Originally Posted by
Cubdriver
Did it ever dawn on you this example with the distance to station is a mental exercise to develop the ability to think clearly about angles, time and distance relationships? And the FAA is just trying to harass people? Your attitude is not what you will need to become a successful instructor. You do not have to go around mouthing false platitudes about written exams, but you should have more respect for the advanced pilots who write these tests- while they are certainly fallible human beings, many of them have thousands of hours teaching behind them and you have let me see, none according to your other posts. It's fine to say you have no idea how a particular concept could ever find practical application to real flying, but to broadly bash the FAA test writers is going a bit too far.
Pearl- nice job! Keep it up.
Cubdriver,
You are an engineer aren't you? To the rest of us all that high mathematics does not make any sense.
My father is an aerospace and electrical engineer. He can take apart a VOR and put it back together again. He can accurately explain how the signal works and show you complex mathematical formulas on its function. The problem comes when I ask him to turn it on, tune it in and track to the station.
In college they had us learn all this complex mathematics on aerodynamics. We were told that it was impossible to fly a transport category plane without it. In fact once I left college I never encountered a math problem in aviation again other then one of simple addition and subtraction.
When an engineer sees the world it is all broken down into expressions of mathematics and that is great. The rest of us memorize the answers and move on. Remember that when you try to explain aspects of fight to your next student using math and get a blank stare in return.
The stick in "stick and rudder" is not referring to a pencil.
Skyhigh
My advice to the OP is to throw away the Gliem and get a Jeppesen book that has lots of big colorful pictures and memorize the correct answer for the test. It is what people do who want to pass the test.