I did another online test -- 95. I felt like I was doing badly tonight and was just generally frustrated... the cat walking in front of the keyboard, not having enough desk space (still using the old college desk) to spread out nicely, etc. The cat got the boot, and the rest just had to be dealt with as best as possible.
Tonight I missed:
1 - cloud bases in PIREPs are AGL. I figured MSL since a pilot calling them in has very easy access to that measure, and they want to encourage the reporting of actual conditions. I suppose, though, that pilots could be reporting that way and the FSS or Flight Watch or whoever translates it according to reported position to AGL. There was logic behind my answer, just not correct logic.
2 - Measurement error -- The question was something like "From airport A to a VOR B, what is the TO radial to fly?" One answer was 359 and one was 001. My measurement said 360. Repeatedly. I couldn't see what was going wrong, so I eventually randomly selected 001. They wanted 359. I'll have to see if Husband measures differently.
3 - Another ETA problem where I came up with 30 minutes and the answer was 34. This one I have already gone back and rechecked, and upon recalc'ing I get 33, so I guess I was careless somewhere. On the real test, I'll double- and triple-check.
Consistency is good, I reckon.
X-c in the morning to finish up the x-c reqs as well as landings at controlled airports. I have to do a phase check with another instructor (probably Dan again), get 8 night landings, and do 3 hours of pre-checkride prep flights.
I was always off by 1 or 2 minutes on those ETA calcs. I don't know if it was rounding errors/differences or what, but I always did that for the private test AND the IFR test.
ReplyDeleteIf you're scoring in the 90s, just go take it. You'll be fine- you know your stuff!
ReplyDeleteThanks, gents... soon, oh, soon....
ReplyDeleteYour AGL/MSL confusion brought a smile to my face.
ReplyDeleteComing home from L.A. some time back, I called the (now closed) Flight Service Station at Deming, NM and asked for winds aloft at 3, 6, and 9,000 feet. The nice lady responded that she could give me the winds at 6 and 9,000, but with a field elevation of 4,000 plus, the winds at 3,000 would pretty much be irrelevant!
I keyed the mike and said, "this flatlanders face is turning red!"
Ha! Greybeard, I'll remember your anecdote when taking the test and pondering those questions... :)
ReplyDeleteThis is the value of running through the whole question bank a couple of times if you can find the time. It's not that you're trying to learn by rote, but a lot of aviation knowledge is just plain arcane and unexplainable, and as you notice, some of the questions have answers that don't make sense. I found this especially hard from the point of view of being a scientist by trade. A little bit of rote memorization will go a long way when you come to that particular question on your test. I used the ASA test prep software, got a 98...
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