After successfully completing the Instrument Rating (Restricted) [IR(R)] recently, I’d like to start looking forward to the CBIR.
Whilst accruing the 15hrs PIC that is required, followed by the 10hrs dual, I thought it would be a good time to start the theory.
How do each of the exams compare to a) the PPL / IR(R) exams that I have already completed and b) the full ATPL ones?
How long would each of them generally take if someone were to revise, say, an hour a day?
Lee wrote:
Whilst accruing the 15hrs PIC that is required, followed by the 10hrs dual, I thought it would be a good time to start the theory.
Please note that you have also to have 50hrs PIC XC after the PPL to be able to apply for CBIR.
Lee wrote:
How do each of the exams compare to a) the PPL / IR(R) exams that I have already completed and b) the full ATPL ones?
Read somewhere that IR(R) exams are around 25-ish hours of study, CBIR theory is 80hrs, ATPL – 640hrs.
A bit of a difference! :)
Please note that you have also to have 50hrs PIC XC after the PPL to be able to apply for CBIR.
Can those include the 15hrs IFR PIC?
Read somewhere that IR(R) exams are around 25-ish hours of study, CBIR theory is 80hrs, ATPL – 640hrs.
That’s a very interesting comparison. Where did that data come from? Is that 80hrs == 80/7? So around 11hrs for each module?
Lee wrote:
Please note that you have also to have 50hrs PIC XC after the PPL to be able to apply for CBIR.Can those include the 15hrs IFR PIC?
It can include any PIC XC post-license hours.
Lee wrote:
Read somewhere that IR(R) exams are around 25-ish hours of study, CBIR theory is 80hrs, ATPL – 640hrs.That’s a very interesting comparison. Where did that data come from? Is that 80hrs == 80/7? So around 11hrs for each module?
Some of it is here: http://www.captonline.com/courses.html
How does CAPT differ from CATS?
Lee wrote:
How does CAPT differ from CATS?
Just another theory ATO.
CAPT is cheaper (~£500?), but more suitable for people who prefer self-study.
I thought that CATS was self-study? Looks like it’s a bunch of online videos and some study documents.
It’s certainly more expensive – early twice as much.
Demo here: https://wbt.catsaviation.com/3/
What study materials does CAPT use? Which ATO did you use?
Lee wrote:
What study materials does CAPT use? Which ATO did you use?
Lee, for CAPT it is the same, the thing with all of the ATOs is that there MUST be some face to face training (in person or via WebEx/Zoom) as per CAA.
Mine was CAPT – I’ve done my reading, then a couple of days of revisions via Zoom (you have to do the assessments of different sorts from the CAPT website as well).
I’m normally a fast learner, and totally used to learn a lot of stuff in short term and to organize me accordingly. But I definitely invested way more than 80 hours on the CBIR theory last year.
That starts with the first set of exams for finishing the initial theory course. And you have to read through all the papers from that theory course. The course I did (CAT Europe) was written in a very bad German machine translation quality of a very bad “DEnglish” original (basic english written by some German people), that was absolutely horrible. I could not memorize anything. I switched from the German machine translation to the DEnglish version, that still hurt a lot but was doable. Ridiculous. When I came across the “angel of attack” I was seriously asking myself whether all this was in fact made up to be just a big joke, maybe by some mentally disordered group of whatever. The CAT books are full of such things, errors, typos, grammatics done severely wrong and most of all, not to use the correct technical terms for the correct items (some books not, luckily). I started a list of corrections but it was so much that it just slowed me down too much. And that IS very disturbing if you want to memorize all that stuff.
Until here no “question clicking” from the questions catalogue. But that starts now.
Because that continues on with a nasty requirement (at least of my flight school) that you have to pass some form of intermediate exam from them, that is totally made up from the questions catalogue, so includes a lot more questions to know than in the final “true” exam.
And then some time later (in my case two months) you get to learn AGAIN for the exam because only after that “intermediate exam” you get the paper from the flight school to sign in for and attend the “true” exam. I overshot the exam to some degree, resulting in too many 100% results (that is: too much time spent on learning). However, it still is a lot of items to be memorized.
I think it is around 8000 questions in the catalogue in total. I have not seen each and every question, but it took me more than one minute per question. So you can count that only for doing the catalogue once to have seen all questions it’s easily an invest of 100+ hours.
Edit: I don’t think that the step in between CBIR and ATPL is so big (80 to 640 hours). It’s maybe more like 120 to 640 hours or even 150 to 640 hours. It is still a lot more.
Another edit: Don’t let you get demotivated! It’s the same thing as all in aviation: a big hassle!!!
500ft/1500m is nearly useless IMHO. I go below that so often… and the times I do there are few other options.
Is it really just a skills test to get the full ICAO IR? It doesn’t ring true. OK; we don’t have it in the UK but clearly this is because the CAA didn’t want it. They adopted the post-EASA LAPL…
Thread topic renamed to be more specific.
The IMCR (lately called IR (R) ) is just 1 exam – unless changed recently.
The CBIR exams are roughly 20% less than the old JAA IR exams (which today exist as EASA IR exams, but almost nobody is doing those) and are a fraction of the work (maybe 1/3) for the 13 ATPL exams.
The FAA IR is just 1 exam.
However direct comparisons mean not so much because there are also FTO assignments which needs to be done before the FTO will sign you off as ready to sit the exams. Not sure if that is UK only…
