Peter wrote:
A bit like aviation exams then…
Yeah – there seems to be a pattern 
I have a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from a Canadian University (4 years full time, 43 course modules) and a MSc in Electrical Engineering from a UK University (2 years part time, 8 course modules plus a thesis).
These degrees were far more strenuous than my flying accreditation.
Whilst working at my day job (full time) my PPL took 2 months to complete from first flight to license in hand. This was equivalent to about 1.5 to 2 university course modules.
After flying the requisite number of hours I decided to get my CPL (still working full time at my day job). My first flight with an instructor for this purpose was at the end of November; despite the winter weather, I had my CPL in hand in March (so about 3.5 months). I estimate that this was about 1 university course module.
For my IFR, I studied four full days for the exam, and then did two flights a day for 9 days for the practical test. This was probably just shy of one university course module.
To get my Canadian ATPL, I will need to get my multi-engine rating and do an IFR flight test on the multi. Then I will need to do two comprehensive exams. Once I reach 1500 hours total time, it will be job done. I expect this to be no more than 1 more university course credit.
So all told, it seems that a Canadian ATPL would be about 5 university course modules. Even if you double this to account for the time and experience gained whilst flying off the hours, it is still about 1 year of a four year engineering degree.
Interesting how it is in Canada. I know someone who did 4 years at university (economics) and two and a half years full time training at an airline run flight school and he would differ with your experience.
In line with getting rid of the useless atpl multiple choice question rote learning I think it would be good to merge (at least the theoretical part) of atpl studies with a university course (bachelor’s degree?). There’s a bachelor for everything, why not airplane pilot?
Since flight training is a privatized mega money industry it’s not going to happen, unfortunately.
Memorizing questions for a multiple choice exam and physically being present while learning the atpl subjects over the course of months/years, with experienced/knowledgeable instructors, are two very different things.
In reference to Snoopy’s comment above, one can appreciate that there is a difference in how Canadian and US pilots get to the cockpit of an airliner, versus UK/Europeans.
In the UK/Europe I gather you can be right seat in a jet with just above 200 hours. It is understandable that the airlines might want to make sure that these people have 2 and half years of full time training, regardless of the total number of flight hours.
In Canada, you are going to either instruct, or fly a small single or twin to get to 1500 hours. Then you are going to fly a twin turboprop (King Air then Beech 1900 or similar) for a couple thousand hours. You are not going to be right seat in an airliner until you have circa 3000 to 5000 hours unless you are an unusual case (I think the minimum for Air Canada and Westjet is 2000 hours). In this context the graduated license steps are much different. In the US, I understand you might get right seat in a jet sooner, but it is still likely to be 1500 to 2500 hours of experience first.
I think the Canadian and US structure makes a lot of sense as opposed to the European system, but it is obviously difficult, because in Europe there is not much commercial flying done in small planes. Consequently, it is hard for up and coming European pilots to get the experience… hence the ‘full time’ multi-year courses offered by the airlines.
In reference to Bachelor’s degrees for piloting, I would not recommend this. It is a matter of putting all of your eggs in one basket. If you loose your medical, you are done. You can’t fly and you can’t work in a position related to your degree.
It would be much better to get a degree that can stand on it’s own, giving you a back-up plan just in case flying doesn’t pan out. For example, it would be much better to get an Aerospace Engineering degree rather than a piloting degree. This gives the opportunity to work for many different types of firms in many different aspects of aviation.
We run into this problem all the time in my industry, we generally do not hire people with specialist degrees, because they can only wear one hat. We much prefer a ‘normal’ degree, e.g. Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical Engineering, or any of the Sciences, with a number of years of work experience. It is a bit off topic, but I think the specialist degrees are a bit misleading, because there are often not enough jobs in that specific field. If your degree is a MSc in Millimetre Wave Communications it is quite narrow, instead a degree in Engineering Physics will probably cover the same knowledge and do you well for a variety of jobs. Oh well, I will end my digression here…
Consequently, it is hard for up and coming European pilots to get the experience… hence the ‘full time’ multi-year courses offered by the airlines.
Yes I think this is inevitable, given that somehow one needs to prevent dodgy people reaching an airliner cockpit. In the “US” sphere they nowadays do it by insisting on a lot of experience, while in the “Euro” sphere (where getting 1500+hrs would take many years of instructing) they do it by making one sit a load of really tedious exams.
I could not possibly suggest the latter is better than the former, if you are looking for somebody who can, ahem, fly a plane IMHO Europe gets away with the way it does it, without lots of crashes, by flying modern automated planes and generally making sure the LHS is sufficiently experienced. The few that slip through are notable for the amazing way they did so e.g. AF447.
If your degree is a MSc in Millimetre Wave Communications it is quite narrow, instead a degree in Engineering Physics will probably cover the same knowledge and do you well for a variety of jobs
You could say the same for the majority of “humanities” degrees. Most of them don’t lead directly to any job. And that is why most of the people do it: unlike most “engineering” types, they don’t know what they want to do in life.
I used to know a Virgin pilot whose Class 1 medical was insured for GBP 250k. Admittedly that was hardly more than 2 years’ pay, after perhaps 10 years of service. 10 years’ pay if starting at Ryanair
tschnell wrote:
I think this is overstating the quantity and complexity of the ATPL-stuff by far.
I have a degree in engineering (being used in my professional life), and, in my second life, I am about to finish up the EASA-ATPL written (taken 50% of the exams already and brushing up the other half to be able to get to the 85%-level that is required by the ATO before they recommend students for the test.).
The training, effort and skull sweat required to pass 14 ATPL-exams does not even come close to what it took me to get through engineering school…
Lund University in Sweden offers an ATPL theory programme. The courses for the ATPL proper are one year full time study in all. (The programme also includes a pedagogics course since that is required for FIs.) I would guess that the students completing this programme actually understand the stuff — they will certainly not be doing any QB banging.
Clearly actually knowing and understanding the entire ATPL syllabus involves vastly more work than passing the 14 exams.
That would be true even if there were no computer QBs to practice on.
The scope of the syllabus is vast. For example the Met material contains a huge amount of detail… if you read every word and try to understand it. The Met theory I saw for the JAA IR was ~ 1000 pages.
The CBIR met QB was over 1000 questions, I can’t check now but think possibly closer to 1800.
There was spurious fudging onto the std IR stuff so I ended up studying at that level to give me a chance.
Once you do that you start to loose the boundary yourself, and can’t tell in the exam which question you shouldn’t have had.
This was the only subject that didn’t have wasted knowledge as such as we all need ti understand the weather but as always theres no learning objectives of real world prefight Wx planning so you then need to rely on an instructor for that, which is fine but doesn’t make a lot of sense really.
On other topics I had quesrions which I was sure were not part of the CBIR L.O. only to find it after the exam, lurking in a single line of text somewhere, long since forgotten.
Half of it all is knowledge, and half is learning how the questions are to be delivered.
When I hear of people studying for a week then hitting all the exams I can’t really believe it. Even at CBIR level with an eidetic memory you need a feel for the tricks and false positives.
I must be dumber than I thought as I’m finding having a job, a missus, an aircraft to look after and doing the exams is a problem for me.
There’s a chance I’ll not complete it and that’s a shame.
Peter wrote:
The Met theory I saw for the JAA IR was ~ 1000 pages.
That sounds hugely excessive – even textbooks for people studying meteorology at degree level aren’t that long. Does it just repeat itself a lot, or does it go into hugely unnecessary detail?
