Passed rpl exam last week but was surprised to see a lot of the content:

I used bob tait book as my basis and read other bak books in sections i wasnt 100% on to get a different view. i knew the stuff i studied really well and had no problems with these. what surprised me were the topics that were either not in the book or are part of the ppl book not rpl so i hadn't studied them yet:

Heres where i tripped up in the exam:


Calculating density altitude - when given qnh, elevation and temperature (i am now studying from your ppl book and had a laugh to myself when you mention in it that you shouldn't need to calculate using the formula method in a ppl exam) this was in the rpl exam!

Interpreting met charts - synoptic chart interpretation (again thought this was in met for ppl )

Aileron drag - didnt read this in any of the books

RAMPC medical expiry - took me a long time to find the answer to this after the exam as its not in vfr-g not sure where it is in the regs, RAMPC is only valid for 2 years not 4 years for those under 40 unlike the other medical certificates

TODR - did this correctly on the performance charts but as it was close to one of the bars i put the answer as the next bar eg: i got a todr of 690 i put 700 as it was 1.5mm from the 700 line and got this wrong. I know i did it correctly so not sure if i was meant to put 690. (note i have used different numbers here from the exam). CASA should consider having multiple choice answers here rather then free text as it seems their tolerance is too tight. In a practical sense i wouldnt take off from that strip if i was right on the todr limit anyway, frustrating and worth 3 points)

Studying for the ppl now and learning all the things i didnt know for the rpl exam.......if i did it again i would study both the rpl and ppl together and then go and sit both exams as it is confusing what is in each exam.

Thanks

Nick

Hi Nick
Congratulations on your pass for RPL. You may have noticed that we have changed the names of our books. What used to be RPL and PPL are now called RPL/PPL Volume 1 and RPL/PPL Volume 2. This was done when we discovered that the CASA RPL exam was fielding questions that were once considered to be PPL topics.

A note to this effect is now in the preamble to the RPL/PPL Volume 1 book.

We now recommend that students study BOTH books before attempting ANY CASA exam. In the case of RPL exams that are set by the flying school, most of those are still based on the old content.

Bob

Thanks Bob seems your ahead of the game i didnt have your latest version so missed that.

Would be weird if you only wanted to do rpl wouldnt it, you would have to study both and if you do that you may as well sit the ppl exam as well.

Maybe they will combine them one day to save us some money!

Thanks
Nick