Is Radio Navigation (062) Hard? And Can You Memorise It?

VOR, NDB, ILS, DME, ADF, MLS, GNSS, radar, TCAS/ACAS, transponders and hyperbolic systems.

A systems subject with a physics backbone — frequencies, coverage, errors and limitations for each aid.

For the full topic-by-topic syllabus breakdown, see the Radio Navigation subject guide.

Any single number here would be false precision, so we won’t give one. As a rough planning figure, most self-study candidates allocate 40–80 hours per subject, and students report Radio Navigation typically sitting toward the middle of that range. A sizeable exam (66 questions) but with more recall and fewer long calculations than 061.

Your own figure depends on background, maths comfort and whether you are studying full-time — treat the range as a budget to adjust, not a target to hit.

Frequency bands, ranges and error values are legitimate memorisation targets. But the community warning covers this subject explicitly too — understand the minimum theory even where questions look banky: propagation behaviour and GNSS principles are exactly where reworded questions separate understanding from recognition.

“I would not recommend to memorize answers without understanding the minimum theory even if they are banky”— a student in our community, on GNAV, RNAV and Instrumentation

Sit Radio Navigation with General Navigation (061) — the seeded navigation pair.

How the pairings fit into a full plan — and why order matters — is covered in the recommended order of study, with the sitting mechanics in sittings & limits.