Your views on ATPL subjects difficulty
Joined: May 2003
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From: uk
I was thinking that... So you found great circle and grid nav, conical projection charts all a walk in the park huh?
Hovering AND talking
Joined: Feb 2003
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From: Propping up bars in the Lands of D H Lawrence and Bishop Bonner
Perhaps being that bit older as well helped
Cheers
Whirls
Joined: May 2003
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From: uk
I learnt my maths and geography back in the 60's and 70's and the sort of stuff you find in Gen Nav was what we did back then. PET and PSR basic stuff. Having spent a number of years in Finance numeracy skills are high. Hence the reason Gen Nav was not difficult.
Also why the memory stuff like air law and Ops were were a drag.
Also why the memory stuff like air law and Ops were were a drag.
Joined: Jan 2006
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From: UK Bucks
I too found gnav easy, once you understand the basics, its straight forward, just the same questions asked in different ways with diff figures.
I doubt it would have been so simple if I was doing it DL, like most people.
I just had a good instructor that explained it in a way that made sense to me
I doubt it would have been so simple if I was doing it DL, like most people.
I just had a good instructor that explained it in a way that made sense to me
Joined: Jan 2005
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From: g1000ville
I know Rhys, it's a toughy!! I fell into the trap and put d as it was the longest answer! Imagine my surprise when i found out that you don't actually need to know the lyrics to Meat Loafs "paradise by the dashboard light" in case of an emergency!! apparently squawking "Bat out of hell" is an acceptable alternative!! I was so close!!!
Joined: Sep 2005
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From: North of South
Well , being quite at home with my level of stupidity and lack of intelligence , I can say without a care in the world of what anyone esle thinks , but Im finding the first seven almost impossible , HP&L is in there , that is just the most utterly mindblowingly fxxxxxg boring subject ever thrust on mortal man . Performance is being hurled at us like poison arrows and im so behind the curve I can hardly see it . Met is one long continuous string of theories and confusing facts , POF is lovely if you can get round the maths (which I am !!!! at) . Ops is bollocks and mass and balance seems to be dragging like a good un .
My big bug bear is maths and as such I am really struggling (Yes I know most will say its simple ) to me it is not and it makes the work so much harder.
Still we plod merrily on
My big bug bear is maths and as such I am really struggling (Yes I know most will say its simple ) to me it is not and it makes the work so much harder.
Still we plod merrily on
Joined: Dec 2007
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From: england
Met - if the dooberie increases, the thingymijig decreases. Therefore the wotsit rate also decreases meaning that the such-and-such remains the same. Obvious really. Oh, and I really don't give a Flying F*** what the weather with probably be on 4 June in Darwin.
Instrument - Gyros, I'll leave it at that.
On the other hand, no. Why do they think that we all aspire to fly a bleedin' B737?
HPL - I have a degree in English and don't understand some of the question structure.
Gen Nav - actually, its OK. Get you sin/cos sorted and make sure you have a sharp pencil and a sound understanding of the CPR5.
Instrument - Gyros, I'll leave it at that.
On the other hand, no. Why do they think that we all aspire to fly a bleedin' B737?HPL - I have a degree in English and don't understand some of the question structure.
Gen Nav - actually, its OK. Get you sin/cos sorted and make sure you have a sharp pencil and a sound understanding of the CPR5.
Joined: Jan 2001
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From: In my own little world
The hardest thing in the ATPL's is the volume, and sifting through what you really need to know as opposed to what is nice to know. Certain things very rarely get tested, but as it is in the syllabus, it has to be covered in the notes.
I started doing it self study, and you try to learn everything because you don't know what is tested and what isn't, but I switched to Residential as it was taking me far too long to self srudy, and also on a residential, they skip over the stuff you don't need to know, and concentrate on stuff you do. I would recommend anyone who can afford time/money to do residential rather than self study - especially if you are not very mathematically minded other wise, like I did you will struggle doing it alone, then got p#d off with it and then it will take you longer. I had self study for 18 months and only got half way through mod 1. Residential, I was all complete in 8 months !!.
Gen Nav - I failed the first time by 1 question
Didn't even understand the subject then either !!. Spent the next month going through it at home by myself, and then really got to understand it, and got 95% at the 2nd attempt which was the highest out of the whole class, and I'm no brain box - I have a memory like seive !!. There are alot of formula's to remember but they are very similar, so you have to remember to use the right one to get the right answer but once you have cracked this, your half way there - te rest is CRP-5.
Met is pretty straight forward, although by no means easy but it's the one subject you WILL use every single day in your career, so best to try and understand it. I found that remembering the frontal diagram and the ELR/SALR/DALR diagrams and then sketching them down quickly on the rough paper once the examiner says "go" can answer almost 50% of the questions just from those 2 little things !!.
PofF is pretty tough to understand at first, but once you understand the lift/drag formula then the rest kind of falls into place.
Air Law is boring, same with Ops. Just lots of facts and figures to remember.
Mass and Balance - Easy - only about 3 things to remember and alot of them are in the book you get in the exam anyway
Instruments, again some technical bits, but if you sift through all the rubbish, there isn't a whole heap to remember.
AF/S - fairly straight forward although the electrics part is pretty complicated.
Radio Nav - boring, not too much to remember.
Flight Planning - Pretty easy. Just remember the ETP/PSR formula's, and almost all the rest is in your Jepp !!.
Performance can be tricky, not too difficult but is quite technical and alot of terms and formulas are very similar leading to confusion
Comms - waste of time and money. Enough said.
Once they are all over you will wonder what it was you worried about. They really are not as hard as you build them up to be in your mind.
I started doing it self study, and you try to learn everything because you don't know what is tested and what isn't, but I switched to Residential as it was taking me far too long to self srudy, and also on a residential, they skip over the stuff you don't need to know, and concentrate on stuff you do. I would recommend anyone who can afford time/money to do residential rather than self study - especially if you are not very mathematically minded other wise, like I did you will struggle doing it alone, then got p#d off with it and then it will take you longer. I had self study for 18 months and only got half way through mod 1. Residential, I was all complete in 8 months !!.
Gen Nav - I failed the first time by 1 question
Didn't even understand the subject then either !!. Spent the next month going through it at home by myself, and then really got to understand it, and got 95% at the 2nd attempt which was the highest out of the whole class, and I'm no brain box - I have a memory like seive !!. There are alot of formula's to remember but they are very similar, so you have to remember to use the right one to get the right answer but once you have cracked this, your half way there - te rest is CRP-5.Met is pretty straight forward, although by no means easy but it's the one subject you WILL use every single day in your career, so best to try and understand it. I found that remembering the frontal diagram and the ELR/SALR/DALR diagrams and then sketching them down quickly on the rough paper once the examiner says "go" can answer almost 50% of the questions just from those 2 little things !!.
PofF is pretty tough to understand at first, but once you understand the lift/drag formula then the rest kind of falls into place.
Air Law is boring, same with Ops. Just lots of facts and figures to remember.
Mass and Balance - Easy - only about 3 things to remember and alot of them are in the book you get in the exam anyway
Instruments, again some technical bits, but if you sift through all the rubbish, there isn't a whole heap to remember.
AF/S - fairly straight forward although the electrics part is pretty complicated.
Radio Nav - boring, not too much to remember.
Flight Planning - Pretty easy. Just remember the ETP/PSR formula's, and almost all the rest is in your Jepp !!.
Performance can be tricky, not too difficult but is quite technical and alot of terms and formulas are very similar leading to confusion
Comms - waste of time and money. Enough said.
Once they are all over you will wonder what it was you worried about. They really are not as hard as you build them up to be in your mind.
PPRuNe Secret Agent!
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Joined: Nov 1999
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From: West Sussex, UK
Once they are all over you will wonder what it was you worried about. They really are not as hard as you build them up to be in your mind.
CPL/IR/Interview/Type-rating...
Joined: Nov 2007
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From: London
Thank you Leezyjet, your comments are most welcome and appreciated, although very hard to digest at the moment.
I've just started with CATS distance learning and boy does it look a HUGE task from where I'm standing.
I'm starting to think maybe residential is the way to go.
I've just started with CATS distance learning and boy does it look a HUGE task from where I'm standing.
I'm starting to think maybe residential is the way to go.
Joined: Jul 2007
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From: uk
the biggest joke is that when you get on to propper airline flying you realise that you have no reason to know 99% of the crap you learn for these exams!
When have I ever / will I ever say for example "hmmm, bit of fog today, must be a high environmental lapse rate."
"hmmm, better make sure on this approcah to check that the approach path lighting is spaced every 10 m, with a stop bar every 300m"
"hmmm, are the registration markings on this aircraft the required 30cm high?"
In reality you need to know very little, which is why I think the Americans have for once got it right. As far as I know they dont need to learn half the crap we JAA pilots need to. Very sensible indeed.
When have I ever / will I ever say for example "hmmm, bit of fog today, must be a high environmental lapse rate."
"hmmm, better make sure on this approcah to check that the approach path lighting is spaced every 10 m, with a stop bar every 300m"
"hmmm, are the registration markings on this aircraft the required 30cm high?"
In reality you need to know very little, which is why I think the Americans have for once got it right. As far as I know they dont need to learn half the crap we JAA pilots need to. Very sensible indeed.
Joined: Mar 2000
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From: Dagobah
Sadly even the FAA are not imune to having to learn pointless crap. For the oral part of my FAA multi/IR I had to learn all the frequency bands for all the NAV and Comm kit. No big deal in comparison to the JAA crap mind you.
Joined: Nov 2007
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From: Polymer Records
Sometimes a good test of common sense though. We got a question in our Systems exam about something that no one in the class could remember seeing in our notes / mentioned by the instructor which caused a mass scratching of heads in the exam room.
Like everyone else I didn't know the answer, but remarkably, I was the only one to spot that it was sandwhiched between questions on ignition systems, and only answer "(c) Magneto" had anything to do with ignition systems!
BTW I thought Gen Nav was easy too! One third CRaP 5 questions; easy. One third instruments questions; small bank of feedback covered every single one. Final third proper questions; listened to what my instructor said came up regularly and I had an easy peasy pass.
Like everyone else I didn't know the answer, but remarkably, I was the only one to spot that it was sandwhiched between questions on ignition systems, and only answer "(c) Magneto" had anything to do with ignition systems!
BTW I thought Gen Nav was easy too! One third CRaP 5 questions; easy. One third instruments questions; small bank of feedback covered every single one. Final third proper questions; listened to what my instructor said came up regularly and I had an easy peasy pass.
Joined: Jan 2001
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From: In my own little world
I found, although thought it would be the other way round at the start, the real test of your character was the next bit...
CPL/IR/Interview/Type-rating...
CPL/IR/Interview/Type-rating...
Artie Fufkin
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 284
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From: London, Berlin, Bucharest
agree with lee. the main one i had a hard time with was gen nav. not my best subject. needs quite a bit of work but dont forget the other exams.
met has alot of stuff in it to cover but for me its just boring so took longer to learn.
Principles of flight is another one that u just want to get over and done with.
flight planning is also another big subject but very very simple. alot of answers are in the jeps which you take in anyway.
performance is pretty simple once you get the basics in. not much more difficult than the ppl graphs.
instraments was pretty interesting some good stuff to know
air law and ops was loads and loads of numbers and facts. i was quite lucky as the tutor had a good way of teaching it.
mass and balance very simple to learn. infact i just spent 2 days revising the subject as there are only like 4 things to remember and i got 100%.
IFR/VFR comms a bloody waste of the 1 hour i spent revising them and the 62 quid i paid for EACH, just for the privilage of sitting in a room colouring in boxes for 3 minutes...
met has alot of stuff in it to cover but for me its just boring so took longer to learn.
Principles of flight is another one that u just want to get over and done with.
flight planning is also another big subject but very very simple. alot of answers are in the jeps which you take in anyway.
performance is pretty simple once you get the basics in. not much more difficult than the ppl graphs.
instraments was pretty interesting some good stuff to know
air law and ops was loads and loads of numbers and facts. i was quite lucky as the tutor had a good way of teaching it.
mass and balance very simple to learn. infact i just spent 2 days revising the subject as there are only like 4 things to remember and i got 100%.
IFR/VFR comms a bloody waste of the 1 hour i spent revising them and the 62 quid i paid for EACH, just for the privilage of sitting in a room colouring in boxes for 3 minutes...
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 55
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From: wex
I like this thread - some nice views here.
I recently got my hands on all Jeppesen ATPL manuals to get a head start on the mass of information to take in.
It would be great to know what really needs to be known and what doesn't.It is so difficult to decide what is needed and what is not.
Anyway I guess I will just read everything and I will have to go residential at some point anyway...
I recently got my hands on all Jeppesen ATPL manuals to get a head start on the mass of information to take in.
It would be great to know what really needs to be known and what doesn't.It is so difficult to decide what is needed and what is not.
Anyway I guess I will just read everything and I will have to go residential at some point anyway...