Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.

Should students pass Air Law exam before going solo?

Yes
67
71%
No
20
21%
No real opinion either way
8
8%
What's Air Law
No votes
0%
#531582
I just wanted to canvass opinion on this area. Many/most flight schools I'd had familiarity with had a policy in force that they would only allow first solo after the student had passed the Air Law exam.

However (unless I've read it incorrectly) this isn't an absolute rule.

I've no axe to grind in particular, but I'm just interested to hear opinions - plus experiences at different flight schools.

You've got a silly option if you are feeling mischievous!
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By Andrew Lucas
#531584
My understanding is that it is not a legal CAA requirement but may be a requirement of the school or their insurers.
Either way I agree with it. Air law is one of the dullest and more difficult exams and as such may weed out any students who aren't really dedicated. Its also important to learn stuff like light signals and rules of the air before flying solo. I think the reason most schools opt for this is as a bit of an &®$€ covering exercise so that if the student screws up, for instance cutting someone up on final or landing without clearance, they can say "Well you passed the exam, so you should know better. You can pay the fine."
By The Westmorland Flyer
#531589
One of the big problems is that students, by and large, want to fly and don't really want to do exams! By the time the student gets to first solo he is around a quarter of the way through the PPL training, so it's not unreasonable that he should be at least one eighth of the way through the exams as well.
By Murphy
#531610
First, I think requiring an exam (any exam) prior to first solo encourages the student to start on the exams, which is a good thing, because it is too easy to let them slide and become a big rush at the end.

As to which exam. To be honest, I didn't see the point of doing Air Law prior to first solo. I didn't think it really had any clear link to the ability to conduct a solo flight in the circuit.

Sure there is some stuff about not landing if the runway isn't clear, right of way etc. But you could make the same argument for doing Aircraft General first, because you might apply carb heat, or doing RT because you will be talking on the radio...or nav, in case the student in front of you spuds in and you have to divert...

I think that aircraft general should be the first exam you do. It covers a broad swathe of subjects, and probably gives a better understanding of whats going on in the preflight check etc.

I also think there should be a short Q&A on the particular aircraft you are flying (ie the key V speed, circuit procedure etc) although this is probably easiest done as an oral with the examiner. Whilst not formally done, I suspect most instructors do this progressively during each session before allowing students to solo.

Perhaps Air Law air law should be done before a student is allowed to leave the circuit solo.

Murphy
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By GrahamB
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#531626
Unexpected things can happen on a first solo - see the reports about the fatality at Southend recently - and quite a bit of air law relates to conduct around airfields.

It is better to be equipped with the knowledge that may at least prevent you making a t*t of yourself, and at best may save your life.

Anyway, I had to, so why shouldn't you? (as the man in the DGAC/CAA/EASA etc etc would say. :)
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By eltonioni
#531646
I would imagine that your FI's opinion of your ability is more use than having passed an Air Law exam.

eltonioni, lazy student.
First solo 7 February
Air Law 16 March
By Murphy
#531647
I agree that unexpected things can happen on a first solo, but I don't think that doing the air law exam in itself would contribute a huge amount to dealing with those accidents, anymore than Aircraft General, or indeed Navigation.

For every example that you could present that showed that a knowledge of air law could have prevented an accident, I'm sure an example could have been found to show that another area of learning could have prevented an accident. I would suggest that the Southend example was as much about handling as it was about knowledge of air law, coupled with ATC not being aware that it was a student pilot. I don't see how air law helped that student, and I am presuming that the student in question would have done air law, because it seems to be the general practice.

I doubt that a student who lost radio comms, for example, during their first solo is going to remember which flashing light from the control tower is going to land. They will intuitively know that red=bad, green=good. But was it a flashing light...or a steady light..

Assuming of course that the tower even HAS lights readily available.

If the purpose of the Air Law exam pre-solo is to encourage students to undertake one of the more boring and dry topics, then certainly, it achieves that purpose. If the exam is there to make the student safer, I doubt it achieves the purpose, any more than mandating one of several other exams (RT, NAV, General Knowledge) which could all be relevant to situations that a student might find themselves in with a first solo that has gone wrong.

An argument could be made about knowing who has right of way, and landing clearances, but I would expect that sometime during the 10-12 hours pre-solo this should have been covered by the instructor to the degree that a student needs for first solo.

IE: If you were operating from a AG field, you would know the procedures, similarly if you were operating from a Towered field, you'd know those procedures. You might not know the procedures for OTHER kinds of fields, but you aren't expected to at this stage.

But as you say, I had to do it, so why not everyone else :o I don't think its a bad thing to be required to do airlaw pre-solo, I'm just not sure it is linked directly in anyway to the ability to go solo.

Murphy
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By Peter Pan
#531653
When I started to learn at Barton I took 2 weeks off and managed to get 2 lessons in a day due to the good wx (yes, yes I know it was a miracle for Manchester etc). I was doing intensive flying and didn't have the time or energy to study. The rule at Barton is you must pass Air Law before solo.

Consequently I was ready for solo at the end of the first week and on the thursday night picked up the air law book for proper study. Having had no sleep I wandered blearily into Barton and of course failed it! No solo for me that day..

I spent the weekend doing proper study and passed on the Monday and did my first solo. This made me realise that I had to apportion my time between flying and studying.

I do think the exam is necessary certainly before sending a stude outside the circuit solo for the first time (airspace etc), but you might as well get it out of the way early on and set a regime for further study.

I passed the rest first time btw :D
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By GrahamB
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#531654
A supplementary question - did this change with JAR? I'm sure it was a legal requirement when I did my PPL, in the pre-JAR days.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#531656
What is the issue, Mike.

If you want your studes to do airlaw before you let them solo then so be it.

I can not think of any particular good reason why they should object.

If they do tell them to naff off.
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By Keef
#531664
There was a lot I hadn't learned when I did my first solo, and Air Law was in that list.

The CFI made very sure I knew the stuff I needed to know before he let me off on mine.

I can't see any real objection to requiring Air Law before first solo, though. If the stude is going to go all the way to PPL (or NPPL) then it's going to be needed sooner or later. As tWF says!
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By Adam
#531684
I voted yes but only on the basis that the lazy gits need encouraging to learn it!
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#531706
[quote='Murphy']I also think there should be a short Q&A on the particular aircraft you are flying (ie the key V speed, circuit procedure etc)[/quote]

This is done in FAA land as the pre-solo written test. This also takes in many aspects of air law!

[url]http://www.silverexpress.com/Publish/Presolo%20Written%20Exam.pdf[/url]

I did Air Law as one of my last exams, after I'd completed the rest of the PPL course! But I did mine in the US. I did Air Law after returning to the UK.
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By Lindsayp
#531770
Interestingly, I had fortunately done my Air Law exam successfully prior to soloing on the Shadow microlight at Blackbushe, fortunate because later that day, doing solo circuits, the antenna cable became disconnected outside the aircraft so I had no radio, I had to complete a circuit whilst the controllers got some practice with their lights. NB I was not training with a club, it was with a freelance instructor and an aircraft I had a share of.

In the US, doing my Group A PPL, I was doing solo upper air work away from the circuit and had a radio failure in my 152. I had not at that point done my FAA written exam, although much studying, but fortunately had learnt enough on top of the UK Air Law to handle the situation.

I think if you are going to be PiC of an aircraft, you should be sufficiently familiar with Air Law to fulfill the responsibilities of a PiC. And as someone else said, I did so the rest can too!
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By poetpilot
#531772
[quote]What is the issue, Mike.

If you want your studes to do airlaw before you let them solo then so be it.

I can not think of any particular good reason why they should object.

If they do tell them to naff off[/quote]

No issue at all FD, just genuine curiosity. When studying ground school for the micro 3-axis AFI course, the subject came up and we had a brief discussion on it. Our FIE's view was that we should recommend/push for it as a policy, for some of the reasons brought up.

Adam's pragmatic view sums it up for me (perhaps more eloquently expressed in other postings) - the stude has to get to grips with the exams at some point, so they may as well get some stuff under their belt - carrot and stick motivation may therefore be a good thing.

The other question (not in the poll) is around ground school. I'd very much like to start running some microlight NPPL-M ground school evening classes but I'm hearing things along the lines of "people don't want to spend the time doing classes any more - we can't motivate them to (a) pay for and (b) attend."

Personally, I have found that I learn better if I'm taught interactively by a human, as opposed to burying myself in a book on the train or in the airport lounge. But that's just me.

The micro NPPL-M course is interesting, because of course there is (has to be) some good emphasis on areas where micros differentiate - e.g. although we all like to talk about Rotax 912 leading edge engines, there's a ton of cheap machinery out there running on old 2-stroke Rotaxes (and with high drag airframes with limited speed ranges to boot). I could be teaching someone in a nice new Eurostar, but they could run off and get themselves a motheaten old Thruster after qualifying.

This is, I suppose, no more different than a newbie PPL running off and buying an old VP1 or somesuch, but from a personal point of view, I'm into instructing in order to pass on best advice and experience (some of it learned the hard way over the years) and I want to do it well.