As it exists today the Australian ATPL Flight Planning examination is a complete farce. Pass rates are currently a dismal 46.44% which is well below the statistics of every other CASA pilot examination.

As an exam that is as outdated and irrelevant as this pilots are no longer being tested on knowledge that will make them better pilots but instead is a safety risk as it is testing knowledge that will never be used in the industry. 

Below are just some of the issues with this examination.

- Based on an aircraft type that is completely outdated and no longer flown in Australia.

- Insufficient time available to achieve the level of accuracy required.

- Re-examines topics already tested in the ATPL Navigation exam (PNRs & ETPs)

- CASAs insistence on only allowing manual whiz wheels and generic calculators not only reduce accuracy but increase time required. (The FAA allows electronic flight planning calculators for this reason)

- Most Australian RPT Airlines do not require pilots to perform planning and the ones that do utilise digital software to perform planning as manual calculation is deemed a safety risk. 

We are calling on the Australian Federal Government and CASA to take one or more of the below actions to make this more relevant to today's operating environment.

- Increase allowed examination time.

- Allow more accurate flight planning calculators in this examination. (A pilot will generally always have access to one or more of these)

- Update Aircraft type to be a current type regularly flown by Australian RPT Airlines

- Remove questioning already covered in ATPL Navigation (PNRs & ETPs)