Hi guys,

Well of all the exams to actually fail on, it was the one where I had all the books in the room, and had spent the most time preparing for. FYI no sunglasses are allowed in now in case you have a camera installed (no joke).

in fact I had obtained the following results in my preparatory exams:

BT Air Law Exam Prac 1 (Book) 95%
BT Air Law Exam Prac 2 (Book) 100%
Cyber Exam 1 - 88%
Cyber Exam 2- 93%
Cyber Exam 3 - 93 %
Cyber Exam 4 (timed exam) - 95%

I am not going to make excuses, other than to say that this is the second occasion on which the air conditioner has failed at the Canning Vale testing centre in Perth, as they keep trying to fix an old split system rather than replace the unit. in fact it's going to be really hot later this week and may still don't know when the unit will be fully working again, so I don't know when to rebook the exam.

So that my effort is not wasted let me give you an insight into what I experienced given my reasonable scores in preparing for this exam, not to mention I had studied my brains out, and had all of the books with me in the exam, and about one hour up my sleeve.

And yes I did prepare with CAO's, Maps, CAR's CAAP's, ERSA, AIP etc etc. and read and underlined the whole lot.

Firstly I I would like to point out that there were some areas simply not covered by either the primary BT AL Training (rev 13) or the cyber exams.

I thought I would Ace the exam and to be honest the questions were actually fairly easy with a lot less on duty time than I was actually expecting (only about two which I am SURE I got right and there was no KDR for me on Duty time).

in fact this appeared to be one of the easier exams I have done. And yes thanks to all of your wonderful posts I knew duty time backwards, frontwards, sideways and upside down (and there was no DT KDR even if there was only two questions.

questions came up along the line of:

1) how many fire extinguishers did you need near your aircraft when refuelling and at what distance ( so I just casually looked up the answer in the CAO and put in the correct answer)

2) to obtain pressure attitude on your altimeter do you input 1) local QNH, 2) Area QNH or 3) 1013.25

3) apparently in my KDR's I got one wrong on dropping operations. the question related to whether or not you had to get Casas prior permission inside a CTAF to drop (the answer I chose) versus whether you could not drop at all.

4) under what circumstances can you fly an aircraft without an ELT out of service - one of the options was bring a portable ELT, another was you could fly for 90 days (but didnt mention the placarding), another was you could not fly at all

5) another question I got on two occasions relate to the use of an outside air temperature gauge. in fact it asked on a commercial charter which piece of equipment could be placarded not in service, and gave options such as 1) OAT, 2) turn and Slip 3) Airspeed 4) Altimeter (I chose OAT of course, knowing that I could choose to fly to Aerodromes that have Temps broadcast or available.

6) another question related to a commercial flight where an OAT gauge had failed during the day, and the plane had more CTR flights that day, should be a ACFT be marked unserviceable, or the OAT placarded.

7) This was a good MET one but I am not sure if I got it wrong.

METAR was 3km vis with RASH SCT 0030
with a change FM 1200 vis 8km SCT 1500

Planned flight arrives at 1200 should you carry 1) 30 minutes of fuel or fuel for alternate, 2) 60 mins of fuel or alternative 3) no extra fuel. I chose 30 and an alternate. Note there was no Tempo or Inter.

8) The plane has been flown before today, what is the Minimum required to Sign MR is 1) Pilot in Command 2) SPL with type endorsement 3) CPL with Type Endorsement 4) ACFT Operator (note does NOT say CASA) approved person to sign. Naturally I selected Pilot in command since you dont need a type endorsement from what I understand to sign an MR unless I am missing something and normally CASA not an operator grants permission to individuals to do this.

9) Mil jet turns away in an upwards climb at 90 deg Without crossing the front of your plane what does this mean (well the answer is it means you can proceed but I knew that anyway)

10) Oh yeah and they did test on NDB tolerance (6.9%) (but of course I knew that and had my AIP nicely tagged!)

11) And of course they asked about flight under BKN cloud base at 4000 on a 278 deg heading in class G, what alt (A025 was my answer of course as its evens.

12) Of course they asked about what conditions to seatbelts need to be worn, but who doesnt know that! Instrument app, Under 1000 feet, always be at least one crew member, or in turbulence.

13) they tried the old trick, under what conditions can you smoke in the ACFT toilet, 1) when smoking light is off 2) not smoke at all in toilet (my answer as the regs expressely forbid).

14) Circuit heights for Fixed wing and Rotor wing ACFT respectively at NOWRA (easy its 1200 Rotor and 2000 Fixed) pick up ERSA

15) Now there was this bastard question regarding to how would you find the activation status of PRD R783 1) ERSA or 2) Notam - now I nearly just put 1) ERSA, but I thought CASA would be tricky so I looked up the PRD R783 in my nicely tagged ERSA and it said under HOUR - NOTAM so I chose NOTAM. So I still ask myself, is it my knowlege or the quality of the question...

16) when departing CTAF should be on intended heading by 1nm, 3nm, 5 nm etc

17) when given a request to decend to A040 from A065 should you say to controller 1) left 6500ft, then maintaining 4000 ft or 2) just maintaining 4000 ft.

18) a passenger decides to bring a pet dog, should the dog be 1) caged and put in cargo) 2) Caged, Muzzled and put in Cargo, 3) Tied down on moisure absorbing mat

19) Forecast TAF YXXX for AP XYZ. commences 1000 UTC, planned flight for arrival 1000. Need validity of forecast half and hour BEFORE and 60 mins after.

20) tracking Navaid xyz near CTA at 500AGL, what tolerance for being clear of cta at this alt - see AIP tolerances




Other areas to check!
Know your 30 mins vs 60 mins of holding fuel.
Always remember 30 mins before and 60 mins after as to forecast validity

To be honest, this was the EASIEST exam I have done to date, and I even had all the books, time to burn, got to revisit the answers I thought were tricky (no second guessing either) but yet I failed. How tragic is that!

So I will rebook and see if I get a different batch of questions. I dont know how I could have been any more prepared, I had everything tagged and all my notes scribbed within the first few minutes.

I feel that this BT Prac exam and theory book could do with adding a few additional questions in (hey seem mine above , as I found the Question Bank quite small and quite a few of the questions were repeated between exams.

Well that was $165 to the CASA charity ball but I am no further enlightened. Wish I had better news, but I think it often depends on the questions on the day as to your final score.

As you can see from the above, you dont need to worry about sunnies. Maybe CASA should take your brain out instead before you sit air law.....and its about time CASA got to organising and collating their information a LOT BETTER rather than putting the owness onto its poor pilots for dealing with the mess (just try page numbers for instance - took them AGES to put them in ERSA after constant request), by way of comparison with FAA or JAA. In all this one could forget how to fly...

So what did I just learn (how do deal with failure despite what appeared to be more than Adequate preparation) and sometimes its the luck of the draw.

Not sure what I can do to improve on this one, so I will re-revise and re-revise again. Heck I had a lovely relaxing morning, arrived early etc.

Hmm....

Booked the same test again for next Monday at same time. Will just read air law again and go from there. I had about 80 pages of reviewed notes. Any thoughts on the above greatfully received.

Been racking my brains, I really have. The only one I consciously screwed up on was the pressure altitude, where I should have said 1013.25 instead of QNH. Now that is my screw up, didnt think to recheck that answer.

Guessing its possible that instead of flying with OAT placarded until days end on commercial flight I could have grounded the Aircraft instead.

As for the others I am sure they are more semantics, I really am. The interesting thing is resitting this exam will not further educate me or make me a better pilot, but it will educate me as to the semantics used by CASA in asking some of their questions. Be nice if we could feed you our KDR's for a more detailed review.

The only advice I might be able to offer is always revisit all your answers on this one, after all it is open book (which speaks volumes in itself).

Hey Brook,

Unlucky with your result mate, but after reading all you have written on the forums, it seems to me like you know exactly what you're talking about and that CASA's wording got you, as it did to me today.

I did my air law exam this morning and passed...with 80%. I've gotta say, I'm with you in everything you have said - I was incredibly confident going in to the exam (getting 90+ on all the BT practice exams) and I was fairly sure I was going to get in the mid 90's as I hit the dreaded 'Submit Exam' button at ASL this morning.

For anyone reading - take Brook's advice and get as much out of it as you can. He is spot on - CASA seem to have this way of wording questions which (especially in my case) get you to form assumptions, which are not needed and bring you to answering incorrectly. Read the questions (and answers) really carefully.

Also, please go through absolutely everything twice, three times and more! I made 1 incredibly stupid mistake just because I didn't care to re-do the question again (as I was so confident!).

Anyway, onwards and upwards Brook - Good luck for Monday!

Thanks Tom,

So glad you passed! The one I did get wrong I kicked myself for, as for the others, they were highly interpretive. I could relate to being confident.

Other subties were the difference between CTAF and Vicinity, at xxxx ft vs BELOW xxxx ft, flights over water, charter vs private etc.

I guess it must be like sitting the bar, more about legalese, and less about practicalities. When I talk with RPT pilots, most of them have forgotten this stuff anyway, except the duty time stuff.

Interesting, but at least as one instructor pointed out to me, at least we have the books with us, in JAA you dont. He also suggested highlighting all CAO and CAR docs (since you cant tag them) and remember to read CAAP 42 B since you cant take it in with you. Why they allow everything else and not the CAAPs is beyond me, its highly inconsistent, but it is CASA. Also the fact that there is no order of precedence of who can sign a MR is still a mystery to me, as well as why they put it in CAAP 42B and not 43 since 43 deals with MR's whereas 42 deals with maintenance SCHEDULE.

I'll keep you all "posted"

Don't beat yourself up too much, Brook - I got one wrong on light signals!! So I know exactly how you feel!

I tell you what, after reading your debrief a couple of day's ago I was crossing my fingers I wouldn't get that MR question - I think that's an incredibly unfair question to ask, given the complete lack of information.

You do make a good point about being able to have our documents (although the stupidity of not being allowed CAAP's) - I would have been lost with quite a few questions without them!

Again, good luck for Monday!

Thanks Tom! Appreciate that!

Hi All,

I passed Air Law exam second attempt today with a different bank of questions with 88%. Think out of 40 questions only one question was the same as the first attempt.

Just some thanks to Richard for helping me when I needed it most, Tom for the moral support, Ray for the useful input on Airways Clearances, and Andy from Royal Aero Club of Western Australia / Western Aviation College for the excellent Exam prep papers he gave me at the 11th hour which were great as they covered things I didn't yet see in any of the BT online exams.

Make sure if you do fail you hit it again fast and hard and if you can get some more exam prep modules on this one from a third party I would recommend it until the BT one is a bit wider, but overall the course it good, it just doesn't quite line up with the breadth of the current test.

Couple of questions stunned me with their ambiguity. I wouldn't wish them on my worst pilot enemy

One related to low flying again, but from a different angle. It related to flying under 500 ft and in my mind started in CAR157. There was not package dropping or flood relief mentioned, but it related to what you could do under 500ft without a permit from CASA, but the only two that were mentioned that made sense. Firstly the exemption under 4(c) made sense, in terms of flight training under CAR 141, however it also looks like this also "kind of" requires an initial permit, even if made in perpetuity for the entire field, but stress of weather was not an option, as neither was dropping of supplies or taking off or transiting an airport. Go figure.

Also what I learnt about this exam, is dont try to remember all the answers, rather do a reasonable job and just remember where things are, ERSA, AIP, CAR's and CAO's and highlight then so its not just the tags (and make sure you use all of the allowed tags) when you are scanning your highlighted notes.

Other things to remember:

CAR150 dropping of articles
CAR 165, flying over public gathers DOES require a written permission from CASA unless in the course of navigation
CAR309 yes you can use force to remove that intoxicated passenger off the charter flight if they refuse to leave after boarding
CAR 157 Low flying - when can you low fly without a permit (see also CAR141)
CAR 160 - definition of overtaking ACFT and overtaking rule of 70 deg line of symmetry, and general RULES OF THE AIR

Does the pilot only responsible for the oral brief of the no smoking, or are they also responsible for the signage in the aircraft....
CAR155 can a passenger go on an aerobatic flight, what cant a passenger do..

CAO 48.1 sections 1.1 and 1.2 specifically as it relates to both RESERVE TIME and the 16 hour and 23 hour rules, and dont forget your 11 hour tour of duty has to fit in there two as the overiding factor if called in.

One that nearly got me was that of the 30 minute or 100 nm max over water (different to 50 nm max for CHTR flights) but not for multi engine aircraft eg 120 minutes at Cruise, understand the differences, they are quite different just in case you need to find them or you get asked.

One more interesting point AIP ENR 1.6 - 7.1.4 was the Transponder Codes 3000 for A, C D (or E if IFR only) airspace entry when you have not been assigned a discrete code, or 7615 when doing Littoral (coastal) surveillance. Mark this page

Note the differences between IRM and RRM for both "all air transport operations" vs "all aircraft operations" otherwise you may get a question or two wrong.

Also remember report vs broadcast.

It very much seems like the luck of the draw on the question bank, and also knowing (as Bob mentioned in the Air Law Manual) HOW to find your way around the main sections of CAR's, (important to use dividers if you print them out yourself) and knowing roughly where to find things.

Its about time CASA moved out of the Ark and gave us a fully integrated electronic curriculum we can all use and search, as this exam was more about the pilot covering for their administrative lack of ability.

I spoke with an profession commercial jet pilot the other day who said he didn't know if he could sit the air law exam again, it was a tough one. He also commented that if he couldn't keep up with the law, how would it become operational?

But on the positive note I passed, and hopefully my experience can benefit you all. My hat goes off to any foreign national who sits and passes this exam where English is not their first language. That is truly amazing and shows how dedicated these students must be.

Now onwards and upwards, before I become a lawyer and forget how to fly

Brook

Brook

I've been a victim of the twenty-four hour day lately, but I've followed you excellent posts with interest. Thanks for you detailed feed-back. The Air Law book and Exam Preps are constantly under review and your contributions will be of great benefit to this process.

Congratulations on your pass and all the best with your continued flying training.

Bob

Thanks so much Bob!

Sounds like your duty time is exceeding your flight time Good to see you both steaming ahead though and really helping so many through what is a highly raised (and contextually complicated) bar.

Thanks for your feedback glad its of use - its very interesting comparing the Aussie Air Law with that of other countries.

Looking forward to your CBT Performance module I ordered last night and asked Lee if she could express post it as we have a long weekend in WA this weekend.

I saw someone in pprune make an interesting comment on the Australian Syllabus compared to US the words S&M came to mind. I actually thought that was funny I have enjoyed the learning though, not to mention yours and Richards great sense of humour.

I think Air Law would be my least favourite topic, mainly because of its Arbitrary nature instead of practical, it reminds my of this countries tax act....

A phrase mentioned by the late John Rohn came to mind: "If its not necessary to change then it is necessary NOT to change" and I guess I keep recycling it in my head as I review new material.

As I reviewed my KDR's this morning with my CAO's and CAR's in front of me, I realised that I was actually correct on almost all of the KDR's, but I am not going to spend money nor time dealing with the administration to fix their errors. It seems this exam is more prone than the others, but it does give you an unfair weighting and stack the odds against you.

It looks like I got the one on briefing passengers on smoking wrong, as I selected the pilot is responsible for BOTH briefing and ensuring the no smoking signs are displayed (the pilot and the aircraft owner / operator are BOTH responsible.

Also got another one wrong on RRM with ATSB, as the item listed was NOT listed or inferred on the list for non passenger aircraft (all aircraft).

Maybe an Electronic KDR analyser perhaps is the way to go, but CASA needs to do that.

At least I got an credit from ASL for my next exam due to the aircon not working when I last was there. Interesting that all decision making relating to ASL centres is done in New Zealand, the head office, not Caberra ACT. Ironic when they use the FAA's training and legal format in NZ now....

ASL New Zealand, ASIC Merimbula, CLARC Canberra its all very interesting....consistency wise. Do you know any retired CASA staff who moved to Merimbula or NZ recently...

I should probably stop giving them such a hard time, but after air law I figured they need some "positive encouragement"

Brook

Woot Brook! Congratulations on getting through mate! Excellent!

See you in the Performance forums. I think you will enjoy Performance as it is a lot more straightforward than air law. It's all about numbers and either you get the answer or you don't, no ambiguity

Cheers,

Rich