Evening ATPL Studies
 

Just wondered whether there were any schools doing the ATPL's as evening classes. It would seem ideal to people who still need to work but are finding the distance learning hard going. Even if they were just to consolidate the distance learning and keep the studies to some sort of time schedule.

No, as far as I know there are not. However, don't forget (I am sure you haven't) that you are required to attend groundschool which (for BSG) at least 4 weeks off work + exam time. (2 lots of 2 weeks in their case).

The help that this groundschool gives is amazing. However, if there are areas of the course that you feel you are really struggling with, I personally think that the groundschool followed by a gap of a couple of weeks between that and the exams could be invaluble for consoldation.

Sometimes, the speed with which things are covered during groundschool, out of nessesity a very fast, and although I was OK for Module 1 where I went straight into the exams, had I done the same for Module 2 (where I had a 3 week gap - working full time as well), my results would have been poorer.

I think what I am sayign here is if you feel you are lacking in areas, think about doing the groundschool and then having a couple of weeks in between that and the exams to give yourself time to get up to speed, rather than 'waste' the time before the crammer session.

I say we need a lot more colleges around the country to do APTL studies. The North East closest is Glasgow or down south. I was between a rock and a hard place

Finacially its probably not worth it for places to do, if you think of how many distance learning atpl students live in a given area that are upto the same page of study in say 7 subjects at a given time and are available a couple of set evenings every week, there is only going to be yourself and maybe another turning up every session. Even it you had a 60 mile radius around where these evenings maybe, think of travel time once people finish work etc, it just could not happen.
However if you want tuition of an evening I have known flying instructors at schools offer this sort of thing as a side line to there instructing, usually charging a reasonable hourly rate, might be worth asking at your local school.

Do you have to attend a special school for ATPL theory or can you self study and put in for the tests yourself or does a School have to definately be involved??

The reason I ask is I have all the ATPL Notes and exam prep at home on a CD which includes progress tests every week. These are full ATPL books for every subject that cover the entire new JAA sylubus Also included are the 15000 actual exam questions (including new questions from 2006)

Does anyone know for sure?

Unless you are exempt by virtue of experience (see LASORS), you need a sign off from a school before you take your exams, so your CD is interesting but otherwise useless, since you will get notes anyway.


Phil

There was a thread about this a while back, some guys down in London sent feelers out to who would be interested and approached London Met for night classes, think it all fell by the wayside though.

You must attend a fully approved course and have x amount of hours classroom study to be signed off for the exams. You cannot just self study and sit the exams I'm afraid.