In a recent Airmen Testing Community Advisory from the FAA, it was revealed that starting April 24, 2023, the time to take the Private Pilot Airplane written test will be reduced from 150 minutes to 120 minutes (2 hours), and the Commercial Pilot Airplane test time will be reduced from 180 minutes to 150 minutes (2.5 hours).
Additionally, five unscored validation questions will be added to each test, increasing the Private Pilot test from 60 to 65 questions and the Commercial from 100 to 105 questions.
Unscored questions do not count towards the test score, according to FAA officials. They explain that these questions are included to allow the FAA to evaluate the statistical performance of new questions before they are deployed in the standard bank of test questions.
Piloting an airplane is more intense today than many years past. Shorting the test time is a money decision for the FAA and the testing contractor.
So much more to learn today than 40 years ago.
I would like to know the change in the pass/fail rate with the shorter time.
Todays test has less questions about airspace and weather and more about the less important things
The beginning point for all FAA edicts or regulations should be for the FAA moguls to re-read the legislation which created the FAA. It very carefully announces that the FAA,s mission and reason for being is to PROMOTE aviation in all of the ways that term can be used. That is made even clearer each time Congress has addressed the FAA in its many actions. I continue to write my Senator and Representatives to remind them of this and ask that they remind FAA for the reason it is allowed to continue. Perhaps the US should do away with the FAA and place the pilots and airports of this country under the regulation of ICAO-(International Civil Aviation Organization) which now applies to all other countries.
Be careful what you wish for!!!!
Each “other countr[y]” has its own “governing body of aviation” (my term) equivalent to the FAA, e.g. CAA in UK, EASA in EU, CASA in Australia, TCCA in Canada.
ICAO does NOT regulate aviation in ANY country! ICAO is an arm of United Nations (like UNESCO) that coordinates standards agreed (and frequently amended/updated) between representatives of these country “governing bodies” meeting regularly at ICAO offices in Montreal or Geneva. Any ICAO standard is NOT applicable in any country until that country’s “governing body” decides to adopt that standard, either as mandatory or as a recommendation to aviators – or to ignore that standard if the “governing body” prefers to do so.. Each country’s “governing body” retains the right to adopt whatever other standards, restrictions and limitations that “governing body” believes to be appropriate.
I have experience of GA operations under 4 “governing bodies”. I can assure you that FAA is BY FAR the most pilot-friendly, progressive and lenient of the “governing bodies” I have experienced. FAA attitude to general aviation has considerable room for improvement – but FAA’s attitude to general aviation is ALREADY miles ahead of any other “governing body” I have experienced, in every area including SAFE introduction of new technologies.
It seems the FAA’s testing protocols are complicating things for people who aspire to get their pilot’s license. The costs associated with becoming a pilot are already soaring and this becomes another discouraging detractor to gaining it.
WHY?