam Tips/Techniques
 

Hello,

I am looking to sit my NAV exam this Wednesday, and I am looking for some tips or hints from pilots who have taken this exam recently?

Thanks in advance

K23

In a word? Accuracy.

Casting my mind back a good few years, that's what screwed most people with their nav exams. You need to accurately measure things like bearings, distances etc as the answers are deliberately close toghether to catch out the slapdash types.

eg: If a bearing is roughly about 080, the answers wont be 070,080,090,100, they'll be 080,082,084,086. If you measure it accurately, take some care, you may find it's 082 or 084, not approximately 080. So if you just think 'Oh, 080 is about right' - you'll get it wrong.
So take your time and be systematic and you'll be fine, most of the Nav exam is a plog (as is the IMC exam come to think of it).

Which suffers from the same problem. Measure an angle one degree out - how thick are your pen lines anyway? - and you lose the marks, despite the fact that you haven't the remotest chance of actually flying that accurately anyway.

Yep. Found the same thing. You obviously can't bring your own maps to the exam but need to use the one from the school. This one was a laminated one that had been folded so often that the creases wouldn't come out anymore. I had to plot a 100-nm leg or something like that across multiple creases. It was a bitch just to draw that straight line. Never mind the fact that I couldn't even get the map on that tiny table (so had to use the slightly-less tiny floor - this was a tiny two-person debriefing cubicle. I think at some point I even threw the chairs out of the room into the hallway to make sufficient room.)

Careful measuring, multiple times, gave me a heading of 81 degrees. While the possible answers were 80 and 82. Apparently I guessed the right answer, 'cause I passed.

Accuracy is very important, especially as an early mistake in the plog section will devastate your marks over several subsequent questions.

Speed is also an issue. For example finding an airfield from a lat/lon reference is not difficult, but doing it under time pressure on a work-hardened chart in an oubliette requires significant workload management skills. If I were you I would practise the 'obvious' skills at speed, and get very very familiar with your plotter, ruler, etc.

Backpacker, did you do your Nav Exam in England? I could swear we had the same exam room!

No, at OFT in Florida. The cubicles as a whole were maybe 1x1.5m, with a table of 50x50cm bolted to the wall. Add two chairs and two people and they were very, let's say, intimate. Especially when you closed the door, which swung inwards.

Needless to say, pre- and post flight briefings were kept rather short in there. We preferred to do them somewhere else.

Took my exam approximately 2 years ago.

For me the nav exam was the only one where I needed the full amount of time allocated. However, I used a disproportionate amount of time findng the start, finish and divert airfields from the latitude and longitude coordinates. The result of this was that I was under time pressure for the rest of the exam.

As 24Carott has said, finding locations is easy, and it is if you have practised it. Unfortunately I hadn't (although I was confident about most of the subject I had overlooked the basics in chapter 1) and since this is just about the first thing you need to do in the exam it is a nerve settler to get off to a smooth start by doing this fluently.

Also (and another very basic sounding thing) is try to organise your chart, pens, ruler etc. before the clock starts ticking. My chart was tighty rolled and needed objects at the four corners to keep it on the table. Take some bluetak in with you and you will look like a pro!

Since qualifying for my PPL I find that a big thing about flying is that it is important to get prosaic matters like this sorted, as boring as it may sound.

Good luck

Work Really hard and be really accurate on the PLOG section, in NZ this was the first 40% of the exam, making a mistake here will cost you as some of the questions in the remaining 60% are based off the first section, some a re-workings based on deviations from the plan (like weather).

A little trick, work out the answer then look at the 4 options two will be dead wrong the next two will usually have the right answer and the exact OPPOSITE of the right answer especially bearing questions, they are checking that the student can read the right side of the protractor :-) or both the remaining options will hold the correct answer, and then the MORE correct answer. guess which one is the right answer.

If your answer is not in the group of 4, you got it wrong :ugh:

do check your answers, the last 15 minutes of my exam saved me as i frantically re did my fuel calculations when i realised they were wrong!

I sat my nav exam last month. Take your time to read the information for the first question. Work out the full flight plan for the whole lot of the journey. Remember that the wind will change on the different legs to try catch you out. Once you have completed the flight plan double check it to make sure.

Its important that you get the plan spot on as 1 wrong answer will hamper you for a few questions as they are all linked to it.

Agree with above comments. Make sure you plot accurate!!

Good luck

dont get caught out by answers that match for when the question was answered incorrectly (in questions like relative bearings or similar)

One more thought.

The Radio Nav questions are very quick to answer (assuming you know the answers:)), so there is a case for answering those questions first, even if they are at the end of the paper.

Then if you run out of time slightly on the plog stuff, you might miss out on one or two questions instead of lots.

Good luck with the exam!

Backpacker, I didn't appreciate my good fortune, my room was a luxurious 2m x 1m!

kierton23,

I did my first take of the Nav exam just after i'd done the ground school last year, but had no practical nav experience yet. I failed with a dismal 60% score, I was told the plog was what had caused me to fail.

Now just after doing all my nav exercises, and the cross country qualifier, I was confident i'd do the plog section without any problems. experience certainly helps, if your memory isn't great (like mine).

i also done the confuser questions, and the AFE Q&A simplifier tests, to train the trick questions out of me (especially like the radial / OBS question). the confuser definitely helps.

The last 5 questions are on radio nav equipment, and are pretty simple.

If you get your plog right (keep your pencil sharp!) the only question you may get wrong is the magnetic heading calculation, as others have mentioned. The time question related to this gives you a bit more latitude as to the accuracy of the answer choices. Learning the functions of the whizz wheel is important.

The problem with the maps is that you have to use the edition that was used when the exam was written, due to possible subsequent changes in charts. This means that the maps will be knackered. Just lay the entire map out if you have space, and make sure your lines are accurate, your pen isn't too blunt, and your protractor is the right way up! :)

second take on saturday just gone, 3 wrong, 2 my own silly fault (overthinking the answer as I thought it couldn't be that simple / logical) but most of it is simple logic.

good luck

andoni

Thanks for all the tips,

Just got a couple of questions regarding equipment.

Am i allowed AFE Protractor and Ruler. and a scientific calculator?

Also did you say measure the track with pencil or pen on the map ? Pencil wont show up on the current chart I have. For plotting routes for my flying I use the Staedtler Lumocolor pens would this provide sufficient accuracy ?

Thanks for the tips so far !

I expect so, take them and ask the examiner.

My guess is whatever you use on their chart should be very erasable. In my exam my standard nav pens (that come off with meths) were banned and I ended up using a blunt chinagraph pencil, which worked after a fashion.

WH Smith do fine tip overhead projector pens (you need the non-permanent ones), which should be better. I still use them on my (non wind-arm) whizz wheel, on the rare occasions I actually use a whizz wheel.

No. You can only use the wizz wheel aka E6B aka CRP-5 aka manual/analog flight computer.

If your using your whizz wheel make sure you practice. i had people shout random sums at me, and give me some nasty fuel problems to work out, after a thorough beasting i passed happily. (some novel fuel leaks were invented)

The trick is remembering in the technique at the exam time, i have been told you can take the little manual in with you. I would check with the examiner.

I sat my nav exam yesterday (passed thank god).As everyone hear has said accurecy is key,Check and double check your tracks as one small mistake could cost you more than one mark.It is also worth arriving early and just practicing using the whizz wheel so its all fresh in your head for the exam.
Best of luck Matt

This:
Standards Document 11: JAR-FCL Provision and Conduct of Ground Examinations for the Private Pilot Licence Aeroplanes & Helicopters (including Registration of the Training Facility & Authorisation of Examiners) | Publications | CAA
says you can take a non-programmable calculator into the exam.

Thanks for looking this up ! There would be no reason why a simple calculator shouldnt be allowed in my opinion anyway.

If written correctly the responses in a multi-choice question should *all* be reasonable, however only one should match an answer derived using correct methods. All the other options should match an answer derived with a common error in method For example:

Find Mag.track from A --> B on a World Aeronautical Chart (B being a significant distance Westerly of A.)

Option 1 matches a track measured at the origin with variation applied correctly. (Track measurement on a Lamberts Conformal should be done at the mid point, not origin)

Option 2 matches a mid point measurement but fails to apply variation at all (response doesn't answer the question by failing to apply one of the parameters)

Option 3 matches a mid point measurement and applies variation correctly (correct method)

Option 4 matches a mid point measurement and applies variation incorrectly (another common error in technique)

No answer should stand out. That includes question construction errors too eg all responses a similar length, no grammatical 'give aways' such as plural stem/only one plural answer and the like.


There's a particularly good example of a poorly written question in the FAA's question bank. The Q. asks about distance travelled & ETA when crz. altitude is reached. The stem gives elevation, crz. altitude, ROC and various other necessary speed/time bits to determine distance. There is only a single option that includes the correct ETA. Every other response is wrong because the ETA is wrong. For this question there is no need to even start doing distance/speed calculations because the correct answer stands out just by finding minutes taken from 2000' to 8000' at 500'/min then adding that to the start time.