Type Rating Groundschool
- Connor Raven
- Oct 4, 2018
- 4 min read
Welcome back to another post!
Over the last 2 weeks I have been completing my Type Rating groundschool for the Airbus A320. It was an enjoyable yet demanding couple of weeks with absolutely tonnes of information to learn in such a short amount of time! Looking back now, I honestly don't know how I managed my ATPL groundschool last year...
The layout of the 2 weeks was to cover a couple of topics each day, we'd then review the previous days questions in the morning with the instructor and then crack on with that days work. It was a self teaching course which was new to me, whereby using the CBT (which we had installed on our Ipads) we would individually work through the days topics and answer a number of questions on a provided question pack. Most of the answers we needed were easily identifiable in the CBT, however with it being rather generic at times, we often had to go into our easyJet documents such as the FCOM or OMB to find the exact answer.
Day 1 eased us into the course with the topics being, Indicating and recording and Communication. We covered how the "screens" in front of the pilots would act if there was a failure of any of the computers and how we could recover from such failures as well as distinguishing what each of the individual colours in the cockpit mean. We finished the day studying how the communications system worked, and yet again, if there was a failure of either the audio control panel or radio management panel, how we could recover from it or if not what we would do instead. During each day we also spent a couple of hours in the procedure trainer (a mock up cockpit where we could practice flows and see how the systems worked in action). This was great as it gave us a couple of hours to work on our easyJet SOPs as well as giving us the chance to see how what we were learning in the classroom would actually be presented in the cockpit.
Day 2 on wards quickly picked up, with the topics then ranging from the flight control systems, hydraulics, fuel, electrics, pressurisation, air conditioning, autopilot, navigation... the list goes on! There was an awful lot of content to learn and every evening was spent revising until about 10pm, however before we knew it the 2 weeks were over, we had the weekend to revise and brush up on any areas we were't so confifedent about before it was time for our exam!
As the days passed and each of the previous days questions on our question pack were ticked off as being "correct", I transferred them over to my revision app called Quizlet, which generates flashcards and allows me test myself on any of the questions at random. By the end of the 2 weeks of studying, I had 682 different questions that we'd covered in class or ones that i'd come across on the CBT and thought would be worthy jotting down. However, those 682 different questions didn't include a further 200 or so that I had access to on my Ipad already! I think that alone just sums up the sheer amount of "stuff" to get your head around, and not to mention that this wasn't everything, there was so so much more information in the FCOM about the Airbus, but thankfully for the exam we didn't need to know it. But i'm sure one day next year during my line training while in the cruise down to somewhere sunny ill be reading all the extra details... and be questioned on it by my Training Captain.
As mentioned, the 2 weeks of studying resulted in our A320 Type Rating Theory exam. It was a 2 hour paper containing 112 questions overall! The paper was not too bad at all really, the section about Hydraulics, which contained 5 questions, wasn't the nicest with some "gotcha" questions in there, but after thinking about them and coming back to one of them I got those all right, but there was still another 107 questions yet to answer! The pass mark for the exam was 75%, however, you also had to get at least 75% in each of the individual sections, and with a couple of the sections containing only a small handful of questions, they were the ones that would prove to be the crucial ones! The individual sections were:
Section 1: Aircraft structure, Equipment & systems, Normal & abnormal operation (76 questions)
Section 2: Limitations and MEL (12 questions)
Section 3: Emergency procedures (8 questions)
Section 4: Glass cockpit (8 questions)
Section 5: Flight management systems (8 questions)
Clearly, the smaller sections were the ones where any potential failures would come from. During the 2 weeks we were slowly introduced to a number of memory items, which were included in Section 3 of the exam. These included the likes of what to do in an emergency descent, what to do if you have unreliable speed, actions in the event of wind shear or a GPWS/TCAS warning (GPWS = ground proximity warning system & TCAS = traffic collision and avoidance system) and the actions in the event of loss of braking on landing. These were just a few memory items that we needed to learn and there will be others introduced to us as we progress in the next sim phase.
Overall the exam went well, I finished in good time, handed my paper in and went downstairs to the canteen to wait! Then came the dreaded, "oh what did you put for question..." haha! Anyway, after a short wait, we were told everyone had passed before we made our way back up to the classroom to debrief any troublesome questions and find out our actual results.
I managed to score... 111/112, being 99%! As you can imagine, I was over the moon with that result! The one question I got wrong was about the automatic operation of the centre tank fuel pumps and how the position of the leading edge slats on the wings would affect whether they automatically turned off for takeoff or not. 2 of the answers were very similar and being the typical 50/50 situation i'd opted for the wrong one. Nevermind, 99% is good enough for me! 😆
So that's it, Type Rating theory completed. I've now got a couple of weeks off before we're back in the Sims later this month.
Until next time ✈️
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