Over the past five days my CP and I have been focussing our full attention on a topic of the ATPL syllabus known as Human Performance & Limitations, or HPL for short. It's certainly thorough and covers many aspects of human life from basic biology all the way through to the psychology which affects flight.
To put the sheer amount of content in to perspective, here's the complete list of what we have covered with the exception of a couple of them as we are going to cover those in the simulators in a week or two - which should be fun!
Before starting at CTC I always knew that ground school would be full-on but could never have prepared myself for just how much information my poor little brain would have to absorb. My evenings this week were spent re-reading the day's content and then trying to apply the new knowledge through the use of ATPL Online and Aviation Exam question banks. Question banks are quite good as they help you to identify gaps in your knowledge which means I can go back and read up on those areas.
Our instructor for HPL is an active airline pilot and therefore brings real life experience along with him. Teaching on his down days he to helps you to appreciate the many feelings and emotions you learn about within the topic which in turn allowed me to grasp things much more quickly than simply reading things from the book.
In addition to this, our CP split up mid week to each create presentations on one of the areas above before later presenting them back to the group. This style of teaching further broke up the week and brought each person's individual styles to the content involved. Overall it's an approach that worked quite well.
This weekend and next week
This weekend will provide a great opportunity for me to recharge my batteries, particularly as the temperature has dropped a little. We start a new topic next week, Mass & Balance, so I'll post another update towards the end of next week.
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