Preparing for Airframe Tests. O&P's and Writtens

Part 1: General and Airframe Writtens

I had a two-week break between the end of Airframe classes, and the beginning of Powerplant classes.

It was the goal of myself, and a couple of other students, to get our written tests done, and or O&Ps done.

Three of us were successful and now have our Airframe ratings. A couple more students are well on their way to getting there. Our success has been encouraging to them, but not nearly as encouraging as the information I am about to give you, dear internet.

When I started studying for my Airframe Writtens, I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to get my ass in a chair and memorize questions and their appropriate answer. I had to do this until I could correctly answer over 70% of any random set of questions given to me, and do this with some level of consistency.

Our school has some outdated test prep software. I didn't know it was outdated when I was using it to practice, but I found out when I went to take my written tests.

The General Written was by far the more difficult of the two. Basic Electricity was on there, and BE really, really blows. There were a few other sections which provided a decent amount of trouble, but they were nothing a little (lot of) studying couldn't take care of.

Before class ended, I was consistently getting high 80s on both the Airframe and General practice tests. So I registered to take the tests from some nice folks who have opened up a flight center down the road.

I got a 77 on my General and 88 on the Airframe.
I was blown away. I was elated that I passed, but a 77? Really?
I came to find out that another student, who I think is pretty good at taking tests, got a 70 on the General.

It seems that we were practicing for a test not at all similar to the one we got.  But, we both passed.

Want to know how to pass the General and Airframe Writtens? My advice is not complicated, and consists of only two parts.

The first tip I can give you is to go to an FAA FAR Part 147 school. You can probably pass these tests without it, but you won't have any idea what the hell is going on, which means you won't know what you're doing when you're expected to do it on the job. And that's a bad thing.

So go to a 147 school. If you can't then the tests are going to be absurdly difficult for you.

Tip two is to sit down and study the shit out of whatever test guide material you have. We used Jeppesen textbooks and study guides for our classes, and I think AMT has a similar line of books. If you don't use a study guide for your classes, then use your google-fu to find the FAA's bank of test questions.

They publish the questions (all three bazillion of them), but they don't publish the answers. Don't try to cheap out here. The $40 you try to save not buying a second-hand study guide is going to cost you $300 when you fail your General and Airframe Writtens  because you couldn't study properly.

So, in summary: Go to a 147 school. Then study the shit out of the study guide. This is the best way to do this, and you'll be pretty much guaranteed success. Plus, when you finish, you'll have a lot more confidence.

Now on to part 2: The Airframe and General O&Ps

Round 2

Alrighty.

It's now the 28th of August. What a spectacular failure this blog has been. I haven't updated anything in over eight months, despite the great successes and failures of my time in class.

Success: I now have an airframe rating.
Failures: I almost got smooshed under a Beechcraft D-35 by the class retard.
Success: The class retard is gone for at least a semester.
Success: I only have two semesters left!
Success: I've quit smoking and lost 28 pounds.
Failure: I still want to smoke.


All in all, it's been a decent last eight months. I won't say that it's been stellar, but I will say that I do intend to start writing in this blog again.

The main reason is that I've gotten myself a fancy new phone, capable of taking decent pictures and video. That means that I'll be able to better document my experience, what's going on, and upload it here, for all of the interwebs to see.

This should be an exciting year. If not exciting, educational and well-worth my time.

Project: Failed

It's now the 9th of December. The last posting here was in October. I think it's safe to say that this little project was kind of a failure.

But, that said, I'm going to try to start it again.

I won't be doing the day-to-day thing, because that really blows. I'll just start over with Airframe and get on with it.

For what it's worth, future A&P students, the Jeppesen books are terribly written and loaded with mistakes... but only the type someone with an English degree would notice.

Day 33

Today we spent quite a bit of time talking about hydraulic lines, both rigid and flexibile, and then went over to the hangar and started assembling some fittings.

As a kid, I always thought hydraulic lines for tractors were magic. I didn't really know how they worked, but I knew that they withstood an incredible amount of pressure and were still flexible. Whenever they broke, they just seemed to me like pieces of rubber with steel braiding inside. We took the busted ones into town and then the service tech disappeared with it. He came back a few minutes later with a new hose. Sometimes simple things seem so mysterious when you don't understand how they work.

Day 32

Today we finished our projects.

I'm pretty happy with mine.
I got an 87. I was one of the first ones done and spent time helping others with theirs, giving advice so they could avoid the mistakes I made.

We were supposed to finish by around 9:00 this morning, but a few of the slower members of class held us up until, oh, 12:45.

That's all I have to say about that.

Day 31

We worked on our projects all day today.

I learned something:
Some people, no matter how many times and in how many ways you tell them, will never understand how to use a file.

Day 30

Today we worked on some projects for the Shop Practices portion of the semester.

We were given a set of blueprints, and a piece of steel and told to make it.

Points are deducted per .001" we are out of tolerance.

Yowza.