My last of the 7 CPLs to complete and I could not be happier! It was the easily my most feared subject because of my background of hating physics. I'm a visual learner and like to physically interact with things, and in aerodynamics most of the stuff happening is invisible!
I read the BT book twice and attempted all the questions. I then did the online prep exams, which I found to be very similar to the CASA exam.
As always here is my breakdown:
40 questions all 1 mark and 1.5hrs to complete 70% pass mark, I finished in about 35 minutes, with roughly 10 questions marked to go over. I went through the whole exam again and found a couple of very silly mistakes, but overall finished with 30mins to spare. Usually I would sit and go over it all until the time was up, but I was pretty happy I had passed at that point (but you should always use all the time, you've paid for it in the end
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- The first question really rattled me, it was probably the worst written CASA question I had seen. Asking about where the ratio of thickness to chord was measured from, but it was written in such a terrible way.
- Dont mix up trim with servo/anti-servo tabs.
- Wake turbulance: I was expecting stuff out of the aip which you cant bring in, all I got were two scenarios, one about a larger plane landing infront of you and where you should, steep/shallow, and touchdown point. The other was simply asking the characteristics of wake turbulances, ie FPM and levelling off height.
- Know which controls operate on which axis, and their secondary effect.
- Know what happens when you move CG or CG fwd and aft with the stability and which axis
- Understand why you don't use ailerons to recover from a spin.
- What are vortex generators used for, not just that they renergise the boundary layer, understand what happens at that point. BT lists a heap of reasons.
- Know how a mass balance works, and what is actually accomplishes with arm and CG to the hinge.
- Know how differential ailerons work.
- Understand the angle of attack of inboard and outboard wings in both climbing and descending.
- Get a good grip on all the graphs, about 6 of the questions refered to a graph on the screen, L/D, Cl, Power, Thrust, Total drag. And just know what happens at each point. Especially with identifying range or endurance on graphs.
- Understand the region of reverse command on the power graph.
- Stability in a spiral dive
- Know your Vspeeds, especially Va, Vb, Vno. And the graph ones Vx & Vy
- Last but not least, read the question! Don't get sucked into trigger words, like youre flying for best endurance with a supercharger. Supercharger makes you think high as possible at full throttle height. But we are talking endurance here so the supercharger part can be ignored.
DO NOT ROTE LEARN, learn the concepts, I can't stress this enough! You will smash this exam if you can quickly apply a concept and remove all the wrong answers.
Thanks again Bob and Stuart!
