EASA ATPL Exams

Some time ago I was preparing for my ATPL theory exams, and, of course, I was making notes. Here are some of them, probably they could be helpful for someone.

First of all, I wrote down how many questions each subject contains, and the exams duration. Here they are:

  • Air Law: 44 questions, 1 hour;
  • Aircraft General Knowledge (Airframe, Systems Engines and Electrics): 80 questions, 2 hours;
  • Instrumentation: 60 questions, 2 hours;
  • Mass and Balance: 25 questions, 1 hour;
  • Performance: 35 questions, 1 hour;
  • Flight Planning and Monitoring: 43 questions, 2 hours;
  • Human Performance and Limitations: 48 questions, 1 hour;
  • Meteorology: 84 questions, 2 hours;
  • General Navigation: 60 questions, 2 hours;
  • Radio Navigation: 66 questions, 1 hour 30 minutes;
  • Operational Procedures: 45 questions, 1 hour 15 minutes;
  • Principles of Flight: 44 questions, 1 hour;
  • VFR Communications: 24 questions, 30 minutes;
  • IFR Communications: 24 questions, 30 minutes. 

Each one has some difficulties, but some of them became my personal nightmares. For example, Air Law, Operation Procedures and General Navigation. The first two did because of huge amount of information to memorize, and the latter is because of timing: a lot of computations with only about 2 minutes per question.

Personal Experience with The Exams

A lot of subjects mainly require knowledge. The only way to pass is reading the books. But some of them, for example, navigation, allow to solve a huge part of questions only by knowing a proper method. That’s why I decided to start this page with navigation problems.

General Navigation

Imagine that we have the following problem:
Course required: 085° (T)
Forecast W/V: 030/100 kt
TAS: 470 kt
Distance: 265 NM

Probably we can use a flight computer, but I do not prefer it in this kind of tasks because it can be solved with a simple sketch and 2-3 formulae. So, firstly let’s draw it:

I did not do it in scale, but it does not matter for computation. We have our final track α (black angle around A, 85°). Wind angle is γ (green angle around point C, 30°), and wind speed is CB (green arrow). We also know AC (470 knots, it’s our speed vector without wind correction). We have to find AB (final speed value after wind correction) and ε, angle between AC and vertical axis (which is our required HDG).

We can see that δ = β = 90° – 85° = 5° (CM ⊥ AM, CE ⊥ AE so δ = β).
CE = wind * cos(γ + δ)
sin(α – ε) = CE / AC, so
ε = α – arcsin(CE / AC) = α – arcsin(wind * cos(γ + δ) / AC)
ε = 85° – arcsin(100° * cos(30° + 5°) / 470) = 75°

Now let’s find AB:
AB = AE – BE
AE = AC * cos(α – ε)
BE = wind * sin(γ + δ)
AB = AE – BE = AC * cos(α – ε) – wind * sin(γ + δ) =
470 * cos(85° – 75°) – 100 * sin(30° + 5°) = 405

Flight time is dist / speed = 265 / 405 = 0.654 h = 39 minutes.

Meteorology

That picture helps me a lot in solving questions like “which cloud types are expected in sector …”.

Clouds in different sectors
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Milestones

04/09/2017: My First Flight
04/25/2017: EASA PPL written exam (6 exams passed)
05/21/2017: Radio Operator Certificate (Europe VFR)
05/22/2017: EASA PPL written exam (all passed)
05/26/2017: The First Solo!
05/28/2017: Solo cross-country >270 km
05/31/2017: EASA PPL check-ride
07/22/2017: EASA IFR English
08/03/2017: 100 hours TT
12/04/2017: The first IFR flight
12/28/2017: FAA IR written
02/16/2018: FAA IR check-ride
05/28/2018: FAA Tailwheel endorsement
06/04/2018: FAA CPL long cross-country
06/07/2018: FAA CPL written
07/16/2018: FAA CPL check-ride
07/28/2018: FAA CPL ME rating
08/03/2018: FAA HP endorsement
06/03/2019: EASA ATPL theory (6/14)
07/03/2019: EASA ATPL theory (11/14)
07/15/2019: FAA IR IPC
07/18/2019: FAA CPL SES rating
08/07/2019: EASA ATPL theory (done)
10/10/2019: EASA NVFR
10/13/2019: EASA IR/PBN SE
11/19/2019: Solo XC > 540 km
12/06/2019: EASA CPL
12/10/2019: EASA AMEL
02/20/2020: Cessna 210 endorsement
08/30/2021: FAVT validation
05/27/2022: TCCA CPL/IR written
05/31/2022: Radio Operator Certificate Canada