Failed me Air Law!!
 

Really strange really, I did loads of reading and I did three practice papers and passed them all buy at least 5 points. But the CAA test was a bit different and trick questions and I failed by 4 points. Im back to the book this weekend and im going to try agian next week :(

Aww Sh**e. Keep at it, at least you now know what to expect next time around. Chin up and all that :)

I can't recommend highly enough the PPL Confuser.
This did me proud for the Air Law and Met exams, if you work your way through all the questions in it you have a very good chance indeed of passing.
( No connection with the author etc.... worse luck!)

Bad luck :(

Let us know how you get on next time....

tKF

Just keep at it and you'll be there.

I too recommend PPL confuser. Keep on having goes at it untill you get only couple or no mistake.

A third vote for the PPL Confuser from me. There is no other way!

Don't panic yet. Air Law is the one that most people flunk first time around.

Good Luck with the rest of 'em

Air Law Exams
 

I also failed my Air Law exam, managed to achieve an outstanding 74% .............. still cost me £30 to fail the damn thing, I can still remember the CFI`s comment - the price of failure is the same as the price of success - well thanks a bunch !

On the second attempt my result was 87 %, but only because I spent the following week with my head in the PPL Confuser.

I agree with previous comments on this topic - the CAA exam questions are not "worded" particularly well !

Ive got a PPL Confuser type book. Its the one by the same people as the Jeremy Pratt books. Its got all the practice papers etc which I passed :) Never mind ive been on the book all weekend and studied some weak areas and im gunna do a couple of nights this week and take the test again this week.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

It was the only exam I failed. Not hard to fail such a boring and turgid subject. Used to send me to sleep reading Trevor Thom Air Law on the Tube! Amazingly I can still remember the important bits........

Good luck with the next go.

Agree with the advice on the PPL confuser. I must admit, myself I didn't find Airlaw too bad but then I spent plenty of time browsing the book (Book 2, Jeremy Pratt) before taking the exam. It was my first topic I covered so I made sure I knew it thoroughly as I didn't want to chance failure on my first PPL related test.

Holloway, in what area (if any particular area) did you fall down? I found the worst bits were those which required you to remember numerical data as you cannot easily solve them with common sense if you don't know the answer from memory. The bits on VMC criteria versus VFR spring to mind :( :eek:

Good luck mate,


Fujiflyer :) :)

Tough break!!!!!:confused:

get the PPL confuser by NEUNG SORNYING and have a look at the Trevor Thom air law book( and perhaps the rest of his series) as they are the bibles(personal opinion of course) but with and average of 90%+ on all exams I would strongly recommend this series.:D

Best of luck with the rest.

being honest I fail on questions I didnt understand and trick questions. I think I looked at them too hard if that makes sense? Also I got a couple of questions about abreviations and I didnt know what they were. After looking at the book ALL weekend and this week I now know what I should of known but it will be a different test paper :) Ive gone through all the revision qusetions and I got about 90% of them right. Im going to do my test at the weekend I think

Andrew :)

Best of Luck!!

The problem with the air law exam is that we all take it very early on in our flying training. We have not yet got to grips with the abbreviations and acronyms of the flying world and the whole thing is still like a foreign language. Much of what we are studying is well beyond our actual flying experience and is therefore 'theoretical.'

How on earth, for example, can you expect a brand new student to understand the difference between VMC minima and licence minima, when all he has done is fly a few hours in very benign weather conditions.

Holloway:

Don't worry about it being difficult. Don't worry about not understanding much of what you study. Use the confuser and talk to your instructor to pass the exam. But afterwards, during the rest of your PPL training and over the following couple of years, keep coming back to air law points. Look them up again. You'll find they all start to make sense (well, most of the, at least). Following air law will keep you not only legal, but also safe!

However, I would not reccomend trying to read the ANO. There are several books which make a much better job of explaining law than the ANO itself.

Agree with all alphaalpha says. I'm in the unenviable position of having to re-sit the airlaw exam soon as I originally took it 15 months ago (got only 80%) :(

I was dreading this until I did the test questions in the confuser for the first time recently (I didn't have it last year) and realised that most of the stuff I didn't understand first time around, and just 'memorised', now seems to make a lot more sense. :)

Still don't give a damn what year the Chicago Convention was signed in though! :D

Airlaw
 

Jeremy Pratt/AFE released a new air law keyfacts book early on this year - can't remember what it's called, but it's got all of the essentials in a "read on the loo" format - excellent!

Hollyoaks,

Air Law, in common with HP&L, is about learning dates, facts and figures.

Most of it will help you fly safely, so it's worth learning.

I don't think there are any trick questions - a bit like that ITV programme - easy if you know the answer... :p

Better luck next time -- at least with ground exams you get a second chance :)

Well, did you pass??

Walt,,

It's all a load of rubbish anyway............

You will forget it all when you pass it thats what they want..........!

Hi Holloway,

I had got to 14 hours when I was ready for my first solo and could not do it because I did not do my Medical or my Air Law exam. In my excitement, I found it difficult to focus because all I was thinking about was soloing although in the end, I passed first time with 85%.

I would also recommend the books: PPL Confuser; Air Law - Jeremy Pratt that previous posters have recommended.

Try not to rush through the topics by studying them parrott fashion; take your time and read and understand them before moving on.

Set yourself a realistic target and divide the number of topics over that period of time - you will find it much easier to manage.

All the best in your next try.

Flash0710,

How can you tell a PPL student that Air Law is a load of rubbish
when a huge percentage of fatal air accidents are down to pilots sometimes blatantly ignoring the rules of the air which you read about in Air Law?

Please don't post rubbish if you have not anything constructive to say.

I PASSED!!!! Quite relifed!!!! And to my supprise on friday on a bad vis day my instructor got out the plane and left me to go SOLO!!!

WOW!!!!

Amazin feeling and when lookin to my right seeing I was alone was kinda wierd. Im in our New York office at the mo, so I wont be flying till next week now.

Andrew :)

Congrats Holloway!

Well done. :)

CPilotUK,

It might be fairer to say that the Air Law syllabus is packed
with information of variable utility to the average pilot.

Some parts are useful and will become second nature,
others like the workings of the Montreal treaty and the
founding date of ICAO will be flushed away once the
exam has been passed.

Flash0710 is perhaps overstating his case but there
is a lot of dead-wood in the syllabus,

-- Andrew

Well done Holloway:cool: You'll soon get used to seeing the empty seat beside you, so just enjoy it.

Congratulations on Passing!

There is as you say a lot of dead wood ( Good term )

Just about to start ATp's

What junk will i need to learn and forget why do they not just stick to the nessescary....?

Holloway congrats on the pass and the solo :D

Nice one Holloway! :D

I'm dead jealous - I've not flown any lessons for ages, due to other commitments, then last weekend the weather stopped me. Now I think I'm going to be grounded for a week or so due to a rugby injury :( :(

tKF

Congratulations Holloway!!
both on your exam and first solo!!

My instructor sprang the Air Law on me one weekend when I wasn't really expecting it. I'd been sending myself to sleep on the train with the book, bought the PPL Confuser but never done anything with it, and as it was a surprise I'd not really revised.

But I managed to scrape through with 78%. Yay me!

Week after that I soloed.

Best of look with the resit!

Havent been on here for ages!!!! Passed 4 exams now and done 22 hours!! Still feel i got miles to go :(

Holloway,

Hope you don't mind if I re-write your last post:Congratulations on your progress so far!!!

FFF
---------------

Take your time mate and enjoy the leaning! Even when you get your PPL(A) you'll still have miles to go.. there's building up your hours, night/IMC etc. and other ratings, complex types, tail-draggers, aeros, going foreign, etc. etc. etc. The beauty of this hobby / vocation (which ever!) is that there's always MORE to be done - aint it wonderful! :cool:

HE HE, I agree :) Im just looking forward to not having to turn up and do circuits or somthing. I know ill be learning for ever, thats what I love about it but I cant wait to split the cost and show others how amazing it is up there and also take a trip to france in 30 mins for the day :)

Absolutely - yes I understand that impatience! I flew to Le Touquet last weekend - not my first time in France, but first time at LFAT... its a really nice little town, and will impress your friends!

HELP !

I have my Air Law exam planned for this coming weekend......ive sat the confuser exam three times - 73%, 78% and 84% - the questions I get wrong arnt blocks in the same subject they seem to be varying around the whole 156 questions - also looking back there are at least three or four questions that afterwards I knew the answer to but obviously didnt read it correctly.

I plan to sit it hopefuly 2 more times before the real thing.....can anyone guess my chances based on this???

rt

I just practiced the test exams loads of times. Im so glad im all finished now. But thats the challenge and if it was easy everyone would do it :)

Best of luck, youll be fine :)

Congratulations Holloway. I agree with earlier comments that some of the syllabus (Eg Chicago convention) is dull & boring, but I actually find most of it interesting - still read the Jeremy Pratt Air Law book in the loo.

I wonder how much harder the ATPL Air Law exam can be. Any professional flyers out there care to comment?

I'm actually getting worse at this. I started off by getting 90%, then 80% and the last mock paper I did resulted in a poxy 62%. Some intense revision is called for I think!

The type of questions that typically catch me out are along the lines of 'a balloon flying at night shall carry a red light that shows in all directions suspended 5m/5ft/10m below the basket.' To which my answer is 'who cares how far below the basket it's suspended - just don't fly into it!'

There is so much that is irrelevant to the kind of operations you expect to be doing in a light aircraft - if you can't see the point of knowing something, you tend to not retain it. Oh well, just have to suck on it if I want to fly without a guardian angel I suppose.

Rupetime, good luck. Keep studying, and you should be fine.

Ratsarrse, I hate those questions! If it's something you know and you see regularly, it might be possible to make an educated guess... but a light suspended from a baloon? Who cares? I find it sometimes helps to draw pictures, and anotate them with the correct distances, etc... but maybe that's just me.

Mariner9, don't ask. It's much worse. Imagine learning all of the Annexes to the Chicago Convetion. "Dangerous Goods is covered by which Annex: random number A, random number B, random number C or random number D?" There's definitely a market for 4-sided dice for some of these questions! Or imagine learning a whole load of ICAO regulations, and proudly answering a question correctly in a practice paper. In the next practice paper you see the same question, put the same answer, and get it wrong... then discover that this question is asking about JAR, which is different to ICAO. :rolleyes: Without a doubt, the worst part of any flying training you can or will ever do is ATPL Air Law!

FFF
------------

If you need a guardian angel, I may be able to help there...

Meanwhile: may I recommend the "pickle" approach to examinations that are based on your regurgitating ability?

1. Learn the relevant stuff that you will really need to know when you get to be a PPL. You don't want to sell yourself short on the important small percentage!

2. For all the rest - the stuff you will look up in the unlikely event you ever need it again (like height below balloon for the red light; number of cabin crew for various numbers of pax; how to calculate W&B for a 747)...

A. Take the book on holiday to somewhere sunny (Mallorca, Crete, Tenerife etc) for two weeks. Book the written for the day after you get back.

B. Sit on the beach with a large jug of Sangria (or similar), under a large sunshade, or smothered in sun factor 20, as you prefer.

C. Read the book and try to memorise it till your brain hurts.

D. Have a glass out of the jug and go for half an hour's swim (or whatever is your sunny beach thing).

REPEAT B C and D until the two weeks are up.

E. Go home and do the written.


I got 92% in my air law that way. And the best tan I ever had, and the most peaceful fortnight I can remember.