Originally Posted by olympic

When I am talking about flying I mean the 'Training' students go through in order to pass checkrides according of course to the PTS, also the way General Aviation is set up in the states because unfortunately General Aviation is almost non existent in Europe due to restrictions and the expense of flying. A lot of these European schools actually send their students to the US to build time.

When I say ground school, I don't mean a specific school, I mean in general the FAA testing is ridiculously easy. The JAA on the other hand makes you sit in school for a minimum of 6 months accumulating hours before you are even allowed to sit an exam. Oh and you won't find a Gleim book handy ..

Originally Posted by Sniper

I'll second that the FAA written tests are 'horrible'. The written tests should test whether you have an understanding of the material you're being tested on, not whether you can memorize the answers. I watched one pilot take the commercial written in 5 minutes - they scored above 95%, but I doubt this pilot had mastered the material, or read a single question (how could they? They spent an average of 3 seconds per question!). This pilot could pick the right answer just by looking at the options available . Impressive? Yes, but I'd rather see mastery of the material rather than mastery of memorizing 700 or so different answer options in a pilot.

My solution - the FAA question bank needs to grow much larger (harder to memorize), and the same 4 answers need to be applicable for multiple questions but with each question yielding a different correct answer, forcing the test taker to answer the question, not remember the answer.

Is this the most pressing change needed in the pilot certification process? Nope.