Eleven subjects, many questions and a lot of coffee

Cockpit Briefing

Flying looks like the fun part, and it is. But behind every flight there’s a lot of theory: weather, air law, navigation, how the engine works, how your own body reacts at altitude. For the PPL there are eleven subjects, each ending with an official multiple-choice exam at the Federal office of civil aviation FOCA (BAZL). Here is what they’re about, and how I got through them.

The Moment

I remember opening the first book and thinking: “Oh. That’s a lot.”

These are the eleven subjects, in the order the Swiss list numbers them:

• 000 Atmosphere: the air you actually fly in. Pressure, temperature, density, and why all of that changes as you climb.
• 010 Air Law: the rules of the sky. Who has right of way, which airspace needs which clearance, what a licence allows you to do.
• 020 Aircraft General Knowledge: engine, instruments, electrical system, everything built into the airplane.
• 030 Flight Performance and Planning: mass and balance, takeoff and landing distances, fuel planning.
• 040 Human Performance: how your body and brain work in the air. Oxygen, fatigue, stress, and why your inner ear sometimes lies to you.
• 050 Meteorology: clouds, wind, fronts, fog, thunderstorms, and how to read weather reports that look like a secret code.
• 061 General Navigation: maps, headings, wind correction, and how to find your way without a phone.
• 062 Radio Navigation: VOR, DME, GPS. The magic boxes that tell you where you are when everything below you looks the same.
• 070 Operational Procedures: how to operate safely, including emergencies and special situations.
• 080 Principles of Flight: why an airplane flies at all, and why it sometimes doesn’t (stalls, spins).
• 090 Communications (RTF): the radio phrases and procedures, in German and in English.

Yes, the numbers jump around a bit, and navigation is split into two subjects.

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And 090 is not like the others. The other ten are multiple choice: you sit down, tick your answers, hand in the sheet, done. RTF is a separate exam with a written part and a practical, spoken part in front of an examiner, and you go through the whole thing again if you want the English radio licence on top of the German one. It is by far the most work of all of them. I’ll give that one its own post later.

Some of them I already knew from my glider licence. Others were completely new. And some, like meteorology, I found so interesting that I kept reading more than I needed.

The Lesson

What worked for me:

• Connect theory with flying. Theory sticks much better when you’ve felt it. After my first flight in gusty wind, the wind chapter suddenly made sense. So I tried to study the topic that matched my current flight lessons.
• Small, regular portions. Thirty minutes every day beats a whole weekend once a month. Especially after a long work day, short sessions were the only thing that really worked. Together with helpful apps.
• Practice questions, but understand them. There are big question banks to practise with. They’re great, but it’s tempting to just learn the answers by heart. I tried to always ask why the answer is right. That’s what you need later in the cockpit, not the letter B.
• Explain it to someone. If I could explain a topic to a friend who doesn’t fly, I really understood it. If I got stuck, I knew what to read again. (Classic principles of learning)
• Don’t do all exams at once. Split them into blocks. Fewer subjects at a time means less stress and better results.

And on exam day: read every question twice. The questions like to hide one small word, like “not” or “except”, that changes everything.

The Personal Part

I’ll be honest: after a computer science degree, I was not super excited to study for exams again. But this was different. Every chapter was directly connected to something I wanted to do. I wasn’t learning for a grade, I was learning so I could fly safely and take friends along one day.

And the best moment is when theory shows up in real life. Looking at the clouds before a flight and actually understanding what they’re telling you. That’s when all the reading pays off.

One Takeaway

Theory isn’t the boring part before flying. It’s what makes you a pilot and not just someone who can steer an airplane. Take it in small portions, connect it with what you fly, and always ask why.