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Now official: JAA/EASA ATPL theory is largely garbage

The subject levels are so poorly constructed that for CBIR and BIR you are expected to do Jet performance calcs and Jet commercial ops fuel calculations.

On the CBIR this is supposed to be capable of being appealed. That’s how it was for the 7-exam JAA IR (I did the FAA IR to JAA IR conversion).

requiring exact calculation with two answers 2,5 degree apart and in the same general direction.

I’d like to know how this is done

and being able to figure that out could actually be useful.

How could it be useful?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

How could it be useful?

For situational awareness when you are planning the flight. Understanding the difference between a great circle and rhumbline track so that even though the departure and destination are on the same latitude, you will arrive on a northeasterly track. Obviously mainly relevant for intercontinental flights, but we’re taking ATPL exams here.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 05 Nov 16:12
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

loco wrote:

There is however another variant, requiring exact calculation with two answers 2,5 degree apart and in the same general direction.

This also exists in the PPL navigation and IMC exams, or at least it did when I did them (2011).

You have to measure something with a protractor on a poor-quality photocopy and then perform a wind calculation to get a heading. Having worked it out and got 136 degrees, you discover that two of the multiple choice answers are 135 and 137 degrees with the other two being obviously wrong.

EGLM & EGTN

Graham wrote:

This also exists in the PPL navigation and IMC exams, or at least it did when I did them (2011).

That seems entirely pointless, unless the question was really about measuring track angles on a chart which a PPL should obviously be able to do. (You’re not likely to get the track used in loco’s example on a PPL/IMC exam, though.)

I teach PPL navigation and I do believe it is important to understand that even on a relatively short trip it makes a difference if you measure the track angle mid-track or at one of the endpoints.

And no, I certainly don’t advocate compass and stopwatch navigation for “normal” PPL flying, but when you use a GPS navigator it is important to understand what the various data it produces (e.g. TRK, BRG, DTK, XTK etc.) actually mean and how they are derived.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Looking at the huge span of longitude in that question posted above, it’s impossible to produce any usable chart, let alone an LCC one, on which the track could be plotted and measured (as one would do in the PPL exams). Clearly the candidate is expected to know some means of calculating it.

There are probably special case shortcuts made possible by the constant latitude. And the track lying halfway between the two parallels means the distortion of the projection is symmetrical above and below the track

So it’s really a totally unrealistic trick question, for several reasons.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

If you are looking to justify each question on the QB then this post will be the longest in EuroGA :)

I think TK exams for private pilots LAPL, PPL, Basic-IR, Full-IR should go completly modular with limitations on licences that one can lift later, then you can decouple fun flying element from deep study element, later one can “earn his reputation” if he wishes

If PPL is restricted to fly 30km radius around the airfield in good day with pax under instructor supervision, you can take the whole NAV/MET subjects off table, that would have solved lot of GA attractiveness issues for pleasure for more people ;)

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Just my 2 cents, but I think just saying pilot’s can only solve so and so many percent of the questions after some years in service doesn’t proof the theory is garbage. Because that is probably the same for an engineer, a lawyer and a medical doctor.
So the question could more be: What is the aim of the theoretical exam? Is it only about applicable knowledge, or is it also about general capabilities a pilot should have? And if it’s about that, does he have to have the exact knowledge for the job or is it more about the techniques learned and applied? Then lastly I agree that you should be able to use basic principles behind the automation, before you use that to make your live easier, otherwise you are unable to understand error modes.

P19 EDFE EDVE EDDS

Peter wrote:

So it’s really a totally unrealistic trick question, for several reasons.

Unless we know what the answer alternatives look like, we can’t really say. I stand by my opinion that if the alternatives were something along the lines of “a) about NW, b) about SW, c) about SE, d) about NE” then the question would be entirely appropriate for an ATPL exam.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Most of the garbage questions in the database are not about some broader general knowledge. They are often completely useless for anyone, not only the pilots. For example, the CB-IR Radio Navigation requires knowledge about three world satellite navigation systems GPS, GLONASS and Galileo, such as: how many satellites each of them has, in how many orbital planes, what are their orbital heights, how long does it take for them to orbit the earth, etc. This knowledge is useless for anyone! It’s not only practically useless to know that the orbital height of GLONASS satellites is 19100 kilometres (and not 20200 km!), but also there is no underlying general principle or rule.

LCPH, Cyprus

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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