You can take certain materials into your pilot exams.
Check what supporting material you need for the exam well before the exam session.
It is your responsibility to bring the 'required' exam material with you.
The invigilator will give you the 'provided' exam material.
Material provided
The invigilator will provide:
- 1 blue ballpoint pen
- 1 black ballpoint pen
- 1 red fineliner pen
- 1 eraser
- 1 HB pencil
- 1 0.5 mm mechanical pencil
- 1 ruler
- 1 pencil sharpener
- 2 pages scribble paper (more available on request)
You must return all material, including scribble paper and any workbooks or other material, provided by the invigilator when you finish your exam.
Materials required
You are responsible for knowing what material you need for an exam.
Unless otherwise stated, all exam material including regulations, orders and air publications need to be current for the date of the exam.
You cannot borrow texts, documents, books or other materials from other candidates during an exam.
It is your responsibility to bring your own documents, maps, navigation and equipment as per the lists of permitted material for each subject.
Material not permitted
You cannot bring the following materials into the room during an exam:
- dictionaries of any kind or similar
- English translators of any kind or similar
- recording devices of any kind or similar
- commercially published or home-made content pages and indexes for regulations, orders and the Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP). For example, material that CASA or Airservices haven’t published is prohibited.
- manuals, publications, text, training books, notes, blank paper or any other type of document, except those included in the permitted materials list for your specific exam
- electronic devices including pagers, mobile phones, cameras, laptops, iPads, iPods or similar
- electronic flight planning computers/devices or similar
- items that are not on the permitted material list for that exam subject.
If you use any of these items, we may terminate your exam and take further action.
Exam material rules
All material given to you for exam purposes needs to stay in the same room as the exam.
You cannot copy it or take it out of the exam room for study, training, or any other purposes.
This includes all calculations, writings, drawings or scribbling done on the scribble pad provided.
If you don’t adhere to this, you may be accused of cheating, fail the exam and be prohibited from taking the exam for 12 months.
You can use either Airservices Australia or Jeppesen material for the exam, but not both.
If you use the Airservices Australia AIP, you need to use the Departure and Approach Procedures (DAPs) East and West approach plates, maps and charts as appropriate for the exam.
If you use the Jeppesen Airway Manual then you need to use the Jeppesen approach plates, maps and charts.
Flight Information Publications (FLIP) by Australian Defence Force (ADF) members
You can use these FLIPs in an exam as they are equal to Airservices documents:
- General Planning Australian and Flight Information Handbook (equivalent to the Airservices AIP) with 15 tags permitted in total across both documents
- ERSA (equivalent to the Airservices ERSA) with 5 tags permitted.
ADF members wanting to use FLIP instead of the Airservices documents must produce a current ADF photographic ID before starting the exam.
Note: For the instrument rating exam (IREX), in particular for ADF fast jet pilots, while Air Combat Group Facilities and Procedures (FAP) North/South are approved for ADF exam candidates (as part of the FLIP series), they do not contain all of the procedures and/or locations used in IREX. It is highly recommended that DAPs East and West are referenced for instrument approach procedures.
Publication rules
There are no Airservices produced section dividers for the Civil Aviation Regulations (CAR) 1988 printed in 5 section volumes.
You may produce a section divider for easy access. For example, a coloured card but with no notation other than the Volume description - 'Vol 2 - Part 5' .
You can also secure each of the 5 section volumes in a clearly marked folder.
Self-printed copies of the following publications downloaded from our website is acceptable:
- AIP
- Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998 (CASR)
- Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 (CAR)
- Civil Aviation Orders (CAOs)
- Civil Aviation Advisory Publications (CAAPs)
- Visual Flight Rules Guide (VFRG) – for PPL and RPL exams.
However, you need to adhere to the following rules:
- You only have documents permitted for your exam.
- You have the pages bound together. There are to be no loose sheets of paper. What method of binding is used for documents is not important, but they must be bound in some manner. Candidates may use any binding option they wish. For example, you may use a two ring, three ring, or lever arch binder, or even have pages stapled together.
- The AIP, CASRs, CARs, CAOs, CAAPs and VFRG do not contain manuscript material and are each in a clearly marked folder.
- The folders do not contain other documents, notes or material.
- You need to print self-printed copies on paper no larger than A4 size.
Self-printed copies of documents must be printed directly off the relevant website with no alterations, and must include any relevant headers and footers.
We do not approve you to use self-printed copies of other publications including ERSA, DAPS, ERCs, WACs, or other maps.
Marking and tagging
Underlining and highlighting documents is allowed but you cannot include any form of notations.
The following is the maximum number of tags we allow per publication in an exam:
| Publication | Tags permitted |
|---|---|
| CAR (1988) | no tags permitted |
| CASR (1998) all Parts and the relevant MOSs | no tags permitted |
| CAO | no tags permitted |
| AIP Book (or its Jeppesen equivalent) | maximum of 15 tags |
| Visual Flight Rules Guide (VFRG) | no tags permitted |
| ERSA | maximum of 5 tags |
| Handbook and Operations Manual of exam aircraft | no tags permitted |
| All charts | no tags permitted |
| Any exam-permitted publication not listed here | no tags permitted |
If you have too many tags you will not able to sit the exam until you remove them.
Page tags must be in English and cannot include:
- notes
- formulae
- explanatory notes
- cross-referencing with other pages of the same or other publications
- sketches
- diagrams
- paste-on materials
- training aide memoires.
We don't consider Airservices or Jeppesen produced section dividers, including A – Z dividers as page tags.
CAR/CASR, AIP and Visual Rules Guide
Our documents or publications can also include documents or publications produced by Airservices Australia.
You can find the term 'AIP Complete' in an exam information book. It includes:
- AIP Book, including AIP SUP
- En Route Supplement Australia (ERSA) and Runway Distances Supplement
- DAP East and West
- All Terminal Area Charts (TAC)
- All En Route Charts (ERC) Low and High
- Planning Chart (AUS PCA).
You can use the Visual Flight Rules Guide (VFRG) for private pilot licence and recreational pilot licence (RPL) exams only. The VFRG refers to the document produced by us and not by a third party.
Jeppesen Airway Manual
Using the Jeppesen Airway Manual in an exam, you will use their Standard IFR Paper Services.
They are sold for IFR operations in Australian airspace and include:
- chart legend
- radio aids
- meteorology
- tables and codes
- air traffic control
- entry requirements
- emergency
- airport directory
- terminal
- en route and terminal chart change notices
- en route charts (high, low or high/low altitude)
- area charts - expanded en route chart of high-density areas
- terminal charts (approach plates)
- airport charts
- arrival and departure procedures (STARs and DPs)
- divider tabs
- en route chart pockets.
ERSA
ERSA by itself means the ‘En Route Supplement Australia’ publication.
The term ‘ERSA complete' includes the Runway Distances Supplement.
Nav equipment and electronic calculators
When permitted, the term 'Nav equipment' includes:
- dividers
- compass
- protractor
- ruler (or straight-edge)
- non-electronic 'aviation wind triangle and circular slide rule' computer for example Jeppesen Sanderson CR or other brands or a manual slide rule (if the candidate prefers it).
You can only take one manual pilot computer into the exam.
You can use your own calculator if it is part of the permitted material for your exam but it needs to be a ‘basic calculator’.
A ‘basic calculator’ has:
- four functions (+, -, x and ÷)
- square root function ( √ )
- single memory
- percentage key (%) is optional.
The calculator must not be programmable or be an 'aviation computer' capable of doing CAS/TAS/MN conversions or solving aviation type problems.
This includes determining ground speeds, required heading, wind components or in-flight winds.
If you are sitting your exam at an Aspeq venue, Aspeq will keep a stock of calculators.
In the event your calculator fails, you can borrow a calculator to finish your exam.