ATPL Textbooks

ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide

The interested reader who has found my “PPL textbooks” guide useful may be planning in future to move on to a career in flying. fl ying. In this case you will need at some point to t ake a series of ground exams which are much tougher than those taken at PPL level. You may find this guide useful in selecting which set of t extbooks are best suited to your circumstances. If you have reached this stage you should be familiar with the acronyms used but they are explained below for the benefit of those new t o aviation training: Acronyms used

JAA –  JAA –  Joint  Joint Aviation Authorities –  Authorities –  a  a group of (mostly European) civil aviation regulators. JAR –  JAR –  Joint  Joint Aviation Requirements –  Requirements  –  a  a common set of requirements adopted by all J AA members, for example in flight crew licensing CAA –  CAA –  Civil  Civil Aviation Authority ATPL –  ATPL –  Airline  Airline Transport Pilot Licence CPL/IR –  CPL/IR –  Commercial  Commercial Pilot Licence with Instrument Rating TK –  TK –  Theoretical  Theoretical Knowledge DL –  DL –  Distance  Distance Learning FTO –  FTO –  Flight  Flight Training Organisation At the end of the article I have included a few ideas of how the system could be changed to make the whole exams process more straightforward and cheaper for st udents. My brilliant ideas are usually ignored so feel free to skip them. But who knows, perhaps this article ma y  be read one day by someone someone at the CAA or EASA who decides decides such innovative thinking is the way ahead !

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide Ground training

The introduction of the JAR system for flight crew training in 1999 resulted in a considerable expansion in the choice of textbooks available on the market for the budding Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) student. For those new to flying it should be noted that someone who has been issued with a Commercial Pilot Licence with an Instrument Rating (a “CPL/IR” ) with theory exam passes at ATPL level has a “frozen” ATPL. They can fly as a First Officer Office r on a multi-crew aircraft aircraf t with their CPL but cannot be issued with an ATPL until they have over 1,500 hours of total flying experience. Prior to JAR there was only one published series avail able for ATPL study, which was “Ground Studies for Pilots” by Taylor Ta ylor and Parmar. These were revised by Roy Underdown and appear to be published versions of the ground school notes from the old College of Air Training at Hamble which closed in 1984. Other organisations such as the Professi onal Pilot Study Centre at Bournemouth and Trent Air Services at Cranfield which both specialised in correspondence courses ( or “distance “dist ance learning” to use 21st Century terminology) produced their own manuals which they sold as a complete set when you signed up for a course with them. The introduction of JAR certainly made the cost of passing the ground exams much more time consuming and expensive. Prior to JAR there were three routes: 





Do a correspondence course. This was as it said on the tin: there was no requirement r equirement to attend any classes or “brush up” sessions prior to exams. Do a full time course. These were tailored in duration to what Flight Training Organisations (FTOs) found was required to teach the material. In the mid 90s for example Cabair at Cranfield used to run a course of 4 weeks duration for the “Navigation Group” of Group” of subjects and another 4 weeks course for the “Technical Group” Group”. The CAA required that you sit all of the subjects s ubjects in a “Group” Group” in one attempt over 2-3 days of exams so the courses were preparation for the Group the candidate planned to sit. Candidates would then have the option of immediately  ploughing into the next Group Group or could take a break to the next Group Group depending on work commitments and financial circumstances. Do full time study as part of an “integrated” course which included both ground and flying training. At the time integrated was exactly e xactly as it suggests: students st udents would do flying one day, then ground classes the following until 30-40 weeks into the course so that theoretical learning could reinforce practical experience in the air for a substantial part of the course.

This UK national system which had worked for well for the previous 30-40 years was substantially changed with the introduction of the Europe-wide JAR system which the CAA was one of the first European countries to implement. The objective was to harmonise European flight crew licensing so enable free movement of labour across European  boundaries. How much free movement of pilots to jobs in Europe has resulted is debata ble but we have ended up with a more prescriptive and expensive system. The components of a CP L/IR course were broken down into “modules”. The ground subjects now have the title of the

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide

ATPL Theoretical Knowledge (TK) course Module. It was specified that a course for this module had to contain 650 hours of classroom tuition. It was also stipulated t hat any Distance Learning TK course had to have at least 10% of this figure (so 65 hours) as classroom based teaching. This is the origins of the “brush“brush -up” week(s) held by training  providers prior to the CAA exams which are held in the first week of every month. The former UK ground studies routes described above have been replaced with t he following options: 





Do a correspondence course. Except it is now known as a TK Distance Leaning (DL) course and has the 65 hours of classroom att endance requirement. Do a full time TK course . This now has the minimum of 650 classroom hours requirement. In practice this results in a course of 26 weeks duration. Do an “integrated course “integrated course”. In practice FTOs like Oxford and Cabair do the TK course for 26 weeks solid prior to starting any an y flying at all so I suggest that really reall y the title “integrated” CPL/IR course with TK knowledge knowl edge passes at ATPL level (a.k.a. the “frozen ATPL”) has become meaningless. What they are doing is  in fact a Modular CPL/IR in one contiguous timescale.

To be an FTO approved to do any of the above in the UK a requirement is that each FTO must produce its own manuals for each TK subject. This will have a cost overhead and having produced a set of training manuals four of the providers have published them as  books for purchase with the attraction of a greater size of market than previously existed  before 1999. They would potentially be of interest to students studying in any of the JAR countries plus other in the Middle East and Asia which broadly follow the J AR system rather than the American FAA system. With English being the language of aviation an English speaking FTO has a clear advantage here compared to those schools and authors who speak and write English as a second language. The textbooks available

The main aim of this article is to review the four series of books available from pilot supplies shops from the following training providers:  who are a large FTO who do flying training so can offer the ATPL TK course via Oxford –  who any of the above three routes. Jeppesen  –  these  these books were written by Atlantic Flight Training (AFT) at Coventry Airport. AFT are an FTO who also do flying training and at the time these books were written they used to do full time and DL courses at Coventry. AFT ceased doing ground training in the UK early in 2010. London Metropolitan University and Cranfield Aviation Training  - these are both solely theoretical knowledge course training providers so can only offer the first two options –  options – they they cannot offer an “integrated” course. London Met is a co-author of the  Nordian series of books.

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide

What is currently available is vastly improved when compared to the training materials of  past years. The quality of graphics and diagrams and use use of colour is in a different league to the monochrome thumbnail sketches and prose-heavy text of the past. They are available to anyone who has the money and inclination to buy them - you do not have to be a student at the school that produced them. I have used all of them to a great er or lesser extent so what follows is my opinion on each. I have shown how each series have spil t books across the exam subjects so that should a student be struggling he can easily see which is the one required. Each exam subject usually has its own dedicated book. A point to note is that each school includes the books or manuals as part of either a DL or full time course so if you signed up for a course with the FTO who produced them then you will not have to spend the £600-700 each set costs –  costs  –  the  the books will be included in the total course cost. Oxford Aviation Academy

Oxford has been training Commercial  pilots since the early 1960s. Their spin prone Commercial Director does seem to like keeping people on their toes with regular name changes –  changes –  I  I used to know them as Oxford Aviation Training and  before that as Oxford Air Training School. School. Whatever Whatever the current name “Oxford” is the shorthand name that most refer to them as.

 this is certainly the most detailed and comprehensive set of books on the Comments –  this market. The books are lavishly illustrated in colour and the detail in diagrams is excellent. If you want to look something up and cannot find it in the Oxford books then I suggest that you will have to look hard to find it in another source. Page count is enormous at i n excess of 6,500 across the 14 books. Critique –  With  With individual books costing anything up to £60 I would expect at this sort of figure to buy a hardback book rather than the oversized paperback book that it is. The actual book size is A4. Oxford used to publish them in ring binders so this looks like a cheap way of getting a saleable book out of what used to be a manual. Unless viewed on a table these oversized paperbacks do flop around in a way a hardback book does not.

These books were written with the introduction of JAR and while they do cover absolutely everything that you could possibly need to know according to the JAR learning objectives, they do lack emphasis on what is really reall y important which you get from a dedicated set of course notes. When used as part of a classroom class room based course or as a supplement to a DL course they make an excellent, encyclopaedic reference. For use as the core of a DL course from Oxford they could be very ver y heavy going and only for the most dedicated or hyper enthusiastic. I would suggest to an ATPL student not to buy the complete set of manuals. A better method is if you find a particular subject very ver y difficult to understand then buy the relevant

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide

Oxford book to research the particular aspects you are struggling with by looking up the relevant chapter. This is made slightly slightl y more difficult in that there is no index at the back of each one. Oxford is no different here from most of the others and this reflects its origins as a manual. It does have the JAR leaning objective number at the start of each chapter so this t his could always be cross-referenced with the learning le arning objectives which are still available avail able on the JAR website (www.jaa.nl).. Jeppesen (with Atlantic Flight Training)

These books were actually written by Atlantic Flight Training (AFT) based at Coventry airport and have Jeppesen’s name name on the cover,  presumably for marketing purposes and to give a more international appeal.  Your money does buy Comments –  Your you a hardback book. Coverage is comprehensive and there are more  photographs of real life examples of aeroplane parts and equipment than in any of the other competitors. They are about two thirds of the page length of the Oxford books. Much of this is due to them not having sample questions at the end of each chapter in the way that the Oxford books do. This is a  particular dislike of mine. The text should cover what need need to be explained and not pad out out with large numbers of questions on what you have just read at the end of each chapter. I  believe that this is where the on-line question bank should be be used or a separate questionsand-answers book or manual should be provided. Worked question examples in the text are a more productive use of space, for example when calculati ng conversion angles in General  Navigation. Critique –  conciseness  conciseness of the books does very. The Aircraft General Knowledge books in  particular are really to the sort of level more appropriate for a maintenance engineer’s course. It is difficult to get to t o grips with basics that are required by b y the pilot among the mass of material. The stuff on properties of materials used (aluminium, titanium, steel etc) is all very interesting stuff –  stuff –  but  but we are flying the things, not building them ! The Performance book in particular is very good and I do know is used by a couple of the schools in preference to their own particular manual on the subject.

The diagrams used are clear enough and have associated photographs to show actual examples of equipment used. However rather too many of them are of the ass ortment of vintage machines such as the Lockheed Electra and Douglas DC6 which happen to be at Coventry Airport which is where AFT are based. Where photos are used it would be best if they were taken of parts and equipment used by the “baseline” ai rcraft used for the JAR J AR syllabus, which are the Piper Seneca for the piston engine tw in and the Boeing 737 for the Medium Range Jet Twin. There is also a lack of consistency in the diagrams. Some are drawn from other sources, often in a monochrome format while others have been produced  by an in-house graphic artist. It all works but but just does not have the consistency level of the other publications.

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide

The books are on their second edition while Oxford is now on edition five. There are numerous typos in the text which shows that the second editions were rushed into print without thorough proofreading. I actually did the f ull time 650 hour ATPL theoretical knowledge course at AFT in 2007 and we did have some good sporting fun f un spotting the errors in the books when they were displayed in pdf format on the interacti ve whiteboard. I actually tended to rely on what was taught in the classroom and used these books for reference where some extra reading re ading was required to consolidate knowledge and for this they proved adequate, of which more later in this article. One big problem with this series is that in early 2010 AFT stopped doing full time ground school at Coventry and made all of the ground school staff ( man y of whom had contributed to these books) redundant. It is therefore difficult to see how Jeppesen can keep them updated in the future unless some arrangement has been made with re gard to copyright. Nordian (with London Metropolitan University)

These are published by a consortium of  Norwegian and Swedish schools plus London London Metropolitan University, hence the “Nor” in the name. London Met has been doing ATPL ground studies for 30+ years (prior to 1992 it was London City Polytechnic). And well done them - how many other UK academic institutions have ever bothered to offer something for trainee pilots ? It makes a refreshing change from Sport Science, Media Studies and other quasi-academic quasi-academic fluff. It’s just a pity they are based in the most expensive city in the country in which to live and study.

Comments –  Another  Another set of durable hardback books, split over 15 volumes with exactly the same division as Jeppesen. They are also als o of a much smaller and more convenient size than Oxford or Jeppesen and avoid the “doorstop” effect of some of the heavier subjects. Effort has clearly been made to consolidate and simplify material, which is of benefit to those who speak and read English as a second language. The diagrams are numerous and tend towards the simple and schematic to explain the principles involved rather than the “engineers drawing” type present in some of the other series . Use of colour is good without  being lavish in the way that the Oxford books are.

with this series is the layout of the text. Each page page has the text Critique –  My big dislike with split into two columns which does not allow your reading to flow easily. I don’t kno w if this is a consequence of using some archaic deskt op publishing package but it does give them the look of a manual for sat nav device or a mobile phone. I do like the way the book outer covers are given a colour coding which gives some differentiation according to JAR subject area –  area –  Mass  Mass & Balance, Performance and Flight Planning are all in the 030 category and coloured brown, for example. It seems more down to earth than the Oxford book covers with their large airliner pictures beloved to plane spotters on the front covers and gives a less pretentious first impression.

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide

There have been whinges about this series of books on a “certain rumour network” with accusations of poor grammar, mistakes, incomplete sentences and poor proof reading. Most seem to be made by European students. When I was studying at AFT one guy there had these books and found them really useful so I just wonder if non-English speakers find  books written in English by other non-English speakers hard going ? I have summarised the books available from each series in the following table. The book description is blank where the book title is the s ame as the JAR exam subject name. All split down the large subject of Airframes & Systems into three books, and consolidate other smaller subjects such as the two Communications exams into one book.

JAR subject code 10

21

JAR exam subject name Aviation Law

Instruments

31

Mass &  balance Performance

33

40 50 61 62 70 80

Jeppesen book number and description

Nordian book number and description

1

12

100

Airframes / systems/ engines

22

32

Oxford book number and description

91 92

IFR Comms Total books in series

4

Airframes & Systems

101

Airframes & Systems

3

Electrics

6

Electrics

103 Electrics

4

Powerplant

5

Powerplant

112 Powerplant

7

107

10

108

9

111

7

11

104

8

13

106

9

1

109

10

2

105

11

3

114

12

14

110

13

8

113

14 Comms

15 Comms

102 Comms

14

15

15

6

Human Performance Meteorology

Principles of Flight VFR Comms

Airframes & Systems

5

Flight Planning & Monitoring

General  Navigation Radio  Navigation Operational Procedures

2

Richard Bellaby July 2011

Mass & Balance, Performance

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide CATS ( Cranfield Aviation Training School)

CATS are like London Met - a provider of ground training only. They are headed by a Dr Stuart Smith, no less, so clearly a man with an impressive academic  background. CATS CATS offer you the lowest cost way of getting your box ticked of studying the ATPL TK module because they give you the option of not having paper copies of the book but access to them on-line only plus the brush-up courses for just £999. I have not included a subject table for CATS –  CATS  –  they  they  produce one book for each subject with the exception of the two Communications exams which are covered  by one book, book, giving a total of 13 books. 13  books. This does result in their Aircraft General book being much the largest since the other providers all split this into three books. Comments - in book form these are another paperback –  paperback  –  cue  cue the usual whinge that for the cost of them why not hardback? hardback? Older versions were in a 4 ring binder binder form but they are now available in book form. The text in these books is very brief and to the point, almost to the extent that they resemble an advanced set of notes someone has made on an ATPL course. This is not a bad thing; a dense mass of text can be very intimidating for those new to a subject. Critique - I have found that if I want to learn l earn about something new I will often look in the section with schoolbooks for 11-14 year olds in the local library. I recentl y was sufficiently interested after seeing a film f ilm about Alexander the Great to borrow the book about him, all 47 pages of it with economic use of text plus lots of maps, diagrams and pictures in full colour. I got a great deal out of it, it didn’t take long to read and it gave me a really good overview if I really wanted to find out more. Or bluff m y way on Alexander the Great.

This is my thoughts on the CATS books. I think it is lacking depth on one or two subjects  but I think the rest of them would do do what most people want to do, which is get the exam  passes on the subjects which are of not much interest, are not likely to result in interview questions, and are not going to hinder progress on a Type Rating due to lack of knowledge acquired on the ATPL course. Many of the diagrams are monochrome which I think does let down the excellent colour diagrams that are also profusely used. I have found from teaching PPL ground school that a  picture or table can replace a great deal of dense text. CATS veer a bit close to the wind in their economy of words but their use of yellow highlight boxes of the important points is very good –  good –  I  I wonder how many students skimp even the text used and rea d just these  boxes alone ? Which is the best ?

Having reviewed the above, my recommendation would be … none of the above ! The  books I have actually found to be the best are ….

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide

The Bristol Ground School (BGS) ATPL Manuals Comments- Unfortunately Mr Alex Whitingham does not sell his Bristol manuals as a stand-alone set that you can buy at the pilot supplies shops!

The subjects are split into 7 manuals in four ring  binders which are normally only available if you sign up with BGS for a Distance Learning course. The content level is exactly the right blend  between what is required for exams and that which is essential knowledge for your future career. Diagrams are excellent and the text is finely honed to deal with the important parts of each subject (IE the materiel that JAR asks the most questions about). There is room on the side of each page for your own notes and important points are highlighted next to the text for easy reference. The style of writing is much more of a readable relaxed narrative almost in the style of a classr oom lecture with occasional bits of humour and irony liberally sprinkled throughout the text. This is a refreshing change when compared to the dry fashion of the other books. Februar y 2011 I have been doing private ATPL tuition on Critique –  Critique – as I write this in February Saturdays for some months now with “J”, one of my ex-PPL ex -PPL ground school students now doing his ATPL Theory exams. We cover the subjects he has most difficulty with like  Navigation, Aircraft General Knowledge and Mass & Balance (which by happy coincidence happen to be the ones I enjoy teaching the most!). He is actually registered with an FTO at Cranfield but we use the books from Oxford and Jeppesen I have acquired over the years from various sources and he has the temporary use of some Bristol manuals. I teach using courses I have written in PowerPoint but our base reference is the Bristol manuals. If a question crops up or a point needs to be explai ned I can guarantee that what I am saying is going to be also explained somewhere in the Bristol manual . I would strongly suggest that if you can borrow or buy a set off someone who has completed their ATPL course then do so. It is surprising to me the number of people who will dispose of their manuals when they have finished the course so take advantage of it. Perhaps you can arrange to borrow with return if required for an inter view. Used sets on eBay seem to go for anything up to £200 which is money well spent. BGS have on on-line forum on their website where manuals are available for sale from students who have completed their course. Failing this, give BGS a call and see what kind of deal can be made for a purchase. They have been investigating producing the manuals as a series of books. I did make a call to BGS to enquire if they ever sell the manuals as a stand-alone purchase. They do although cost is higher than for the other commercially commerciall y available books. Part of the reason for this is that BGS have manuals printed in small batches of 20-30 sets locally in the UK, while the other suppliers reportedly print thousands at a time at low cost in the Far East which will then satisfy demand for 2-3 years at a time. ti me. This does mean that BGS has the theoretical advantage of being able to respond much more rapidly to syllabus changes.

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide

Checking did confirm that the Oxford books were indeed printed in Singapore, but on the other hand the Jeppesen books were printed in Germany. The syllabus has been stable since about 2001 so I had my doubts about how much of an advantage this would be. However changes are coming in June 2011 in the form of the implementation of J AR NPA-25 (Notice for Proposal of Amendment). One problem with the JAR syllabus is that each subject had its own SET (Subject “Expert” Team) with their own ideas of what should be included in the content. Anyone who has done the Air Law exam and then subsequently taken Operational Procedures will notice a substantial quantity quantit y of very familiar material and think “I have already done this”. INS crops up in both Instruments and and also Radio Navigation. Navigation. Meteorology crops up in Flight Planning. Principles of Flight creep into Performance.  NPA-25 is supposed to reduce reduce or eliminate much of this duplication across the syllabus and this will require some pruning of content from selected s ubjects. Certainly BGS will be able to supply NPA-25 compliant manuals upon adoption in J une 2011 in a much shorter timeframe that the other providers. Does how you do your Theoretical Knowledge course course affect the books to use ?

If you are going to do the Modular ATPL TK course full time at Oxford, Cabair, CATS etc, most of your learning will be in the classroom with the FTO’s own FTO’s own set of textbooks or manuals. For example Oxford naturally will use the Oxford books. There is no need to read the textbooks cover to cover, just look at relevant chapters for some consolidation if required. I did this at Atlantic and it is by far the easiest way to do the course. But I  probably did more consolidation consolidation and extra reading using some of the Bristol manuals I had managed to acquire than using the Jeppesen books. If Distance Learning, I would suggest only using an FTO which specialises in this form of course, not one which does both full time and DL courses. I saw at Atlantic that DL students seemed to be very much an afterthought in terms of att ention they received. BGS does DL only and it shows that their manuals are writte n to make life as straightforward as  possible for the non-classroom student. The only only series of the four commercially available series which come close in this respect is the CATS series. The other three (Oxford, Jeppesen and Nordian) really are textbooks in the clas sic sense, to support teaching provided either in the classroom or from a distance learning manual written specifically for the purpose. I do not think t hey are succinct enough to be used as the foundation of a DL course but are very good for a “second opinion” or a different way of looking at the subject if it is one you find particularly difficult. The Oxford series in  particular can be a very good reference for a really detailed look at an area of difficulty. Buy as required or if you can get a whole second hand set for a good price then do so and use as your own mini reference library. Other books Aerodynamics, Aerodynamics, Engines and Systems for the Professional Pilot

This is one of three books by Air Pilot Publishing’s “Master Pilot’s manuals” series which was written for the Australian ATPL. While I am not a great fan of their PPL series of books this one is an excellent read,  particularly in its coverage of large transport aircraft systems such as

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide

electrics and hydraulics. The basic principles ar e explained in a few pages and then the systems examined in real life detail on the base aircraft, which for the Australian ATPL is the Boeing 767. There are also illustrations of what i t means to the pilot with descriptions of what instruments and panels the system in questi on has in the cockpit. The one criticism I have is that the diagrams are not in colour which is a great pity. You can always do what I have done and colour in yourself when looking at the schematics for hydraulics and electrics. Rolls-Royce - The Jet Engine

From the horses mouth mouth ! The diagrams in this this are outstanding, as you would expect from the engineers designing the engines. If you have read the books by Oxford etc you will recognise a lot of the diagrams because they have just been copied verbatim from this outstanding book. I particularly like the description of thrust distribution within the engine and performance chapters. The only area it is weak on is the minimal content on turbo-prop engines. You can skip the sections on VTOL with the Pegasus engine and afterburners, neither of which is relevant to ATPL st udy. Mine is the th 5  edition as shown to the left but there is now a 6 th edition out –  out –  I  I have seen some bad  press about content having been “dumbed “dumbed down”. down”. If sent a freebie freebi e copy for a review I am sure I can offer a more informed opinion.

Not much of an Engineer by Sir Stanley Hooker

Hooker was an outstanding mathematician with a background in aerodynamics who worked on supercharger design for Rolls Royce, dramatically boosting the efficiency of piston engines such as the Merlin by using mathematical analysis rather than “rule-of“rule-of-thumb” thumb” design. The race to improve the performance of the Merli n during the Second World War reminds me of the of the sort of competition that now goes on between Formula 1 racing teams –  teams  –  except  except that for Sir Stanley the other team was Nazi Germany and national survival was a stake if the RAF lagged in aviation technology. He was later Technical Director for important engines like the Pegasus engine on the Harrier and the Olympus Ol ympus on Concorde. I suggest that having studied your ATPL books on superchargers, turbochargers and jet engines you have a read through this book. It should all make sense and gives a real feeling of the historical background to the jet engine. The appendices have some excellent descriptions of the likes of Propulsive Efficiency which you should be able to understand. If you don’t d on’t then you need to go back to your textbooks text books ! Some of his opinions will seem archaic to the modern reader but bear in mind he was born over a century ago (and died over 25 years ago). He does have a real talent of explaining technical issues in layman’s layman’s terms which I am guessing was developed over many years of dealing with bean counters and politicians during his career. The greatest pity was that he did not write a book along the lines of “Jet engines –  a  a Simple Guide for Pilots” –  I  I am sure it would be a consistent bestseller !

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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ATPL textbooks and Theoretical Knowledge exams guide Turbine Pilot’s Flight Manual by Brown & Holt

To acquire an FAA CPL requires you to pass just one written exam of 100 questions plus an oral test. Upon getting a job flying a jet it is common practice for the airline trainee to then spend the first month or more in ground school classes studying books like this to acquire a level of knowledge the JAR qualified pilot has long since achieved. It is little surprise the US Congress has recently mandated that a pilot flying an airliner requires 1500 hours flying time before being let loose on Joe Public. I am not a great fan of American aviation avi ation textbooks. They tend to have a “folksy” style that I find too simplistic, for example using irritating words like “gizmo” to describe  an electrically driven device. The overall impression impressi on you get is an assumption that the reader has the reading age of an 11 year old and a pre -GCSE level of educational attainment. This is surprising since a “college” degree is usually a pre-requisite pre-requisite for a flying fl ying job in the USA. Having said all this, for just over £20 this book does have some innovative chapters on aircraft systems and there is a very good section at the back describing the most common commercial aircraft in service, engines used, weights, performance etc for the substantial  proportion of ATPL candidates whose aircraft recognition skills are mediocre to say the least. Perhaps we should make it an exam subject? I do remember remember one CPL/IR graduate graduate from Oxford who I did my Flying Instructor course with asking me what that high wing thingy on final approach was during a mutual teaching session (it was a Cessna 172 !). There is a systems CD provided with the manual. Throw it awa y or use it as a coffee mat –  mat  –  it is rubbish.

The Professional Pilot Study Guide Series by Mike Burton

These books have been around for about 20 years now. I got seven of them for about £2 each in a shop clearout at Birmingham airport some years ago and for that they were a bargain. bar gain. They cover the subjects in the Aircraft General and Systems exam such as hydraulics, electric, undercarriages, propellers etc. They are were written for the old UK system s ystem which had AGK split into a series of mini papers of about 15 questions each –  each –  but  but not much changes in aviation so they are still very useful as each one is about 80-10 pages total including a large number of practice questions. Again, the only real criticism is that t hat a move from monochrome to colour diagrams would really make a big difference.

The Electronic alternative… alterna tive…

I visited my local library while writing this article. a rticle. There were perhaps half a dozen people  browsing the bookshelves bookshelves and yet just about every one of some twenty computer computer terminals had someone using it, it , many of them “screenagers”. “screenagers”. To me books are the mark of Civilised and Literate Man. However leaving aside the fact that money is supposed to be spent on

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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 books and not on making libraries publicly funded internet cafes, instances like this and the  popularity of book readers like iPad and Kindle demonstrate that a substantial proportion of  people just will not buy reading material material unless they can see and be seen reading it on their latest gadget. The good news for all the gadget freaks i s that for some of the above series the books or manuals are available in electronic form on a CD or DVD, or whatever they call those shiny round things. 

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Bristol supplies a DVD as part of their “Integrated “ Integrated Learning System”. It contains all the manuals in text form and has some animations added as a bonus. Perhaps they would sell it as a stand-alone item? I would suggest they take the cost of all the manuals, subtract the print cost, and sell the manuals on a DVD for the net sum. Given that the production costs would be a few pounds I would say this could be a  profitable sideline.  Nordian produce an “E-book ” on DVD for DVD for 60% of the cost of the books which equates to 560 Euros. For this you only get a licence to use the DVD for 18 months (how this works I am not sure –  sure  –  do  do they self delete after this time ?). CATS have the option of not buying their manuals and just accessing their course on-line.

I can see that for those with wi th jobs involving travel or people who wish to study during  breaks at work a DVD plus laptop is a lightweight lightweight and convenient study tool. Personally I  prefer a book or manual which I then proceed proceed to deface with added highlighter marks and extra notes. But if paper is anathema to you and you do not own a bookcase then the option is there. I am all for electronic media where it enhances learning –  learning  –  animations  animations are a brilliant way to make a point and I often use YouTube clips on courses. I just cannot bring m yself to spend money on something which is little more than an enhanced pdf file.

Time for change ?

In my article on PPL textbooks I had a few thought on the examination system we have under JAR and the same is true for the ATPL. With the PPL exams my own feeling is that a significant percentage of potential pilots are put off by the current number of exams and the lack of much in the way of teaching support to pass them. With the ATPL the significant issues are cost and user-friendliness. There is no industry i ndustry or government support of any significance for trainees so the vast majorit y are funding their training personally from savings, loans (usually from Bank of Mum and Dad since the sta rt of the credit crunch) or in the case of older candidates with income from employment. Of those in employment a significant number will be taking the TK module as a DL course, typically taking about 12-18 months to do so. The problem they face is that they may be faced wi th the requirement to take “brush“brush -up” courses of 1-2 1-2 weeks duration for each “module” of subjects (for example BGS split their course into 2 modules, other have 3). They also need to set asi de time for examinations which are held from Monday to Thursday in the first week of every month. Again, most students will do “sittings” where they take 4-5 4 -5 subjects out of the 14 possible exams over the four day period. You can see that potentially they will have to be asking their employer

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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for 6 weeks off over a year to prepare for and take exams. How many places of employment are currently so generous with annual leave allowances? I have doubts about having such a prescriptive approach to the ATPL TK module and think that with the advent of EASA next year some sort of re-think is required. Reality has to be faced that unless some effort is made to reduce the cost of getting a CPL/IR then a career as a pilot will cease to be a realistic option for anyone other than wealthy individuals. If there is a recovery from the current economic malaise it may indeed be the case that this situation has already been reached. The most significant cost reductions could be achieved be removing VAT from flight training courses, or making it reclaimable upon acquisition of a l icence (in the same way that self-builders reclaim the VAT on building materials on completion of a house). Why is duty and VAT charged on AVGAS used by training aircraft and not on JET A1 ? What about making loans available from the Student Loans Company, at least for the Theoretical Knowledge Module which is classroom based ? On a financiall y much smaller scale some rethink on the current system of ground exams is also in order to make life a little easier for  potential Commercial pilots. Internet based exams ?

The CAA currently charges £66 per exam which totals £924 for all 14 ATPL exams. They can only be taken at one of four exam centres (Oxford, Shuttleworth, Gatwick and Glasgow) so involve significant cost and travel for many students. Yet on the flying side CPL and IR Skill Tests are carried out by independent Examiners approved by the CAA. I suggest that we move away from paper exams at the start of each month at just four locations and to a system where Examiners are approved by the CAA to set the exams locally at any time using an Internet based system. s ystem. The software for such a system must be available somewhere off the shelf ! Each examiner would have an individual logon code to the system and could provide the required invigilation. I have to declare an interest here in that I am a Ground Examiner but I would suggest that having a group of examinees turn up on a regular Saturday morning exams session, each logging on to the system via WiFi with their own laptop, would provide much more flexibility for the people taking the exams. Those who have trouble in locating a local examiner could still have the option of going to the CAA at Gatwick. I suspect that the main reason that this has not been looked at is that the CAA makes a  profit rumoured to be in the region of £500,000 to £1m. £1m. per annum from ground exam fees. The big plus for them is that they can be administered b y staff with little or no flying qualification or experience –  experience –  flying  flying Skills Tests are outsourced because they need licensed  personnel to do them. Consolidate the number of exams ?

The number of JAR ATPL exams (14 in total) is way in excess of other counties (for example Australia has just 7). Why do we have two Communications exams for people who already hold a UK RT Licence ? Some of the exams could be combined into a broader subject area to avoid students “picking” at exams one at a time via an Internet exam system. Under JAR there are nine subject areas and the can be combined or split in exams e xams as

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deemed necessary (for example the PPL in the UK covers the lot with seven exams, in Ireland with just four). There is no reason why this could not be done at ATPL level. The following is a suggested example:

Jar Code 10

70

Subject Aviation Law

Operational Procedures

New Seq number New subject name

1

Aviation Law & Operational Procedures

2

Airframes / systems/ engines

3

Principles of Flight & Performance

4

Instruments and Radio Aids

5

Navigation & Flight Planning

32

Airframes / systems/ engines Performance

80

Principles of Flight

22

Instruments

62

Radio Navigation

31

Mass & balance

33 61

Flight Planning & Monitoring General Navigation

50

Meteorology

6

Meteorology

40

Human Performance

7

Human Performance

91

VFR Communications

92

IFR Communications

8

Radio Telephony (no exam required for holders of a Flight Radio Telephony Operators Licence)

21

The average Modular ATPL student with a PPL and RT Licence would thus have the exam cost burden halved. I would suggest that a cost per exam of £50 (twice the going rate for a PPL ground exam) would be very acceptable to independent Examiners. Classroom time

If it really is “distance learning” then why is a classroom element required ? required ? I do wonder if these brush up sessions become the time when students actually learn the subjects, having had the temptation to leave real study until the brush-up weeks weeks ? Those choosing the DL option will be doing so precisely because time away from work is limi ted and they  presumably have the capability based on past educational achievement to complete such a course. I suggest a switch to a competency based system where classroom based training  becomes mandatory only for subjects subjects where a candidate has failed the exam, say after a first or second attempt. DL courses should surely surel y be aimed at the time-poor and not be some halfway attempt by JAR at a classroom based course ? A simultaneous rethink on the requirement for the full time ATPL TK course to be 650 hours / 26 weeks duration is also required so that we could have more fl exibility on how

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courses are delivered by FTOs. I suggest it should be up to the provider to decide how long they need to achieve the task. If courses were de-coupled from exam cycles I suspect that durations would shrink to between 6 and 8 weeks. When you look at the prices of full time courses and the fact that staff are tied up for 6 months for each student it does make the hourly rate the student pays look very good value for money. Could this be why a large  proportion of TK providers providers only do DL ? Perhaps the economics economics of providing a full time course are not attractive. There is a requirement for an FTO to gain approval to teach the ATPL TK course to  produce its own training manuals. This is a case of re-inventing the the wheel. There are plenty of commercially available books and manuals for a school to choose from as can be seen from this article. My son’s secondary school does not produce GCSE textbooks. They just They  just  buy them and concentrate instead on the teaching task. Is the FTO FTO being judged on its technical authoring skills, or on how effectively it can teach the subjects ? It is rather like saying to a flying instructor that he can only teach someone to fl y after he has first assembled his own kit aircraft. Conclusion

The JAR system produces a well trained standard of pilot who is able to step up to the task of flying a turbine powered aircraft despite relat ively low hours when compared to the minimum requirements in other parts of the world. But it can be a difficult and expensive slog, particularly for the loners who are ploughing through their ground studies without the mutual encouragement you can receive in a class based environment. I would argue for the  path to be less costly and more convenient in terms of time, particularly for those doing the self study route - what percentage give up, I wonder ? . When I was at Atlantic we had a visit from a senior Captain involved in recruitment at Flybe. I asked him if they looked more favourably on those who had studied for their TK exams on a full time course. His response was “If you get a high average mark from a full time course it just shows that you are not lazy. If you get a high average mark from distance learning, you deserve a medal”. medal”. Personally I took the easy option of full time study but for those current and future “medal winners” I winners” I hope you have found this guide useful.

Richard Bellaby July 2011

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