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EASA CB IR question bank now available

It looks like it is this product even though on my reading it doesn’t actually say so explicitly, or which of the topics are applicable.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

It looks like it is this product even though on my reading it doesn’t actually say so explicitly, or which of the topics are applicable.

If you click on “free test” you can then select IR and will see the list of topics applicable to that.

Or here: http://easa.europa.eu/system/files/dfu/2014-022-R-Annex%20to%20ED%20Decision%202014-022-R.pdf

Last Edited by what_next at 16 May 11:11
EDDS - Stuttgart

It seems that these topics are under the headline of CB IR:

010 Aviation Law
022 Instrumentation
033 Flight Planning & Monitoring
040 Human Performance & Limitations
050 Meteorology
062 Radio Navigation
092 IFR Communication

As I understand it, the question bank is now updated to take into account the changes that CB IR introduced. But would any other topic than “010 Aviation Law” be affected?

huv
EKRK, Denmark
But would any other topic than “010 Aviation Law” be affected?

HF comms? Tropical weather patterns? Procedural separation minima?

(Just guessing….)

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Back when I did my IR in 2011, I started with AviationExam. I noticed that it is a huge collection of past and present questions and was a very ineffective way of preparing because it just had too much. I then switched to a product that had a database of about 30% the size and this turned out to be spot on. I scored in the mid/high 90s for every subject and there were only 3-4 questions that I had never seen before.

PS: The most effective use of my brain memory was to memorize the results of these lengthy flight log calculations. I recognized the correct answer and only had to scan it carefully for any potential differences in the question. This saved me about 20 minutes on each of those questions. I started with the complete IR exam in the morning at 9am and I was out at noon. Did I learn anything useful? No.

Last Edited by achimha at 17 May 13:30

Yes – put simply, the online QBs are all based on the old JAA QB.

But in the meantime, some European CAAs have removed the really dodgy incorrect ambiguous and simply totally crappy questions, but they are still in the QBs.

The only way to put this right would be for the QB holders to do what the FTOs used to do for years before the online QB era (stand a man outside the exam room with a clipboard who has tasked each student to memorise one question, and he quickly wrote them all down as they came out of the room) but nobody is going to do that, when they can get good money for selling some crappy online database which nobody is going to complain about, because when you are done with this, trust me, you do not want to have anything more to do with it. At times, the process was really comical and there are some strategies which would get you a much more likely pass – as I wrote down in my lengthy pisstake.

The CB IR syllabus (“learning objectives” in EASA-speak) has been chopped down quite a lot but the actual questions that remain have not been changed since the JAA days, and nobody has the “quality improved” national-CAA versions.

What is now being awaited are FTOs who have put together an approved course. I guess it will be the same (few) ones who previously catered for private pilots, which in the UK was basically CATS (Cranfield, I think) and PAT/GTS (Bournemouth). I did GTS and would not recommend them because they make you do a lot of homework which is based on a syllabus which is significantly different to the QB so you have to learn a lot more stuff. Nearly all of the theory is irrelevant garbage.

The best way to learn about IFR is to get mentoring with an experienced private pilot who flies for real. For ground work, he doesn’t need any FI qualification, and he doesn’t need any for airborne stuff if it is structured correctly (e.g. he remains LHS and PIC, always, and in his plane). The basic IFR procedures you can learn in a PC sim with a cheap joystick.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The only way to put this right would be for the QB holders to do what the FTOs used to do for years before the online QB era (stand a man outside the exam room with a clipboard who has tasked each student to memorise one question, and he quickly wrote them all down as they came out of the room) but nobody is going to do that

That is what Peters Exam does and they are spot on. If you don’t want to learn all the crap, I can recommend doing the IR theory in Germany and prepare with Peters. More than 50% of the people sitting the exam were foreigners when I did it. I think the smaller the country, the higher the chance to get the unmodified QB. The LBA has removed most of the weed, I did not have a single dumb question where all 4 answers were nonsense.

Peter, I guess I don’t have to tell you that you wasted a ot of time by doing a JAR IR. With the current law you can convert your FAA PPL/IR into an EASA PPL/IR with just a simple practical exam in your own aircraft Their intention was to make the EASA IR more attractive but I think they have made the FAA IR more attractive because now you can go to the US, get the FAA IR and then get an EASA IR on top with just one additional flight.

Last Edited by achimha at 17 May 15:44

you that you wasted a ot of time by doing a JAR IR.

One always has 20/20 eyesight with hindsight!

The other outcome – as described in my writeup – could easily have been “no change”, and the 15hr conversion route ending April 2012 (as was scheduled to happen) and then I would have been in line for the full 50hrs of the JAA crap.

I bet you anything that if our friends in Greece had not kicked off the EU near-meltdown, we would be looking at a much more powerful and arrogant EASA, a Brussels which sticks a finger up to any protest, and the full 50hr route for everybody.

I think they have made the FAA IR more attractive because now you can go to the US, get the FAA IR and then get an EASA IR on top with just one additional flight.

No – you need 50hrs IFR as PIC. The “as PIC” should prevent the European FTO business from an instant meltdown, because not many people are going to buy or rent and fly 50hrs under some sort of “provable” IFR conditions.

99% of fresh IR holders (FAA or EASA) won’t even know how to develop a Eurocontrol route, and that isn’t a joke. So logging 50hrs as PIC is quite a step. In the UK they can log it in Class G on the IMCR privileges. They could log it in the USA, immediately after getting their FAA IR, but only a certain % of people want to live out there for some extra weeks while banging up the 50 hours.

Also note that we don’t yet know 100% for sure the acceptance criteria throughout Europe for this “50hrs IFR”. The way it is worded invites what is here called “Parker pen time” and pure instrument time logged under the IMCR in Class G is totally unverifiable so, taking the usual politics into account, some gold plating may happen. That UK CAA flyer (which rapidly vanished from their website afterwards – see the other thread) forced everybody to go through an FTO, and the FTO would have had the final say on what logged time to accept.

BTW I spoke to Peters Software at EDNY and asked them why their JAA IR QB had ~10 exams while the JAA IR had 7. They didn’t have a clue, didn’t want to find out, so I didn’t bother.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
8 Posts
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