The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has made changes to the Private Pilot’s Licence (PPL) exams and we hope that this will help you to understand the new requirements for your licence issue.
Under the new exam schedule the number of exam papers sat by a student will increase from seven to nine. This increase is to accommodate new regulations from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) which require students to undertake at least 100 hours of theoretical knowledge training, including a certain element of formal classroom work as well as other interactive forms of training. Each exam will feature between 16 and 20 questions, with a pass mark of 75 per cent.
New question papers will come into force on 1st September 2013 although the ‘old’ papers will still be used up to and including 31st August 2013.
The additional papers are: Operational Procedures and Principles of Flight. Although these are not new subjects for study purposes, they have been separated out to become extended knowledge areas for testing.
The subjects you have already passed will still count, according to their existing validity period. Although it will not be permitted to run the old and new papers together for examination purposes, passes combined of old and new papers will be acceptable for licence issue.
However, passes in both Flight Performance & Planning and Navigation must have been achieved using either the old papers, up to 31st August 2013, or the new papers from 1st September onwards.
If, by 1st September, you have a pass in only one of these subjects, you will have to sit them both again using the new papers. It would make sense, for those of you who are about halfway through your exams to try to get these two completed before then to avoid having to do a compulsory re-sit. Any re-sit to the new syllabus in these subjects only will be considered to be a first attempt.
The whole written exam regime will become much more formalised. Currently, when you’ve felt ready or following a gentle nudge from your instructor you have arranged to come in to take an exam. As from 1st September you will need to have a recommendation from the flying school (generally your instructor) confirming that you have completed the requisite amount of ground training prior to taking each exam.
Additionally, and this is where it gets a bit complicated, as from 1st September 2013 the principle of a ‘sitting’ will be introduced. A sitting constitutes a consecutive 10 day period, starting from when you take an exam. One or more exams may be taken during each sitting although only one attempt at any paper may be made during a sitting. A retake of a failed exam during the period of the same sitting will mean that a new sitting has commenced. If you fail to complete all the exams within either six sittings or 18 months, you will have to completely retake all of the exams.
Under the old system, a student was able to pace the progress of exams throughout the flight training. This should still be possible, but a more judicious plan may be necessary to avoid running out of sittings.
We are happy to answer any questions so please get in touch.
You can call us at Multiflight Flight Training Centre Leeds Bradford Airport on +44 (0)113 2387130 or email us at training@multiflight.com
