ATPL Mass and Balance - CAP696
 

Wondering if anyone can advise on the following. With be removal of CAP 696 in the Mass and Balance exam, has this highlighted to people a greater amount of the CAP 696 content should be learnt and committed to memory? I.E. standard masses, definitions etc that would have previously been available within the CAP.

I have just taken mass & balance and I tried to learn all the definitions, standard mass values for passengers, baggage etc along with all the equations you need for %MAC, moving CG, moving mass, adding mass etc. If you know all these you should be fine.

Some of the questions that I used to practice gave standard mass values and some didn't but the questions I had in the exam gave them (assume 1 passenger = 75kg for example).

The only questions I had on definitions were about what on a short flight, the traffic load is limited by.. questions like that.

For mass & balance I found that just practice, practice, practice and it was all good. Pretty much all the questions I had seen before, just the figures had been changed. Got 97%.

ATPL Mass and Balance - CAP696
 

Great work 97%, well done. Thanks for the info.

Sorry if I have misunderstood but has the CAP been removed from the exam? Since when?

CAP 696 was withdrawn from the exam wef End of January this year. You get a workbook and annexes now.

Will be taking the M&B exams in about a week, those who sat them recently, is there any advise you could give or anything in particular which is worth pointing out. I personally don't like working out questions regarding the "Load & Trim" sheet (sucks), since it's easy to make a mistake. And how did it go time wise? As mentioned above, any advise is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Transonic2000,

Don't know which theory provider your using , but if you follow bristols ground school formulas you will pass easy.

Do not try and recognise the answers from the question banks, they have changed the smallest numbers to fool you.

You have to work it using the formulas

Good luck

Many thanks for the advise! I'm not sitting the exams in the UK, but I'm using ATPLonline.co.uk and it worked well so far, this is my second sitting, all passes first time!

I recently took the M&B exam, as well as G-NAV, passed both! As I mentioned above, I've used the question database from ATPLonline.co.uk and I must say the test exam resembles the real ATP exams very closely, as well as the difficulty level! For instance, I've passed the M&B test exam with 92% and I got 93% in the real exam, even though I didn't sit the exams in the UK. So I can recommend ATPLonline to anybody who is preparing for the EASA ATP exams, no matter in which country you are taking the real exams.

A Little note regarding the M&B exam, make sure you know the basic stuff (terminology), expect 1 or 2 CG shift / mass shift calculations, I had a floor load as well as MAC% calculation, but very basic not too difficult. I didn't have a single question regarding the famous "Load & Trim" sheet.

Regarding G-NAV, the main concern is time! You have 120 min for 60 questions, so that's 2min per question! You have to keep an eye on the time during the exam. Don't get stuck trying to figure out a single question! I regularly checked my progress during the exam (~ 15 questions = 30 min, ~ 30q after 60 min) after an hour I was at question number 28, so I knew it will be tight at the end and so it was. I just managed to check the last answer at the last second! I encountered two questions which I choose to rather make a "smart guess" and move on to the next question, instead of getting stuck trying to figure out the correct answer. Regarding my study-strategy for G-NAV I put my focus mainly on Charts, Dead Reckoning (during the exam mainly questions regarding drift angle and ground speed) and In-Flight-Navigation. But still, you need to know the Basics as well! I had quite a few questions regarding initial/final great circle track (convergncy formula)! Also had a question where they were asking for the "Longitude of B is ?" (departure formula). In the end I passed GNAV with 83%.

As already said above, I can highly recommend ATPLonline, that's money well spend! If you do well on the test exam, you have nothing to be worried about and you'll pass the real exams without any trouble!