After a long week at the CAA in Gatwick, the Module 1 ATPL exams are now complete!
I’ll reveal my results and why I was so shocked!
7 March 2020
ATPL Module 1 Results Are In and I’m Shocked!
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Podcast Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Aaron Henriques: Hello everyone its Aaron and for those of you who don't follow me on Instagram already I just wanted to let you know about the results of the CAA exams that I took this week. Along with my class and others that were up at Gatwick for the four days of examinations. Now I have to say, I'm actually.
[00:00:24] Very happy with the results overall. I, I didn't pass everything, but overall I'm really happy with what I did get. And you know, that there were certain exams that were perhaps not as challenging as I made myself believe they would be, or perhaps the course content that we're going through because it's so vast, you know, the thought of having to remember all of it was sort of doing.
[00:00:50] But like I say, so the one that I didn't pass was principles of flight. And that was something that I've been struggling with for a long time. And particularly with the calculations. Now, I was told that there'd be a maximum of three to four calculations in your exam for principles of flight. So I was banking on the fact that I would be getting.
[00:01:14] You know, mostly wordy question paper about understanding the general principles of flight. And when I sat my exam, not only did I have way more than three or four calculations, you know, lots of them were type pins. And for those of you that don't know what the type are generally speaking in the HPR exams, it's a multiple choice exam.
[00:01:39] Now you generally would have an idea. You know, if you're even in the right ballpark of, you know, for calculations, you know, how do you come up with a calculation that's completely wrong because it's not one of the four ounces or anywhere near one of those four answers, but they've put type ins. Now I didn't have free calculation.
[00:02:00] They didn't have four. I had 10 and. I was gutted when I saw so many calculations through my exam, because from the result I got 72% that would indicate that the vast majority, if not all of the worded questions I got correct. And if the calculations is where I'd let myself down, because even on the day, the morning of the exam, I still can do them.
[00:02:28] It wasn't the fact of they're difficult calculations because they're not. It's just that there's so many that look very similar to each other. And, you know, I get confused with things like, you know, do you use tan or sign or cause, or you know, do you square it this one or do you square root it and then square to it again?
[00:02:45] Or do you, you know is, is this I can't remember what that sign is called, but you have to use that funny looking sign to, to, to get your answer. And that was. Something that I'd struggled with. And the problem is with these exams, for the ones that are multiple choice is if you're confused with causing 10, for example, which one do you use?
[00:03:08] And you're under time pressure, both answers will be there. And you know, so you have done the whole calculation, right? But you've got the cousin, you've got the town and they would give different answers, but both of those answers will be there. You can be sure. And so it's really, you know, sort of a 50, 50 flip of a coin then.
[00:03:29] So it really does check your understanding. But like I say I'm not too, too sad about the fact that got 72% in principles of flight. It's way more than I thought I'd get. When I did a practice test just a day or so before the exam, you know, I was down at like 56% And it's like, well, there's no way I'm going be able to get through this.
[00:03:52] But moving that aside, my average for the ones that I passed, so I passed a metrology. That's another one that I was sure that I'd failed. HPL human performance and limitations. Again. I thought I'd failed that didn't mass imbalance did really well in that IFR and VFR. So I've got five of the six exams out of the way that I was meant to take this month and sorry, in this module.
[00:04:22] And I am going to have to retake principles of flight. I'd rather not, but I'm going to have to do that. My average score was 88%, which I'm really happy with overall because it's higher than I was doing here at, at at state preferred at the flight center. And. It just showed that actually, when you're sat there in that quiet room, under the, under the pressure of the exams, you know, things start, you know, things you've learned, they are actually in your mind and they do come out and they were tested and I've got overall good results.
[00:05:01] And that's the same for the majority of my class. There's 15 of us that went up there. I noticed a few people that dropped a couple of exams, but prior to that, so they didn't take them at all. There's others, there's lots of people who've like felt one, possibly two exams. I'm not sure if anyone's sort of failed any more than that in our, in our class.
[00:05:21] But overall really good results. I know the school is really happy with the scores that are coming. From our intake, typically, as we were told only a few weeks ago, we were actually getting some of the lowest marks that they've had in a while in all the progress tests as a, as a class. So it's good that everyone has sort of, you know, managed to pick that up a bit and improve on the results.
[00:05:48] So down at the CAA center I have to head off to a family party, but I'm down at the CIA center. The, you know, it is really chilled out there. They, they are strict in the exam room. So for example, there was one person who forgot their Jepsen, man. And wasn't able to complete his test. Despite the fact he Jepson manual was just outside the door.
[00:06:13] But I do warn you before you start the exam, before you go into the room, make sure you've got everything you need. They do another declaration to, you know, verbal one and a written one to say, you've got everything you need before that exam starts. And don't just sit there like a nodding dog, because that guy, for example, has fouled next.
[00:06:34] You've probably, you know, you may have well been able to pass that quite easily. I don't know. I'm not, I've not done that subject yet, but he failed that exam being unable to do it because it didn't have the right equipment with him. And yeah, overall it's really good. The parking down there was You know, good for most of the days, we did have one day where they were really good.
[00:06:56] They allowed everyone to park in a staff car park. It was absolutely pissing down with rain and everyone was allowed to park in and staff car. Cause it was really packed on one day, but a majority of the time it was, you know, nice and easy. You can just sit down. There's lots of sofas and there's a little study area that you can chill in and just get your head down and do your last minute sort of preparation for your exams.
[00:07:18] If you need to do. Yeah, so that's it really I'm glad I didn't drop the HPL human performance and invitations. I was going to drop that. I spoke to my instructors about it and said, look, I'm struggling with path. I'm struggling with meteorology and struggling with HPL and the Metroid GM principles of flight.
[00:07:41] The two biggest subjects for me HPLC is massive as well. It's just got like. Stuff that I don't understand why I need to know. And my brain sort of just thought what I thought was like filtering out saying, well, that's useless information for right away. I'm glad I took it now because it actually wasn't as bad as my 40 would be.
[00:08:03] And, you know, if I had to drop that, I would've now been looking at retaking path and also. You know, having to take HP out at some point in the future. So onto the next module we've got on AV, which is actually area navigation because Ali not radio navigation that everyone seems to think. We've got G nav.
[00:08:27] So we've got general navigation. We've got performance. What else? We got air law and one of the. But I can't remember what it is and I really should find out, but yeah, I'll let you know how those go when we get started on Monday, but I'm going to take advantage of it now. It's Saturday. It's our first weekend off since it's my first weekend off since since mid December.
[00:08:52] Cause I was moving house then, and we've not had. Actual time off. Until now the first weekend we haven't got anything to do. And we'll be back into class on Monday morning where our next set of exams are set for the end of may. And I'm told this module is even harder than mode one, so we'll see.
[00:09:15] And if you want to find. A bit more about me or given contact. There have been people in contact with me on Instagram. And it's AaronHenray, that's AaronHenray. Don't give me a follow and reach out to me if there's anything you want to hear me talk about or in the future. If there's any questions that you may have about the ATPL' , I'm only at the ferry stage you know, I've got PPL at the ferry stage of the ATPL's
[00:09:43] so I can talk to you about, up to that. We've got lots of other guys and girls where in fact there aren't they? Yeah. There's one girl at the moment on a, on a course, we've got lots of the guys here who are on courses now who are at various stages, including like right at the very end nearly ready to go and get jobs so I can always ask them for their input.
[00:10:05] If it's something I don't know about myself. Okay. So go follow me on Instagram as AaronHenray. And I'll see you next time.
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