Please excuse the long post, or if this isn’t the right place for it, but I feel I’m at a road junction and don’t know which road to take.
I’m studying for PPL while having a demanding job and I’m now halfway through my PPL, passed several exams and will very soon have enough hours for the skill test.
For me the problem lies in the way the exams are organized at my school, and I don’t know if it’s me underestimating the theory or the way the current school is currently setting us up for success at the exams. We were given Pooley’s Books and ground school was all around them too, while the real exams (Austro Control) have some weird (or needlessly complicated) translations and phrasing (e.g. from memory “Relative Airflow” in Pooley’s Books vs A.C. in the exams calls it “Direction of Airflow”, or “Polished Section” vs “Moveable Inner Cylinder” when talking about the landing gear). Sometimes questions in the real exam talk about topics that aren’t found in the books I was given as the ground school responsible confirmed, or topics in the books aren’t discussed as much in detail for you to be able to answer such a specific question in the exam.
And while you might say, sure, just learn 100% the books and you’ll be knowledgeable enough to understand these translation quirks and pass, I feel this isn’t the purpose of the Pooley’s Books because I seem to do better in apps like PPL Tutor, which more closely follow Pooley’s Books (UK) with questions phrased in an English that is much more clear to me, than I do in the exam which follows A.C. way of teaching and terminology (I later found out of dedicated books for people taking the A.C. exams, although in English there’s just one from the PPL and the rest are ATPL).
I would love to know if anyone went through the A.C. exams, if they used the dedicated books by Henrik Lührs or just persisted until they passed with Pooley’s Books, and what their experience was like.
At this moment I’m considering to change the school, it has double the retake fee of similar schools, and results take weeks to receive, which isn’t a great combination in the end. Wondering if I can transfer the partial written test results or if I have to start over with the exams at another school.
Also wondering how English Speaking Schools elsewhere in countries like Croatia, or Poland, are organized and if they also use Austro Control, and what books or reading material they recommend, and how representative the supplied books/QB were to the real exam. Looking for a recommendation from personal experience.
As a last resort I’m considering taking the exams in the UK or US and doing a conversion of the results to EASA if that can be done too.
Any advice to help me move forward with the PPL is welcomed, thanks!
Isn’t there a drillster or similar option available to practice exams? Or some old exams to practice.
In the Netherlands these are available (with old exam questions). This helps you to get a feeling of the type of questions that are asked, as often understanding the question is more difficult then answering them.
@La_Baguette I am a little confused. From your profile you live in France so why didn’t you do your PPL in France? The theory is taken basically from just one book and like the FAA ppl theory book it is very simply laid out. All PPL students start with this book. Yes it is in French but translations these days are simple with Google or Babel.
There is also a study aid called GliGli which is even simpler.
IIUC the exams are still multiple choice and the key is to first decide what the answer is not before deciding what it is.
IR, CPL and ATPL theory exams can all be done in English at the DGAC centre exams at Orly so I wouldn’t be surprised if it is possible to do the PPL exams in English there also. It might be worth checking. We have 2 instructors one of whom is also an examiner and both speak English and would be able to do ground school in English or even Franglais. I would not be surprised if there were similar instructors where you live. Before going off to the UK and then still have to do a conversion can I suggest you pop along to your local club and speak to the instructor there.
But maybe I am missing something.
RikB wrote:
Isn’t there a drillster
I was only given this https://aircademy.com/en/ecqb-ppl/ and in my experience it hasn’t been enough representative of the questions found in the exams at my current school.
gallois wrote:
But maybe I am missing something.
Thanks, this is very valuable advice, if only I knew French.
Unfortunately only English is an option for me.
May I ask which book is the one used for PPL?
It’s worth a look for sure, especially if I can find English speaking schools near me in Alsace.
There is a Dutch school – Sky Academy – which is based in Colmar
Welcome to EuroGA, La_Baguette 
One rarely gets anywhere actually learning the theory from books. The best way is to skim read the books (Pooleys are ok) and then bang the computer question bank until you are getting 85% across the board (pass mark 75%). Once you are doing that most of the time, go and sits the exams.
The actual knowledge required to fly around Europe is not much related to what is in the syllabus, and you will pick that up from flying with more experienced pilots, and of course from asking on EuroGA There is no other “European” GA forum in Europe.
La_Baguette wrote:
I was only given this https://aircademy.com/en/ecqb-ppl/ and in my experience it hasn’t been enough representative of the questions found in the exams at my current school.
The ECQB is perfect for its purpose – to prepare you to pass the Austro Control PPL test. I seem to remember AC also makes a sample set of questions available on their website but can’t seem to find them straight away. If you ask around you can find many more sample questions that are 99.9% matches for the actual exam questions. Just make sure you’re using the right version – the question banks are updated every now and then.
I also did not find the practice questions at my school very relevant (nor did I manage to answer most of them, even using the books they supplied). They seemed to stem from a different era. Best to ignore that and just rehearse the question banks. I suppose it doesn’t make you a great pilot but it does make you an excellent MCQ answering machine (and I did pick up some useful stuff on meteorology from the exam questions). I learned and am learning most from online resources (the stuff the FAA provides for free like the PHAK and flying handbook, this forum, reading AIP portions or approach charts and googling whatever you don’t understand, … – you get the idea).
Also, when you said you passed several exams I suppose you mean progress checks by your school? Most schools seem to care about their student’s pass rates for the exams (not sure if that is something that is monitored and has consequences for them or not) but ultimately if you convince them you’re ready then you’re ready – avoid the progress checks as they focus on the type of practice questions a school has, not the ECQB variety questions (at least that was my experience).
Good luck and don’t give up – I also did my PPL besides a full time job using short free available moments – you can practice MCQs for 10 or 100 minutes.
“Manual du pilote avion” from fnac costs about €33 but can I suggest before you think about buying go to a club and see if one of the students there or an instructor can show you one.so you get an idea of whether it is useful to you or not.
They may also have a copy of the 700 questions PPL theory that you can look at.
Most clubs have these and a student starting out will usually get a copy of these as part of their initial package. I think these are also about €30. It is all they need, although they do get help from their instructors during ground briefings/school. In many areas there are now quite a few nowadays to level 4. You might be surprised how easily you can communicate.
Online, it might be worth taking a look at
Aerogligli E learning includes question bank etc.
You sign up for so many months at a time. I think 3 months is about €30.
But before you do it is really worth checking schools near you to see if there are any English speaking instructors.
If you need any help don’t hesitate to PM me if you want.
Peter wrote:
then bang the computer question bank
IMO that is a silly thing to do. I have never done that, not in any exam. There are stuff that simply has to be memorized, like signs, foreign language words etc. In those circumstances tricks using association, “stories” and so on works 100 times better. I always focus on understanding what is going on, understanding the basics. Banging questions is an utter waste of time IMO. Study correctly, and the name of the book is irrelevant (as long as the content is correct).
This is a PPL, not a PhD Most of the theory is nonsense.
