Getting Your Private Pilot License – The Written Test

After all the studying, it was finally time to take the PPL(A) written test.

As I explained in a previous story, I followed the PPL ground school at BAFA, a flight school at Antwerp Airport. The main reason I I went with them is that they offered a distance-learning course, with just 3 Saturdays of classroom-sessions and the rest study at home.

After taking the course, answering almost 1000 multiple-choice database questions and taking a progress check, I was signed off to take the written exam in Brussels. I emailed them the documents and scheduled my exam for March 19th, 2019.

Because I hold an EASA SPL (Sailplane Pilot License), I received credits for about half the PPL subjects. This means, I only had to take 5 subjects instead of 9.

My exam was scheduled for 8h30 on Tuesday morning. I knew from friends who went recently that the exam itself would be a lot easier than the question database we had from BAFA. If I would be able to answer those questions correctly and pass the internal progress test, the exam would be a piece of cake.. But still, I was nervous.

Depending on the subject, we had 30 – 60min to finish each subject.  Once we finished a subject we could click through to the next ones. There was no minimum time, so as soon as you finished a subject you could go on to the next until all of them were finished.

Except for a few longer questions requiring some extra math, all in all, the questions were doable and I had quite a good feeling after finishing the exam.

I head over to the lady at the desk who checked my results… AND I PASSED! I was so happy all the studying had finally paid off 😀

All that’s left now is the remaining few dual hours I need to meet the requirements for my checkride.

Well, nothing much more to say than that I’m extremely happy, proud and eager to take my checkride and become a private pilot!

Fly safe and talk soon,

Senne