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Tips to you excel in your Airbus A320 Type Rating

Firstly, congratulations on taking the next step in your aviation career! Type ratings involve extremely intense weeks of learning, and so it’s important to give yourself the very best chance to excel in the Airbus A320 type rating. Here, we hope to give you some A320 tips & tricks to mastering the Airbus.

Familiarisation

Of course if you’re beginning a new type rating there’s a high chance that you’ve never stood in the cockpit of this new aircraft type before. New trainees initially struggle with finding their place within the flight deck. 

Before diving head first to the depths of the aircraft systems, and operating manuals. I would print a cockpit layout chart (available at 320theory.com/flightdeck) and hang it off a wall or a hotel door. Place a chair in front and envision I was sat in the flight deck. From there begin familiarising yourself with the placement of different handles, controls and buttons. Flight decks vary wildly across the industry and differ significantly as the aircraft increases in MTOW. Later down the line, this layout will be a vital tool in memorising the Airbus A320’s QRH emergency memory actions. 

As well as, learning the layout of the ‘land’ (flight deck’s buttons, knobs, and levers), It’s key to similarities yourself with the layout of the instruments also. Over this next chapter of your career you will spend hours a day monitoring and operating this aircraft from the information displayed in the flight deck. So it’s important to familiarise yourself with the PFD, ND, ECAM, ISIS (Integrated Standby Instrument System). Find out what information comes from where, understand what comes out of every line and every corner of the instruments and where the key flight parameters are displayed. This can be done through YouTube videos or online content, to give you an idea behind the function of each instrument. If this is your first type rating you may not fully understand most of it. But once you get deeper into your type rating, this initial familiarisation with the instruments will provide a strong foundation when you come to sitting in the simulator and start operating, your brain will already know where you need to look for each bit of information you need. 

STUDY

You might think that it’s best to “hit the ground running” with regards to pre type rating reading and learn the FCOM word by word in a dark room. However, it’s much more important you know where to find the information, than learn each system in-depth at this stage. You may lack the framework to understanding all the aircraft systems and how they interact with each other. When delving into the FCOM on your own, may get you confused at a later stage. Ultimately, this is why you’re doing a type rating, let the instructor guide you, and help you avoid spending time learning irrelevant information. The key to successful type rating preparation is understanding where to find the information, be this through iPad indexing, technical information, company procedures, etc.

Memory items

QRH memory items are crucial information that pilots need to revise and know throughout their time operating the Airbus A320 family, as well as during the initial type rating. It will benefit you in the long run to get these items into your head, and learn them off by heart. Perhaps whilst conducting them in-front of your cockpit layout, on the hotel door or at home. Luckily here at 320theory.com we have created all the Airbus A320 flashcards for you, for free! Find them at 320theory.com/flashcards, Open a new card try complete the memory actions off the top of head, then turn the card over to see if you were correct.

Enjoy

In conclusion the best way you can prepare yourself for your Airbus A320 type rating in the weeks running up to your start date, is just familiarisation. Get yourself familiar with the layout of the flight deck and where to find the relevant information. Let your instructors guide you through the technical knowledge, to use your time effectively. Most importantly enjoy it! Type ratings can be extremely busy times, and often people are so focused on the stresses of a type rating, they forget to enjoy learning such a innovative and technically advanced machine. Here at 320theory, we have the resources to allow you to excel throughout your airbus type rating. We offer over 900 questions in our technical question bank, memory action flashcards, with crucial crib sheets.