JAA ATPL Ground Exams
 

Hi All

I am considering my ground school with Bristol, after the 2 week revision courses how many days do the exams take? how many do you sit per day and where do you sit them, with the school??

cheers

Exams are Monday-Thursday and as for how many you sit depends what ones,some days aybe one other 2.


Regards

The exam schedule is usually as below:

Monday

0930 Principles of Flight 1:00
1045 Aircraft General Knowledge 2:00
1400 Mass and Balance 1:00
1515 Aircraft Performance 1:00

Tuesday

0900 Instruments 1:30
1100 Ops Procedures 1:20
1300 Flight Planning 3:00

Wednesday

0900 General Navigation 2:00
1115 Radio Navigation 1:30
1345 Meteorology 2:30

Thursday

0900 Air Law and ATC Procedures 1:40
1100 Human Performance and Limitations 1:00
1300 VFR Comms 0:30
1345 IFR Comms 0:30

So if I have the module 1 for Bristol correct, you'll be in the exam room everyday.

When I did mod 2 in may (bristol) the mod 2 subjects were:

POF, AGK, Perf
Ops
Rad Nav
Air Law

So Mod 1 was:
Mass and Bal
Insts, Flight PLanning
Gen Nav, Met
HPL, VFR Comms, IFR comms.

You will be in the exam hall every day either way.

JAA ATPL Ground Exams
 

Does anybody have an exam timetable that could give me some details? I just found out that i will need to book holidays from work by tommorow and can not find the copy that i had.
I will be taking AGK, Radio Nav, IFR Comms and VFR Comms.
Could anybody let me know what days(and possibly times) these are held on?

Thanks

Perhaps a search of the CAA website before posting?
This Year
Next Year

Could somebody give me an idea of how the exams and exam dates are structured? (genereally, not specific to Bristol) I’m looking to start my distance learning course (not with Bristol). I aim to study for each module, one at a time and then do an exam for that module only….with a view to then go back and study for the next module and then take the exam for that, and so on......

Or is one required to do more than one exam per day? Can certain exams only be done on certain days? Is there a minimum number of exams one needs to do per exam-day?

A bit confused here.
Thanks

Hi Superpilot,

The exams start on the first Monday of every month, unless that Monday happens to be a bank holiday, in which case they will start on the following Monday.

The timetable is fixed. Usually the same as the one I posted above.

No matter how many exams you take within the same exam week, this will be counted as 1 exam room sitting. So if you take 1, 2 or even 8 exams in the same week then you will have used up 1 sitting at the exam hall.

Why does this matter? Well you are only allowed up to 6 sittings at the exam room in total. So this obviously means you will need to sit more than one exam at a time. Ideally you will be wanting to do 5 or so each time to leave you enough sittings left if you have to resit any.

Talking about resits, these have to be taken within the total of the 6 sittings BUT you are only allowed 4 attempts at each subject.

If you use up all 6 sittings and haven't passed them all, or if you fail one or more of the subjects 4 times then its back to school as you'll have to start the ATPL exams all over again, from scratch. Although I believe the CGI at the school can wave the requirement of the study time required in this case.

Most schools have organised their courses into two or three modules. Bristol has two modules, the first one with 8 subjects/exams and the second module containing 6 exams. If you pass the exams first time and take them all in the same relevant sitting for the module then you'll take two sittings in total. This would leave you 4 sittings left in case you did fail any.

The school I am with (NAC) have 7 subjects/exams in each module, so giving me two modules.

Cabair, Cranfield Aviation etc have three modules, with I believe 5 subjects/exams in the first two modules and 4 in the last module (although I might be wrong). Leaving one with 3 sittings left for any resits.

Hope this answers your question.

Charlie Zulu.

It does, thanks!

Madness. Impossible probably as you will time out on the 18 month rule but most likely run out of sittings (6 max).

Either

(a). do a block of 7 then 7 exams then rinse and repeat for the next set; or

(b). study all 14 then sit 14, then mop up non-passes in next 1 or 2 sittings (but with no pressure on timing out on the 18 month rule).

Hope this is helpful,

h-r:)

OK, so I misunderstood the whole process, glad I know now! :hmm:

Having done about 15 IT related exams in the last 3 years, I can see the approach to the ATPL exams isn't going to be any different. I.e. Read some really vague material and then practise loads of questions....do exam....if fail....repeat to fade.

Do you guys get the feeling sometimes that you are cramming in everything for the sake of passing exams/and so sod the deep understanding/learning? All the professional exams I've sat have forced this attitude on to me. Come on be honest :p

Also, interested to know roughly how many questions per each of the exams.

Thanks

Hi SuperPilot,

The number of questions in each exam, as a general rule of thumb:

75 - Aviation Law
76 - Aircraft General Knowledge
56 - Instrumentation
22 - Mass and Balance
34 - Performance
56 - Flight Planning
47 - Human Performance
90 - Meteorology
54 - General Navigation
59 - Radio Navigation
50 - Operational Procedures
44 - Principles of Flight
23 - VFR Communications
23 - IFR Communications

However this doesn't mean the number of questions will equal the number of allocated marks. The more difficult questions are weighted with 2 marks or as in the case in the August Meteorology exam 3 marks (one of the last few questions).

Each exam has to be passed with at least 75% of the allocated marks.

Learning the subjects by use of feedback and past papers will not guarantee you a pass. You have to learn and understand the theory behind each subject as well as going through the past questions. The real question bank is updated all the time with new questions replacing older questions.

Although these are multiple choice questions, they are not easy. The questions are designed to enable the exam to ensure one has studied the required material and not just gone through feedback questions.

Best wishes,

Charlie Zulu

No.

There is some cramming (as with all exams)

But you also learn a load.

Amazing how many dinner conversations you can pack details of the Organised Track System or Met conditions into (especially 'anticyclonic gloom') ....;)

ATPL/CPL Exam fees going up
 

...to £60 a paper.

New CAA Charges

Far too much, I'm afraid.

And CPL and IR skill test fees going up to £691 from £637, partial test fee to £462 from £428.

Also far too much

Linda

Uk inflation down to 2.1%

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4523948.stm

CAA charges rise by about 9%

Don't just sit there...

Dear, <My MP>
c/o House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Bring in Lembit Opik, the flying man in the House of Commons, if he reads this website, please can you throw this open to the house.

This is completely unfair, I had to recently spend £16 of my money so that the FAA could look at my details, who's conning who!!

It would be interesting and enlightening to hear the CAA's version of why the costs are going up.

No. Cancel that. There will be a fee associated with 'responding to reasonable questions' :*

AOPA say they have lost the battle to prevent the CAA hiking up GA's costs. That included the help of three MPs including Rt Hon Opik. I believe, the CAA is going to be audited soon though.

What on Earth does a student get for £60? A place in a room for an hour or 2, 2 invigilators between 20-60 people, a shoddily-written exam and a 2-week wait for results. I thought services were not supposed to be cross-subsidised now. Disgraceful.

It does seem that aviation is seen as the past time of the rich, when in reality it is the past time of the heavily debted! So it makes sense to put us all further in debt!!

I had a class 1 medical taken at work, one of the perks of working for NATS which was free, I had to have an electrocardiogram, as it was due, to which the doctor said was 'absolutely spot on'; 'lovely all done then', I said. I was then told that I had to pay the bloody Campaign Against Aviation £27 so they could read the plot given by the ECG, and come to the same conclusion that a very experienced NATS doctor had already concluded!!

IT'S ALL A BIG CON FROM THE GATWICK GREY WARSHIP!!

CAA Charge for sending fax to Oklahoma City: £16

FAA Charge for reading said fax, reading application form, approving documents and transferring to local office, issuing temporary airman's certificate, printing FAA licence card (plastic and credit card sized) and postage to UK: £0... Yes, Free

Value of the FAA teaching the CAA a lesson in charging: Priceless

If I remember correctly, the problem with the CAA is that it was stipulated a good few years ago that it has to be self funding whereas the FAA has funding from Government.

Further to Send Clowns post...

What is worse is that those of us sitting the exams at Gatwick were provided with such a small desk with such a small space between them, glad I didn't do General Navigation at Gatwick.

The Orlando exam venue was much nicer, we had large desks that we could spread all of our charts out with plenty of room to spare.

Does anyone know of an exam venue in the UK which allows the use of large desks? I have flight planning coming up in the next (and last) seven and thus would really like a nice large desk to work from...

Had no complaints about the Glasgow venue (did Nov exams there). Very quiet room, 2 desks (pushed together) per candidate, as much space as you need. Coffee bar just across the courtyard.

Yes, but people are asking what exactly do they spend their money on. Hence the proposed audit. They are meant to facilitate aviation, not fleece it as some quasi job creation scheme.

The Campaign Against Aviation indeed :*

The reason the CAA give us little desks to do our planning exams on is because that is all you get on the Airbuses we will all be flying soon:).

Count yourself lucky - you have to do it on your knee in a Boeing so the FAA guys don't even get a desk.

Just another sad example of 'Suit Britain' as I call it ...

The whole country is being run by boring little grey men who know more about microsoft excel than anything else.

What next - a doctors assessment to see if you are going to breach any health & safety 'codes of conduct' when your sitting at your exam table?

:yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk:

At Shuttleworth they arranged pairs of desks for the flight planning exam, at a student's request. However this was not standard, and that centre is no longer in use. You could try at Silsoe; probably not worth it at Gatwick!

CAA might be self-funded, but the exams have for years been a lot more expensive per hour than your lessons, and there you have a skilled instructor to each class of between 5 and 15 students (in most schools)! He has to prepare classes, which shold be more work than running the exam - you should not be charged for the incompetence of the JAA in setting up teh exams, giving exrta work marking. That is immoral and disgraceful, being charged extra due to the poor service you are receiving!

JAA ATPL Ground Exams
 

I'm just about to enrole to Bristol ground school to start the study for the atpl written exams using their distance learning package.

I have looked at other schools, but Bristol looks the best all round package and is not too far from me.

Before i send off my hard earned and start has anyone got any advice or experience on using Bristol GS.:confused:

Looking forward to your comments

Richz3

Dist Learning
 

If its Distance Learning, everyone I know that used it thought Bristols was great.

I did a fulltime course in the end, but guys off my course still used the Bristol online facilities for revision.

Currently half way through my studies with them and I can't find a bad thing to say about them.
Great course material, excellent insructors/tutors and top notch support and resources to help you pass the exams.
The online question database is a godsend!

Good Luck

Matt

Cannot fault them, always willing to help, even after you've finished with them and just need advice?

YYZ

Top notch school. When PPSC went bust, Bristol took a load of us on at short notice and I, for one, passed all the exams first time with them.

A mate of mine went to Bristol, he said they were fantastic, one of the best places you can go. You gota put the work in though!

JAA ATPL Ground Exams
 

Hi everyone.
There is a rather persistent opinion that one may sit JAA ATPL exams without formal theoretical training. However, according to JAR-FCL 1.485(b), one has to be recommended by an approved FTO to take the exams. Is this a clear prohibition, or are there any alternative means of compliance?

The only way around it is if you are very experienced and hold an ICAO ATPL. I believe you'll also need many hours on a jet / turboprop aircraft but am unsure about that.

Even if you hold an ICAO CPL/IR, you are still required to sit the entire course and the classroom element before going to the exams and the school has to sign the application form to say you are ready to take them.

If you are to do the exams via distance learning as I did, it must be through an approved course. This requires at least 200 hours of formal ground instruction as opposed to the 600-odd required by the residential course. Sadly, you are not simply allowed to buy the books, learn the subjects and sit the exams.

Yes 10% of any distance learning programme needs to be completed in class, under guidance of an instructor. This is the offical line

Yes, most of that is correct. You are completely exempt approved ground training if you have an ATPL with 1500hrs+ on aircraft certified for two pilot operation. If you hold an ATPL but don't have the 1500 hours two pilot time then you have to do an appproved course but the time spent on the course may be reduced at 'the discretion of the Head of Training of an approved FTO'. Frozen ATPLs/CPLs get no credits.

A full approved modular course must consist of at least 650 hours of instruction, 10% at least must be done in the classroom.

ATPL Exams
 

Thanks all for replies.

Looks like BristolGS will be getting my business, lets hope i'm up to the challenge!! :ok:

Richz3