Ace Your FAA A&P General and Airframe Written Exams: Shop Logic vs Rote Prep
Two of the biggest question banks in aviation
The Aviation Mechanic General and Airframe writtens cover a staggering range: electricity, weight and balance, materials and corrosion, structures, sheet metal, hydraulics, fuel, and environmental systems. Try to memorize your way through all of it and you will drown. A small set of formulas and a few inspection rules carry a lopsided share of the questions.
Better still, that math is not just test filler. Learn it once and it comes back on the Oral and Practical, where an examiner hands you a task and expects you to compute and justify it, not just recognize the right letter. Build the reusable pieces first.
The formulas that keep coming back
Three relationships show up over and over. Learn them as triangles you can rearrange, and you can solve for whatever the question leaves blank.
Matching a material to the right inspection
The materials questions pair a metal or composite with the correct way to inspect it. One fact answers most of them: magnetic particle inspection only works on ferromagnetic material, so it is a steel method, never an aluminum one. Remember that and the rest sorts itself out.
| Material | Common inspection methods | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Steel (ferromagnetic) | Magnetic particle, dye penetrant, ultrasonic | Surface and near-surface cracks |
| Aluminum alloy | Dye penetrant, eddy current, ultrasonic | Intergranular and stress corrosion |
| Magnesium | Dye penetrant, eddy current | Fast, aggressive corrosion; never magnetic particle |
| Titanium | Dye penetrant, eddy current, ultrasonic | Not magnetic; sensitive to overheating during work |
| Composite / bonded laminate | Coin-tap test, ultrasonic, thermography | Delamination and disbond hidden under the surface |
The logic behind every sheet metal repair
Structural repair questions all ask the same thing in disguise: does the repair put the original strength back without adding harmful stiffness or weight? The principles stay constant:
- A patch should carry the load the original skin carried, so its rivet pattern and gauge match or beat the original.
- Stay inside the edge distance and pitch limits: too close and the sheet tears between holes, too far and the joint buckles.
- Use the manufacturer's structural repair manual first, then AC 43.13-1B for acceptable methods when no specific data exists.
The written is your foundation for the O&P
The Oral and Practical hands you a task and a reference and expects you to work it in front of the examiner. Doing the calculations by hand now, rather than just recognizing them on a screen, is what makes them hold up under questioning later. The Mechanic Airframe Practice Test runs the electrical, hydraulic, and structures questions with the governing standard on every answer, so the formulas you drill are the ones you will be asked to defend at the O&P.
