Bobo wrote:
Beware that the Aviation Exam (AE) is very good help, but their questionbank is not the same as the questionbank they use for your exams. That used to be the case, so some posters will tell you that they memorised the AE questionbank and passed with flying colours, but at the time that is no longer possible.
Did things change much since 2 years ago?
I did my CBIR 2 years ago, 2 1/2 days classroom (waste of time, but that’s another story), and a couple days question banks (+ read padpilot books, quick read), and got really good results (83,92,100,100,97,100,95). Didn’t find that many questions that were in QB, except in one of them which had some questions about airliner EFIS (I think where I got my poorest score).
For the FAA, did QB bank only and got 98 if I recall correctly. Probably spent 30-50% of the time I spent on the CAA ones (but had capitalized on some learning)
I recently heard some people saying they wanted to go FAA way just because of the exams, and that just seems complete non sense, especially since you can’t take them in europe now.
Peter wrote:
I would suggest 4 days indicates utterly exceptional intellectual ability.
Thanks for the compliment :)
The only thing I’d add is that I’ve had quite a lot of IFR practical experience (with a friend) anyway which meant that Flight Planning and IFR Comms required almost no work for me. My time was almost exclusively spent on Met and Air Law (c. 3 days for those two alone)
Noe wrote:
I recently heard some people saying they wanted to go FAA way just because of the exams, and that just seems complete non sense, especially since you can’t take them in europe now.
Having done the Foreign Pilot Instrument exam many years ago, that does require quite a lot of learning (particularly the location of US states – “What type of cloud is over Wyoming?”) PLUS you now have to get a TSA clearance to do the training, etc etc. The big advantage of doing the FAA one is that you don’t need the annual revalidation like you do with EASA, but note there’s also a small possibility that the whole N-reg thing becomes obsolete for EU citizens.
Do any of the QBs have a specific CBIR bank? I’m using BGS and all of the exams are full IR meaning that I’m guessing at some of the stuff not on the CBIR course and so my results are a bit distorted.
zuutroy wrote:
Do any of the QBs have a specific CBIR bank? I’m using BGS and all of the exams are full IR meaning that I’m guessing at some of the stuff not on the CBIR course and so my results are a bit distorted.
Aviation Exam did when I did it 2 years ago
ATPL Online also has a specific CBIR question bank.
zuutroy wrote:
Do any of the QBs have a specific CBIR bank? I’m using BGS and all of the exams are full IR meaning that I’m guessing at some of the stuff not on the CBIR course and so my results are a bit distorted.
Yes, give Aviation Exam a try.
Currently 23 hrs with instructor and slowly getting the hang of it, I’ve had to spread my training out over 9 months, and that doesn’t help. My FI says with the 10 ATO hours, I should be ready for the skill test. But I’m not that confident yet, and thats OK because I still have to complete 7 hrs for the 30 hrs.
Charlie
Good luck with your CBIR
If helpful. I did SEP. I used the flight school training plane as opposed to my own. As such I had to get used to glass, HSI, RMI, basic auto pilot etc that I wasn’t familiar with. I came into the CBIR with roughly 300/325 total hours experience from ppl. Time to skills test was 29.6 hours. This was over 10 flying days. Often 2 flights a day. Started out Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then just Saturday or Sunday due to family commitments. Started 26 June and skills test 8 august. Partial pass (which was fair result). Passed fully 17 august after a further 1.2 practise. This was 2015. Personally I found it helpful to have a break of a few days after a few days flying so to think about the experience. I think with hindsight and benefit from others experience you can much reduce the time. Learning the basic SOP of the school. Learning the routes and procedures and key strokes by heart etc. Although for myself that was never the initial goal. I was with rate one Gloucester for what it is worth.
Good luck
Nick
@Nick_R – thanks. Can you expand a bit on the “hindsight and benefit from others’ experience” please as this would be very helpful? I’m also doing it at Gloucester but at Aeros – so I suspect learning the Cardiff, Bristol, Gloucester, Coventry and Oxford plates backwards is a good start so you can avoid making silly errors on the sorties (as you say above). Did you do much Sim time? I understand from Jim Thorpe they don’t have one at Rate One any longer but would be interested to hear how useful you found it (if you did Sim time). Many thanks
