CPL theory course finally over!

So now it's finally behind me!

As I suspected earlier, I passed most of the exams first time but had to do a couple of them again. I decided to postpone the exam to give myself enough time to read while making progress on flying. I now did the two exams (General Navigation and Meteorology) and passed them with 93% score on MET and 90% on GEN NAV. I haven't counted my average but I think it's somewhere between 86-88 percent.

It really helped to change the question bank site since the one I used to rehearse for these exams was much more accurate and some of the questions were actually there on the real exam! The ATPL theory course will begin next autumn and I'm now much better prepared for them and know which question banks to use. I'm hoping to get a first time pass on all subjects with a good average, hopefully over 90%. It will be hard to accomplish, especially now that the exams are done with a computer system instead of pen and paper, which has had a huge effect on the overall difficulty level compared to previous years.

Time will tell if I'll succeed :)

CPL theoretical examinations

For the last two days we have been sitting and doing the CPL theoretical examinations at the Finnish CAA, called TraFi. I must say that it hasn't been easy at all.. When you combine the facts that there's a huge load of subjects to master, very little time and a fast pace and the fact that most of the exams and some questions are ridiculous and unfair, it's fairly apparent that this is no easy task. We have students with background from a university (like I do) and universities of applied sciences and everybody agrees that the studies are comparably challenging.

So we had two days to sit through the 13 exams and apparently we were the first course to do the tests with a computer, that randomly selects different questions to each examinee. Most schools don't do the CPL exams at all, since the usual way is to go straight to the ATPL phase after basic theory and flight training. I think doing the CPL first, although it doesn't save time or money, is nice since you get to know the books and subjects before diving to the ATPL exams. I'm no longer afraid of the ATPL since now I know what's ahead, and we are going to have a lot more time sitting through the ATPL theory lessons (about 500 hours compared to 200) and after all, there's really not that much new things in the course compared to CPL theories. I'd say the CPL includes about 75% to 85% of the ATPL subjects.

We'll have to wait a while for the results, but to be honest I am fairly sure that I did not manage to pass them all in one go. The computer generated nothing but complex mathematical questions for me in general navigation and I just didn't have enough time. At least now I know what to do differently in the ATPL. And ATPL is the one that counts. I'm aiming for a first-time pass with at least 90% average.

Flying will start next week with a litte rehearsal flight programme created to us by our flight instructors.

Theoretical exams around the corner...

Tomorrow it begins. In the morning I have to head for the main building of Finnish CAA (TraFi) and do the CPL theoretical examinations. So today is the last day of our studying break and I think I should do some quick rehearsals with the flight computer and answer some random questions from the bank. There's so much to remember and I definitely don't feel ready enough..!

CPL classroom studies over!

Now I have sat through all the lessons included in the CPL theory course and ahead is a two-week break intended for self-studying before the examinations. They're supposed to be held on the 10th and 11th day of this month after which flying finally continues on monday the 15th. I'm very eager to get back on the saddle of a Cessna!

Today was our last school's theoretical exam in the morning and tomorrow I am going to Joensuu (some 450km away from Helsinki) to spend easter with my girlfirend and her parents. However, it seems my laptop is going with me since I have to do some question bank rehearsals there also. The commercial pilot theory course lasted 17 weeks, of which the two last ones mainly included exams and random lessons related to general things and the beginning of the next flight period.

I now have quite a good feeling about the ATPL theories. After all, we'll have the same books as material, some new subjects and stuff to learn but not too much, over twice the number of hours in classroom and the same question banks. In addition, now I know what to do differently when the ATPL theories start. ATPL's the real deal and I want to get good grades to put in my future CV.

ATPL Online

Here's a short introduction to one of the secret weapons used by flight students helping them to cope better through the CPL and ATPL theoretical examinations.

A King Air in the front pages contributes to motivation nicely. Recently it has been replaced with an even better source of motivation, the A380!

ATPL Online is an online question bank, which you can use to practise for the different theoretical subjects included in the CPL and ATPL syllabus. The bank contains more than 10 000 different multi-choice questions, which are taken from the same question bank used in the real examinations. So with this online site you can practise questions either by category, by random or by doing mock exams that work the same way as the real ones. If you answer a series of more than 20 questions you can get your score to show on a recent progress table, which shows your progress as a linear graph. With hard work this graph is then supposed to show an upward trend...

The only graph I had the nerve to post a picture of :)

Using ATPL Online has many benefits and here's three of them:

Firstly, by doing hard work and taking the questions you always learn something new from the subject you are rehearsing. There are lots of situations where the same question is asked multiple times and as a result you'll begin to remember the answers easily. Especially all the different questions which have a sort of "rule of thumb" to remember them by, like relationships between IAS, TAS, CAS etc., compass errors and certain laws of aerodynamics, can be quite easily mastered by repetition.

Secondly, answering the questions in the bank helps to develope answering technique. Although one might think that a multi-choice question with four alternatives wouldn't need much technique, there's actually quite a lot required. With frequent rehearsing you'll learn to avoid the most common traps and you'll also begin to pick up important clues from the questions. By trial and error you might someday also learn to read the whole question before answering. Actually, the most important advice I've received considering the theoretical exams is a rule of thumb called RTFG. It stands for "Read the F.... Question". Works pretty well, and if all else fails the correct answer is the longest one, or option C, or in case of Principles of Flight, the one that contains the word "fowler flap".

Fowler flaps is always the right answer, regardless of the question asked :)

The third benefit is that with hard work and answering thousands of questions you'll eventually learn quite a large part of the correct answers by heart, without even thinking what is asked. This is very useful as you'll encounter the same questions in the real exams. Additionally, if you just can't get some certain things in your head, you can develope your own rules of thumb and memorize the questions and answers by heart. After all, it is sometimes much easier than actually working to undestand the subjects in depth. Of course, this only works for a small amount of little pieces of information contained in subjects. For example, if you just can't work in your mind the relationship between two things, then just remember that if the question has "increase" in it, the answer is "decrease" and so on.

This is again one of these questions... deepest?

ATPL Online doesn't come for free. You have to pay for registering and I subscribed for 90 days with a price of 74 euros. You'll certainly get your moneys worth and I think we don't have one student who didn't subscribe to this service.

A Flight to Italy!

Now it's time to embark on a small four day break from the world of CPL-theories and head for Rome on the wings of Norwegian. Be back soon! :)

There it is now! Had to book good places by the window beforehand. I actually know a better place situated in this airplane where I'd rather be, but it's a secret. Hint: It is located somewhere in the front part ;)

Somewhere over the alps...

Greetings from the World of Books

New Year and a new begin... well, the same old theory lessons continue and the end is not near :)

Some new subjects have started and with that, new ground instructors have come to alter our daily routine. Some lessons seem to pass by in an instant while some lessons seem to last forever. But so it goes.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas is coming and with that, a well-earned holiday period is near. Now it's time to see some red instead of blue :)

Santa has come to visit the terminal building of Helsinki-Malmi airport.

Next year the studying of blue books continues and I've heard that we'll start "lightly" with a mock exam on meteorology. Nice!

Maldivian Air Taxi

In these times of dark winter evenings, rainfall and coldness I'm sure many of us dream of warm faraway places with their eternal summer and sunny beaches. I've been spending some time researching all the different airlines operating in these places and dreamed about possible jobs in one of these companies. A great way to gather some extra motivation in the middle of a theory course!

They say you haven't lived if you've never flown Twin Otters in the Maldives. I suppose I'll never live then. At least I know a certain amount of our population is with me :)

One of the air carriers under closer inspection is Maldivian Air Taxi that operates a huge fleet of Twin Otters in the Maldivian islands flying people from an island resort to another. According to one of our teachers some finnish pilots have gone flying there in the past and it seems they still have at least an application form you can fill in their website, with requirements that are quite possible to meet.

Look at the size of that tailplane!

However it seems that the company has started to stricten its requirements and apparently you'll need a lot of seaplane experience to be applicable. In addition the Maldivian government has started to favour local pilots and it can be hard for expat first officers to gain work permits to the country. So practically it seems that unless you're a captain with thousand seaplane hours it might be quite impossible to get a job.

So, that's it about the motivation and back to the books! :)

Can one drown in blue books?

Theoretical studies continue and there's more than enough to learn. CPL theories are just something way different than PPL theories. The language has changed from Finnish to English and when AGK was formerly all about the systems of our little Cessna 152 we have now started tearing Boeings and Airbuses to pieces and exploring them. Navigation is now more like mathematics and all about calculating time differences, convergences and departures when it earlier was a kind of "there the church of Nikkilä is now" -kind of subject. Also, my "dear" flight computer has become increasingly familiar to me lately.

Our ground instructors are all in all quite decent. What's different from PPL studies is that we no longer have our schools own instructors teaching us. We now have freelancer instructors who are experts of diffferent subjects, mainly airline pilots, business pilots, air traffic controllers and technical people.

I'm planning on keeping a little break from writing. There's really not that much to say about theoretical studies. I wake up in the morning, go to school, sit there for six to seven hours and go home. The weeks pass by suprisingly fast now that I've become used to this kind of schedule after the randomness of the flight period. It seems now that the theory course should be over by April next year.

But before that, there's a little over 200 classroom hours of things to learn!

CPL theories begin! ...and flying ends.

The CPL theory course begin next monday on the 27th. After that it's time to stay in the ground and sit in the class everyday listening to lectures. I predict it can at first be quite hard to just sit in the class after all this flying. On the other hand it's quite nice to be able to sit inside in the warm as outside temperature decreases all the time and the weather gets worse.

We got our books and material in advance. In the We will use the blue ATPL-series by Oxford Aviation Academy. Some parts of the subjects will not yet be covered in the CPL course but I think most of the contents will become familiar. I'm actually quite horrified by the amount of stuff to learn, just got to cope with it!

So there's fourteen different books and the ones most important regarding working life are easily recognizable by their small number of pages :)


Oxford JAA ATPL -series:

Volume 1: Air Law
Volume 2: Aircraft Knowledge 1 - Airframes & Systems
Volume 3: Aircraft Knowledge 2 - Electrics & Electronics
Volume 4: Aircraft Knowledge 3 - Piston and Gas Turbine Engines
Volume 5: Aircraft Knowledge 4 - Instrumentation
Volume 6: Flight Planning 1 - Mass & Balance, Performance
Volume 7: Flight Planning 2 - Flight Planning & Monitoring
Volume 8: Human Performance
Volume 9: Meteorology
Volume 10: Navigation 1 - General Navigation
Volume 11: Navigation 2 - Radio Navigation
Volume 12: Operational Procedures
Volume 13: Principles of Flight
Volume 14: Communications