ATPL Airframe and Systems

Aircraft General Knowledge is the subject candidates think they already know. The paper is written to catch the ones who learnt it from one aeroplane. 80 questions. 2 hours. 75% to pass. Subject 021 is one examination in two halves, and this book is the first: the airframe, and every system that is neither electrical nor an engine, 197 learning objectives for 40 of the 80 marks. At 4.9 objectives per mark it is the cheaper half, the one to bank; the electrics and engines need 7.8. And its questions turn on one word: anti-icing or de-icing, VLO or VLE, fail-safe or damage tolerant, an additive that stops the water in the fuel freezing but not the fuel itself. ATPL Airframe and Systems is a complete revision guide and question bank for the EASA and UK CAA airline transport pilot licence theory examination, written by an airline captain and Chief Flight Instructor, and built on all 197 learning objectives of topics 021 01 to 021 08, 021 12 and 021 13. It teaches the principle, and says where aeroplanes differ. Every system is reasoned from its mechanism, so you can work out what a lost pump, a leaking duct or a locked flap will cost you without a mnemonic, and every distractor that is true of some aeroplane somewhere is named as such. The schematics are all drawn for one invented reference twin whose systems fit together as a real aeroplane's do. What is inside Where the marks are, on one page, and in this subject it should change the order you read in: fire, smoke and oxygen pay six marks for fourteen objectives, the wings and fuselage two for twenty-one. 222 practice questions with worked explanations — 182 through the chapters, plus a 40-question mock examination paper, half of the Subject 021 paper and weighted exactly as that half is, built only from objectives the chapters did not test. No question is asked twice. The confusable pairs and Traps, and why they work in every chapter: fail-safe and damage tolerant, hoop and longitudinal stress, the priority valve and the fuse valve, VLO and VLE, Jet A and Jet A-1. 54 clear diagrams drawn for this book, from the torsion box and the hydraulic schematic to the fly-by-wire loop, the bleed system, the fuel schematic and the oxygen regulator. Every figure sourced, in Numbers you must own**, from CS-25, CS-23, Part-CAT and the fuel specifications. A glossary and a 214-entry index.** Ten chapters covering the first half of the syllabus: design, loads, fatigue and materials; wings, fuselage and structural limits; hydraulics; landing gear, brakes and tyres; primary and secondary flight controls; fly-by-wire; pneumatics, pressurisation and air conditioning; ice and rain protection; fuel systems; and fire, smoke and oxygen. Written for the paper you are actually sitting. The book follows the 2026 EASA syllabus and CS-25 as it now stands, and says plainly where older or US-based textbooks differ, from the flight-control jam requirement to bird-strike and cabin altitude limits. For integrated and modular students, frozen ATPL candidates, and line pilots who want to know why the checklist asks for what it does. A revision guide, not a course of training or a type rating: enrolment with an Approved Training Organisation remains a legal prerequisite. It contains no questions from any question bank — every question was written for this book. It names no manufacturer, aircraft type or operator; its aeroplane and data are fictional, made to teach a method, and your aircraft's flight manual and operating procedures always take precedence.