Passed IREX today, self study Bob Tatie book and exam prep only, 83% first go.
Few thoughts for those preparing which I thought of walking out.
1. Icing - I always struggle with this. The combinations and answers never seem right in my head. Honestly, it's an area that does bother me, as I'd like to understand more about the concept of flight into known icing, but I have zero interest on actually doing that at this point (I'll leave that to the big guys in there decked out commercial liners. I've not done Met yet, but hoping that it covers it better as I've felt a lack of coverage of what I need to know, and I've not found the appropriate sections in the regs yet to help me understand what the rules actually are (beyond my self-preservation telling me, don't fly into clouds above the freezing level) - hopefully my instructor will have more wisdom to guide me as I'm sure it's my shortcoming. If you need every point, then learn icing (types and severity, including cloud types and how they affect icing and turbulence). I'm sure there is a question in every exam.
2. Take Off Minima.. This should have been a gimme, but I got it wrong.
If you're taking off from airport Y and you have performance to get to airport Z if an engine fails, you are definitely going to the destination. Don't waste time looking at the charts. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. If you are departing, then the weather at the destination must already permit a landing and you don't need to consider landing minimums during takeoff.
I looked at the charts for the destination airport, but the figures for the destination didn't match the possible answers. So figured that since it said you 'could' get to the destination on one engine, that it didn't meant you would choose to, so the departure field must have lower numbers. Looked through all the charts at the departure field, and finally found a single (there were 16 approaches for this particular aerodrome) approach chart for the departure aerodrome that had a lower minimum than the destination. Talk about a brain fart (but at least I would have been safe..
)
3. Final thought for you.. Know which needles are relevant when considering yourself established.
