Relevance of IR theory courses

Passing theoretical exams with good scores and little time of prep is a skill.

The study material has too much info irrelevant for exams. If you want to pass an exam, you study the learning objectives, memoriese the questions, learn the concepts from the question explanation and if you really need to, study the chapter relevant for that type of problem / question.

As an example, I haven’t studied for the AGK exam for the PPL at all, haven’t even touched the book. A day before my exam session I have went trough all the 400 questions of my qdb, took notes to quickly memorize everything and the next day I passed with 100%.

Jujupilote wrote:

Bristol has been recommended here as one of the best IR TK online course.
I get that the QB gives you real questions and prepare you well for the exam.

But what is the downside of studying the course ?
Is it full of wrong or irrelevant content ?
Did you not need it for the flying ?
I somehow doubt it but I have no clue.
Please teach me something here.

I did the CB IR theory with Bristol Ground School in 2023. The study materials are high quality – I don’t think much any of it is ‘wrong’, although there was a fair amount of stuff included in the material that was outside the scope of the CB IR learning objectives (but was in the full IR / CPL / ATPL LOs – it just hadn’t been removed properly), and so you can spend a lot of time learning content on which you will not be examined. What people mean when they criticise the TK is that so many of the LOs are not relevant to day-to-day flying, especially as a private pilot of light aircraft, even when flying IFR ‘in the system’. Think questions on the B737 FMS, or on radio theory, avionics design etc. On the other hand, there’s very little in there about real-life flight planning – use of Autorouter etc. just isn’t covered. It’s often commented on here that a fresh IR holder won’t know how to plan a simple IFR route from a UK airfield to Le Touquet based only on what they learnt on their CB IR course – there is some truth in that.

You also have to spend a significant amount of time using the question banks to learn the questions and answers – simply studying the material is not sufficient – as is the case with the the ATPL. You do not need to really understand the material in order to pass the exams, and this is somewhat intellectually unsatisfying. Bristol’s QB is good, but it is generally recommended to use another in addition (ATPLQ or Aviation Exam). I would suggest you read the study material (whether that is the Bristol slides, or textbooks – there are various published) without taking many notes (to save time), and then, as mentioned above, go straight to the question banks (and then you can refer back to the course materials/textbooks when you get to a question where you understand the question bank’s explanation).

Bristol has recently stopped offering the CB IR course unfortunately. You do need to (at least in the UK) be enrolled with an ATO for the CB IR TK – you cannot just buy the textbooks, subscribe to a QB, self-study and present yourself for the exams. If you can find another ATO that doesn’t require in-person attendance that would be ideal (unless of course you think you would benefit from classroom tuition / can take the necessary time off work etc.).

The UK CAA is (or was recently) consulting to significantly reduce the TK requirements for the UK CB IR (hopefully it will end up more like the FAA IR exam).

Thank you Indochine; very informative.

I was one of the students who caused Bristol to stop selling their course.

In a nutshell, this is what has happened.

I started the course in December 2024. I’m not a young lad so I found it challenging at times. Nevertheless, I started to sit the exams and got results of 90 to 100%. I was a happy guy :)

That started to change when I started studying for met and flight planning.

I noticed that the question bank had questions whose learning objectives weren’t part of the CB IR syllabus. When I asked Bristol why that was, I was told that those questions although not part of the syllabus, were reported by students, so they decided to include them.

At the beginning of I thought this was just a couple of questions but they kept turning up. So one weekend, I opened the QB and one by one, I cross-checked each question against the LO. Over 150 questions presented to us weren’t part of the syllabus.

While I understand that Bristol wanted to prepare us for an exam that includes questions regarding commercial flight fuel calculations, I also told them that in that case, their teaching materials should teach us how to do it.

So, instead of putting in the work and fixing it, Bristol called it a day and stopped selling the courses.

Later I found out that only 20 people complete the CB IR in the UK each year. So, in other words, there’s no business case.

Every school that sells CB IR Theory courses does it as a byproduct of their main ATPL course. As soon as they have to put a lot of customisations for the CB iR students, it stops making sense for them to invest in a product that doesn’t sell much.

This is clearly caused by the fact that CB IR theory is still quite challenging and demanding for private pilots, especially when compared with the FAA single IR written exam. Many questions presented during the exams are for ATPL students. I got a couple of commercial flight fuel calculations questions for example.

I finished the exams in July. Hopefully, the CAA will create a better, easier and more accessible way to get the theory. This would potentially enable more pilots to feel they can do it too, and as a result, lead schools like Bristol to feel it’s worst to invest in a course for private pilots.

Doing the CBIR theory and then aviation exam questions clicking marathon I was way over prepared for the “real” theory exam. I scored several 100%, I think 5 of the exams.

The training is much more than you need to know for the exam, and the exam is much more than you need for flying.

However, reportedly this bullshit is history. The theory training for the BIR seems to be much more to the point, so forget about the past.

For my personal experience I quite enjoy to learn things. In fact you get the feeling that you could fly a 737 when you’re done with the CBIR 😅

Jujupilote wrote:

Bristol has been recommended here as one of the best IR TK online course.
I get that the QB gives you real questions and prep

I wouldn’t say its full of irrelevant content, but there was a bunch of content that didn’t match the LOs of the BIR (e.g. I remember Mach speed calculations). It looks like they narrowed down the content from the IR/ATPL without going through every section properly and adjusting the actual slide content, which slows down learning by piling on additional irrelevant information. I wouldn’t say its bad or wrong content, but its sometimes a bit too verbose for the purpose of passing the exams.

The most relevant and best sections were about everything MET, I feel I actually learned quite a bit of relevance there. In the end if all comes down to why EASA chose this specific type of theoretical exam that has very little practical relevance to flying IFR with small planes in the european system.

Fernando wrote:

I finished the exams in July. Hopefully, the CAA will create a better, easier and more accessible way to get the theory. This would potentially enable more pilots to feel they can do it too, and as a result, lead schools like Bristol to feel it’s worst to invest in a course for private pilots.

Anecdotally, my Austro BIR exam did not have any questions I would deem as overly irrelevant to the purpose of the BIR (so no local weather phenomena in Ecuador, Airline radar interpretations, etc.) – maybe I was just lucky or they have applied a proper filter to the ECQB.

@Fernando I bought the Bristol CB-IR course at the end of May, which means I will probably be among the last to go through it (hopefully successfully).

Would you be prepared to share your Learning Objective / Relevance notes either in the clear here or with me directly so I can see if they’ve made any further adjustments or if I’m doing a course that’s “frozen” since the cessation in August?

@bradfier, no problem at all.

The feedback I got from BGS is that the questions are still on the QB because they can still appear in the CAA exams. So, you have to learn them and study the content.

In August, BGS emails us the follwong message, “It has come to our attention from recent student feedback that some examination authorities may include a small number of questions in their Flight Planning & Monitoring examinations concerning multi engine piston and/or jet fuel planning. We feel that such (albeit rare) questions are needlessly advanced and indeed contrary to the overall objectives of the CBIR training path, but it is for this reason that we have included some related questions in the question bank. Also, we wish to make the following two videos available to you, as produced by one of our Flight Planning Instructors for our ATPL students. They cover these aspects in some detail and we hope you find them interesting.”

Now, they did remove all questions regarding PET. Fuel calculations questions (CAP 697) are still there. Please note that these questions will potentially appear in your exams. It happened to me twice.

Pay particular attention to flight planning. There’s a big gap between what’s on the courseware vs the questions you’ll encounter in the exam and QB. For example, courseware says little about airways designations. Your exam WILL test you on it. Memorise all RNAV designations.

Regarding fuel planning, the courseware says you’ll be asked questions about single engine, piston twins and helicopters. In reality, you can encounter questions using any of the tables designed for commercial jets. Study those tables, do as many exercises as you can.

My advice is to purchase the BGS videos to help you understand how these calculations are done.

Finally, FP is a rush against time. Practice for time. The CAA is now preferring type-in answers so multiple option is disappearing. This means you need to be careful and fast in your calculations.