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ATPL for Fun

For a reasonably experienced private pilot flying a long time, is there a known successful strategy to knock out the APTLs for fun?

I gather some of the subjects are known to be “easier”:

-Comms
-Mass & Balance
-Operational Procedures
-Human Performance
-Aviation Law
-Performance

Is it realistic to knock these out after a few weeks study, just leaving the more complex subjects to complete? It seems a lot of students put a great deal of effort to achieve really wonderful results, like >95% – but what is required where >75% is sufficient?

PF

Last Edited by pistonfever at 28 Apr 15:39
Channel Islands

There were new things for me in every subject so I don’t think you can just say some are easy and you can quickly get them out of your way.
Do you want to fly or do you want to do it for fun? If for fun, you can go with the 75%. If you want to find a job afterwards, anything below 90% can be a no-go at some airlines, either officially in the requirements or during the pre-screening process (at least for the time being, maybe as demand for pilot increases that would change).

LSZH, LSZF, Switzerland

Comms I and V could be easy but shouldn’t be treated as such, as there few question, little margin for errors. M&B are pure calculation, so with caution and good process, can be easy. The other ones you mention are not that easy, a lot of small things to learn by heart (Class A and B, reactor vs turbo props). This is far from PPL theory.

LFMD, France

Thanks Vladimir & Greg. Let’s ask this another way, assuming one is satisfied with 75%, how can this be done (ways to make it possible, not reasons its not possible…)

PF

Channel Islands

With the new question bank and question structures, many intensive students have been getting lower passes or retakes – I honestly don’t believe there is a way to approach it at a lower standard. I scraped a number of mine and some retakes as I was working + young family as well as studying, and it was a lot of work to get to that.

Now retired from forums best wishes

It took me 4 and a half months full time in a distance course, between 5 to 8 hrs a day, but resting during week end, with a bit of flying in between. I didn’t do it for fun, and I hope I will not have to do it again.
I had paper/app lessons, + I subscribed online bank that was pretty accurate, very few questions I didn’t see.
Many guys I met during exams were army guys who had to do it in 6 months, and massively uses online bank.
And I agree Balliol, you can’t plan a low standard.

Vladimir wrote:

If you want to find a job afterwards, anything below 90% can be a no-go at some airlines,

I’m quite surprised by this? I know many people with good to average result but surely not a 90% average, going into standard airlines (AF, ryanair, ezy,..).

Last Edited by greg_mp at 28 Apr 20:09
LFMD, France

I just did the 7 IR exams. Put in a huge amount of work and finished with an average of 85%. Paid no attention to IR Comms and only got 70%, passed it on the 2nd attempt with 95%. The optimal strategy is to just murder the question banks for endless hours. Pay almost no attention to the course material and just read the explanations and discussions around each question on Aviation Exam. So many of the questions are extremely frustrating where you have to provide not the correct answer, but the ‘most correct’ answer. The word ‘fun’ should never be used in any discussion around these exams.

EIMH, Ireland

Hey,
I did it in 3 months. I didnt have a petformance goal but it turned out well.

Full account:
http://www.abeam.be/easa-atpl-theory-knowledge-in-72-days-and-9-years/

Abeam the Flying Dream
EBKT, western Belgium, Belgium

Paid no attention to IR Comms and only got 70%, passed it on the 2nd attempt with 95%. The optimal strategy is to just murder the question banks for endless hours. Pay almost no attention to the course material and just read the explanations and discussions around each question on Aviation Exam. So many of the questions are extremely frustrating where you have to provide not the correct answer, but the ‘most correct’ answer.

That is very much in line with my own experience doing a 7-exam subset in 2011. There has been much talk in the meantime of (a) the UK CAA having weeded out the duff questions (which the original 1999 ATPL QB was full of, apparently) and (b) new questions have been introduced. I have no personal knowledge of that…

However, while the original QB was obtained under an FOIA request (more details in the above link), the FTOs had for many years before that been generating their own copies of the QB by asking exam candidates to memorise 1 question per person and then a guy standing outside the room would quickly write them down as the candidates came out of the room. And I would expect those running the modern computer QBs to be doing something similar, to keep them roughly up to date. After all, they get loads of feedback from the vast numbers of integrated course students who first banged the computer QB and then sat the real exams and they would have produced copious reports of any differences. Most or all computer QBs are run by an outfit which has some association with an ATPL FTO. Often the owners are the same people…

It is a frustrating and not a little depressing process because the whole thing bears so little relation to flying in the real world, and I would not want to do it again And I did perhaps 1/3 of the work which the full 14 exam set involves.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Fully agree with #7 post of zuutroy.
Did my 7 IR exams exactly the same way at the end of last year using AvExam QB with their explanations and a few YTube videos. Didn’t rush it and took one or two exams at a time. Achieved 100% twice, the worst one was 91%, it took 5 months. The study was mostly interesting but sometimes annoying due to sheer volume of it.

Last Edited by Destinatus at 29 Apr 06:31
Prague
Czech Republic
18 Posts
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