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ATPL/CPL/IR Theory

Still looking endlessly at the coveted IR... but noticed that CATS have dropped the 2 weeks end of distance learning from 2 weeks to 1 week... this works well for me from an annual leave perspective.

Who has been through this process? Do you do the 1 week refresher and then the following week head to CAA Gatwick to sit the papers?

I'm not sure which I will do yet, and have noticed the IR is only 1 day, but as I think Peter pointed out to me, in the UK they are not a subset and so if I wanted to upgrade later that would be another expense...

EDHS, Germany

I am not familiar with the current CATS process, especially for the ab initio IR, but it's certainly true that if you have the tiniest slightest intention of doing the JAA/EASA CPL/IR (or even just the CPL, which will be fairly useless without an IR, for most stuff) then you must go for the full 14 ATPL exams.

This will be true even when (or indeed if) the CBM IR arrives. That would deliver a more streamlined competence-based process for the flight training portion of the IR but the ground school aspects will not change if you want to go "commercial" one day.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

But if you only wanted the IR theory then CATS run the 3 days groundschool on the Saturdays prior to the exams. This minimises the number of days leave to 3 for the exams only.

Potentially you could sit all the 7 exams on the same day, reducing leave requirements further.This would be hard work, which is why they divide the course into 3 modules.

As Peter says, a dead end if you want to go commercial at a later stage, otherwise very practical

FlyerDavidUK, PPL & IR Instructor
EGBJ, United Kingdom

Is it actually possible to sit all 7 on the same day?

I spoke to somebody who tried and he was told the timetable was impossible. The quickest was that you could do all 7 IR exams on two consecutive days.

IMHO even that is hard work (one needs the time to swat up) but there are some brilliant people in this game

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

It's definitely possible to sit all the IR exams in one day, but very tough. One chap did it when I was there in December, and he was just about punch drunk by the end of the day. Note the timetable has changed in the last year or so - beforehand the exams were spread over 2 days. Assuming you only take 50% of the allotted time for each exam (which is generous) you'll get around 45 minutes break between each exam, plus lunch break. Unless you are able to study full-time I recommend at least 2 sittings - I took 4 in December and will take the last 3 in February.

If you're just doing the IR, you'd be well advised to join pplir.org as that entitled me to a £250 discount on the CATS course fees. Even adding on the cost of a subscription to aviationexam.com (which you will need) you save over £100. I'll be writing up my experiences for the PPLIR magazine shortly, for publication later in the year, but email me if you want to discuss - {my username} at tebb ? me ? uk. (Peter, apologies if this is unwelcome advertising but I have no connection apart from membership)

Hopefully I will have all my exam passes by late Feb (fingers crossed) and I can get on with the fun part of the training :)

EGBJ / Gloucestershire

Rich,

I did my IR last year in Germany. Here, one does not get a choice to split the theory exam into two sittings, all subjects have to be done in one full day of exams at the site of the LBA in Braunschweig.

Timewise, I felt the exam itself was not too demanding. The time limits set for the individual exams are very generous. I took breaks between the exams (via an assigned PC one can decide when to start an exam and the sequence of subjects ) and re-read all questions and answers before finishing a subject but I was done with all exams bar one by 11.00 (the exams start at 8.00 and one has to be finished by 16.00). At that time I took a longer break and only started the final subject at 14.00.

The real issue for me was to find the time to prepare for the exam as one needs to learn and remember a lot of (irrelevant) details and has to be able to reproduce those on a single day.

Interestingly, I was also asked to write an article for PPL/IR on my experiences which I have just completed.

Good luck for your final three exams. The actual flight training can also be intense but it is fun.

RXH
EDML - Landshut, Munich / Bavaria

Aha! Ben (the PPL/IR magazine editor, for others) told me that someone was writing from the German perspective! He's going to print my article shortly after yours as a comparison. I look forward to reading your article in due course - it sounds like the German IR is even more difficult than the UK one!

We Brits have to go to the CAA office at Gatwick to sit the exams. No high-tech computers for us here in the UK - just pen and paper. As a result, you have to sit the exams to a common schedule, which means they are spread over the whole day, and you have to do a lot of sitting around. Which was good in one way, because I met other candidates and we swapped useful tips.

Lots of irrelevant details, sure, although I reckon only about 20% is totally irrelevant, and another 60% is arguably relevant but of little practical use (like wake and track separation minima).

EGBJ / Gloucestershire

It's definitely possible to sit all the IR exams in one day, but very tough

I didn't think the CAA would be open during the working day for long enough to sit all 7, but I stand corrected

I would never recommend it except to a masochist with a photographic memory, because being able to hit the question bank in between two sittings has to be worth a few %, and absolutely anything is worth doing to avoid failing any exam, because if you fail even just one, the whole "IR project" is delayed by about 2 months due to the fixed UK CAA exam timetable, which could push the training into the winter months, with the greater "currency attrition" which that brings (icing conditions etc).

I reckon only about 20% is totally irrelevant, and another 60% is arguably relevant but of little practical use (like wake and track separation minima).

I think 20% is hugely generous I think, as a holder of an IR previously and actually using it, that 90% of the JAA IR theory is either irrelevant or is simply wrong. An example of the latter is in Nav where you learn to flight plan using airway charts, but almost none of the routes thus developed will pass Eurocontrol validation. The ex RAF instructor (I did that in the classroom) never knew about that.

A friend of mine in Germany has lately been doing the ATPL exams (he is a professional working jet pilot) despite having done the pre-JAR ones many years previously, and from what he said the German LBA did not do much "weeding" of the question bank, so there was even more rubbish.

I found the actual UK CAA exams to be mostly free of "rubbish" questions i.e. ones which clearly had multiple right answers, etc.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Thank God for the FAA IR.... .

EGTK Oxford

90% of the JAA IR theory is either irrelevant or is simply wrong. An example of the latter is in Nav where you learn to flight plan using airway charts, but almost none of the routes thus developed will pass Eurocontrol validation

I'd classify that in the 60% "arguably relevant but of no practical use" category. Relevant, in that you learn how to interpret a chart; but of no practical use for the reasons you give. Perhaps I am being generous.

What's unarguably irrelevant is memorising the width categories of taxiways, or the dimensions of painted touchdown zone markers as related to runway length :)

EGBJ / Gloucestershire
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