Here is just a personal feedback on doing the ATPL theory.
I’ve always been interested in getting the IR. I contemplated the FAA route, and had an eye on the CB IR. In in the end, I wanted to keep my options for the CPL or the FI so I went for the ATPL theory.
I passed the last exam this Tuesday. It took me 17 of the 18 months limit between the first and last pass. It can be done much quicker, especially if you don’t have a full time job. On the other hand, 18 months goes really quickly, especially if like me, you take a 6 months break after the first exam session.
The content is mostly irrelevant and very dated. If you’re a glass half full kind of guy, you can get some knowledge and I think it did build my aviation general knowledge. However, not much that could be of any use in an airplane.
It is practically impossible to pass without a good drill on a question bank because you have to know the rules of the game, something you only get by actually playing the game for a while. Some questions are just there to trick you, others are badly phrased and others are factually incorrect.
It is not something intellectually difficult but it is an extremely time-consuming endeavour and will require a lot of patience and dedication. It is really tempting to just give up and a lot of people actually do so. Don’t let anyone tell you that’s it’s easy.
I’m happy that I did it and now look forward to the IR. Now the fun begins !
Congratulations. Job well done mate. I did the (at the time) JAR ATPL theory about 10 years ago, and it does not sound like it has changed a bit. The curriculum is horrible and useless for anything practical for the most part.
Many thanks for your report, Kerwin. Congrats!
A fair % of the private pilots who do this 13-exam (CPL) or 14-exam (ATPL) stuff never actually finish it. I know of a number who did the 14-exam set for the PPL/IR only, thinking they “may just as well” but it is really mind-numbing. Some of the aircraft perf calculations are also fairly technical. I never recommend anyone to do it just for fun or a sense of personal achievement.
An ICAO ATPL theory pass entitles you to HPA, which is nice but by all accounts the HPA course is a lot less work.
It is not something intellectually difficult but it is an extremely time-consuming endeavour and will require a lot of patience and dedication.
I did the 13-exam CPL in order to unlock full FI privileges – I originally did my FI qualification as a PPL holder, and came away with a rating to instruct for the LAPL, but not PPL. That turned out to be almost worthless and a source of frustration and aggravation on the French aeroclub scene. Rather than giving up there and then, as many of my fellow PPL colleagues did, I went for the CPL theory. Stubborness and, yes, a sense of personal achievement, are all I had to get me through it.
Whilst not hugely difficult intellectually, I wouldn’t describe it as a walk in the park, either, especially for someone who is not naturally drawn to maths and technical subjects. Yes, it requires a great deal of determination, a lot of time, and is not cheap, either.
As an aside, I certainly don’t regret doing my FI rating, but am not sure I would have embarked on such a long ‘journey’ knowing what I do now. If you’re not doing it with a job in mind, it’s a helluva long haul just for the glory 
I don’t agree entirely with the arguments given here. Yes, the subjects contain a lot of useless information but again, which university did you go to and study a subject that was entirely relevant? None, I can bet. Nobody knows what and when you will need, so they give a broad spectrum of information in the hope that you will find what you need when you need it. They exaggerate on the questions they ask pilots (I will never forget that an airplane needs a slide if the door is 183cm high and it is not 181, not 182 and not 184 – a huge difference that is!) and maybe they could ask more general ones (like “what factors determine the separation time” instead of “how many minutes is the separation if the following aircraft is 20 knots slower”). But that would mean changing the whole contemporary learning and testing structure of the world, so we need to wait.
which university did you go to and study a subject that was entirely relevant? None, I can bet.
Very true but the motivations are different. One goes to a university because
whereas one does flying exams because one has to.
Anybody who has ever found absolutely any way to avoid them has done so. Every route was used and was closed. The Irish FAA ATPL to JAA ATPL route, the Hungarian FAA CPL/IR to Hungarian national CPL/IR to JAA CPL/IR, getting a job as an instructor in certain countries, getting a job with an AOC operator and getting a validation and then a conversion, you name it. Even the many reports of certain Spanish FTOs selling the 14-exam package for €10k, c. 10 years ago.
And despite this a working FAA ATP can validate into a CAA ATPL for a couple of years, with a sim checkride (those pilots will have to do the 14 exams in 2018, as it currently looks).
I originally did my FI qualification as a PPL holder, and came away with a rating to instruct for the LAPL, but not PPL.
The DGAC shafted you, however, by crippling the privileges partway through the course, which was jolly indecent of them. In the UK that would not have happened, and had it happened, a solicitor’s letter to the CAA would have fixed it. We had threads on this here years ago. You should have got a lawyer. Nowadays, I am told, you don’t even need a DGAC examiner (FIE) to revalidate an EASA FI on a French PPL, so that closes any route they may use to get revenge.
Peter wrote:
whereas one does flying exams because one has to.
I thought we go to these exams because we want to fly. Just as we go to the university because we want to know more and find a job. With a few exceptions, people don’t like to put themselves through hard studying, work and exams unless they envision some return in the future.
Vladimir wrote:
Yes, the subjects contain a lot of useless information but again, which university did you go to and study a subject that was entirely relevant?
I felt that almost all of the programming/ software engineering classes I took were entirely relevant. In most cases, I already knew the subject and I never really had to learn something just to pass an exam. Yes, I took for example a class on functional programming and I knew it probably won’t be particularly useful but it was fun for me. The more theoretical classes weren’t as useful but that’s understandable if you’re not planning to head in that direction (there was still a minimum that was mandatory for everyone, mostly math). It wasn’t really a case of irrelevant material in a subject, it was a case of subjects not really useful to me. Like calculus (a nightmare of most students as the standard was quite high). Or data processing and organisation where we essentially learned the algorithms and data structures used in databases. I haven’t needed it yet. Not sure if it was mandatory or not, I know I took it and it was a breeze. I still fondly remember “programming” on paper, no computer allowed.
Martin, your entire post is exactly what I mean. There is a lot of useless information in some subjects (or even some whole subjects) but that’s unless you “go in that direction”. In general I find the ATPL theory to be a very common way of providing a broad variety of information and actually having a database of questions (98% of the questions on the test are out of this database) makes it relatively easy to pass the exams. Much easier than discrete mathematics or similar subjects I had to study and explain during my computer science degree studies.
Is EASA producing instructors? Or is there a risk of them all dying off?
