Commercial Written

Any of y'all taken the FAA commercial written recently?

We're having a spell of bad weather here, so I got the ASA commercial
test prep book for hangar flying fun. I've got all the flight
experience needed for a commercial, minus the specific practical test
preparation, so I guess I'll try for that rating for my next BFR.

What I see is that the questions are still all full of what I call
"Simon says" type problems: absurdly picky gotchas along with
impossible to read fuzzy graphs. In one of them the "right" answer is
689 feet ground roll and one of the wrong answers is 716 feet. Now how
can anyone read those fuzzy pictures precisely enough to tell the
difference?

So, for anyone's who's done it lately: do you get a printed, fuzzy
book to read the charts from on the actual computer test? How is the
test run? It's been quite awhile since I took private and instrument.
Things might have changed since then.

One more rant: why do they have so many ADF questions? How long has it
been since anyone's seen an airplane with a working ADF? I've never
flown one. The lazy slugs at the FAA must have written those questions
25 years ago and haven't written any new ones on more modern equipment
in a generation.

On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 14:06:46 -0800 (PST), wrote:


So, for anyone's who's done it lately: do you get a printed, fuzzy
book to read the charts from on the actual computer test?


Download it he

http://www.faa.gov/education_research/testing/airmen/test_questions/media/FAA-CT-8080-1C.pdf

B A R R Y wrote:

On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 14:06:46 -0800 (PST), wrote:


So, for anyone's who's done it lately: do you get a printed, fuzzy
book to read the charts from on the actual computer test?



Download it he

http://www.faa.gov/education_research/testing/airmen/test_questions/media/FAA-CT-8080-1C.pdf

You get both printed and computer screen charts. Not fuzzy

On 2008-01-05, wrote:
One more rant: why do they have so many ADF questions? How long has it
been since anyone's seen an airplane with a working ADF? I've never
flown one.

One question I'm having in my airplane search is that my home airport's ILS
approach (FRM ILS 13) requires an ADF. How do I deal with that if I can't
get an ADF in the airplane?
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
http://www.hercules-390.org (Yes, that's me!)
Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390

On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:47:35 GMT, Jay Maynard
wrote:

One question I'm having in my airplane search is that my home airport's ILS
approach (FRM ILS 13) requires an ADF. How do I deal with that if I can't
get an ADF in the airplane?


Do an ILS elsewhere, that doesn't require an ADF.

Right. I did mine with Lasergrade last Wednesday, it's like he said.

David

BillJ wrote:
B A R R Y wrote:

On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 14:06:46 -0800 (PST), wrote:


So, for anyone's who's done it lately: do you get a printed, fuzzy
book to read the charts from on the actual computer test?



Download it he

http://www.faa.gov/education_research/testing/airmen/test_questions/media/FAA-CT-8080-1C.pdf


You get both printed and computer screen charts. Not fuzzy

IFR certified GPS is allowed in lieu of ADF for identifying approach
fixes.


On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:47:35 GMT, Jay Maynard
wrote:

On 2008-01-05, wrote:
One more rant: why do they have so many ADF questions? How long has it
been since anyone's seen an airplane with a working ADF? I've never
flown one.

One question I'm having in my airplane search is that my home airport's ILS
approach (FRM ILS 13) requires an ADF. How do I deal with that if I can't
get an ADF in the airplane?

On 2008-01-07, gary wrote:
On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:47:35 GMT, Jay Maynard
wrote:
On 2008-01-05, wrote:
One more rant: why do they have so many ADF questions? How long has it
been since anyone's seen an airplane with a working ADF? I've never
flown one.
One question I'm having in my airplane search is that my home airport's ILS
approach (FRM ILS 13) requires an ADF. How do I deal with that if I can't
get an ADF in the airplane?
IFR certified GPS is allowed in lieu of ADF for identifying approach
fixes.

Looking at the approach plate, I think the reason the approach is listed as
ADF REQUIRED is because the miss calls for holding at an NDB at the outer
marker, MONTZ. That would say that, for example, all I'd have to do would be
to tell, say, a GNS-430 to point me at MONTZ and then I'd be in good shape?
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
http://www.hercules-390.org (Yes, that's me!)
Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390

wrote in news:4ab3f73b-091e-4671-8bcb-
:

Any of y'all taken the FAA commercial written recently?

We're having a spell of bad weather here, so I got the ASA commercial
test prep book for hangar flying fun. I've got all the flight
experience needed for a commercial, minus the specific practical test
preparation, so I guess I'll try for that rating for my next BFR.

What I see is that the questions are still all full of what I call
"Simon says" type problems: absurdly picky gotchas along with
impossible to read fuzzy graphs. In one of them the "right" answer is
689 feet ground roll and one of the wrong answers is 716 feet. Now how
can anyone read those fuzzy pictures precisely enough to tell the
difference?

So, for anyone's who's done it lately: do you get a printed, fuzzy
book to read the charts from on the actual computer test? How is the
test run? It's been quite awhile since I took private and instrument.
Things might have changed since then.

One more rant: why do they have so many ADF questions? How long has it
been since anyone's seen an airplane with a working ADF?


Yesterday.


Bertie

Jay Maynard wrote in
:

On 2008-01-07, gary wrote:
On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:47:35 GMT, Jay Maynard
wrote:
On 2008-01-05, wrote:
One more rant: why do they have so many ADF questions? How long has
it been since anyone's seen an airplane with a working ADF? I've
never flown one.
One question I'm having in my airplane search is that my home
airport's ILS approach (FRM ILS 13) requires an ADF. How do I deal
with that if I can't get an ADF in the airplane?
IFR certified GPS is allowed in lieu of ADF for identifying approach
fixes.

Looking at the approach plate, I think the reason the approach is
listed as ADF REQUIRED is because the miss calls for holding at an NDB
at the outer marker, MONTZ. That would say that, for example, all I'd
have to do would be to tell, say, a GNS-430 to point me at MONTZ and
then I'd be in good shape?



The usual reason an ADF is required is to confirm your altitude at that
point before you continue to DH. You can't just do an ILS with no way to
check your range against your altimeter. There is no way we would use INS
for that in my company either. DME, VOR or ADF has to be in place to do it
by our book.
It is possible that the go around is the reason, but you'd have to show me
the plate.


Bertie