The October Airman Knowledge Test Roll has been released and information is now posted to the FAA website. You may be asking, test roll? What is that? Throughout the year, the FAA goes through a process of evaluating Airman Knowledge Tests. Part of this evaluation process is determining the need to remove questions that may no longer be relevant and meaningful to the applicant in addition to possibly adding new question that better highlight today’s aviation environment. General guidance and information on what’s new to airman testing is released three times a year outlining what’s occurred since the last test roll. That information can be found here: https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/testing
In addition to airman knowledge test updates the FAA has released information on the targeted release dates for several revised handbooks. The three FAA Handbooks below are projected to be available summer 2016.
- Risk Management
- Airplane Flying Handbook
- Pilots Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge
One of the changes in this test roll was the removal of U.S. format flight plan questions. The FAA is shifting towards standardizing flight planning by moving to the ICAO flight plan form. For the time being you should see no question relating to either U.S. or ICAO flight plans on any knowledge test. If your used to filling out the U.S. flight plan and have never used or seen the ICAO flight plan, there’s going to be a bit of a learning curve for you. It’s different to say the least and has some unique quirks to it. So before the FAA releases any new questions with respect to the ICAO flight plan, we will take some time next week to go over it. Particularly, how to fill one out.
