It is a historical artifact — useful for nostalgia or supplementary drilling on rock-solid physics topics, but dangerous for Air Law, OPS, and newer navigation procedures.
Be careful: Some sellers label 2016–2019 banks as “2018” — check for references to (early 2018 banks ignore Brexit; late 2018 may mention it).
Despite being outdated, some students still seek it because:
If you have no access to a modern bank (e.g., Aviation Exam, PadPilot, OAT Media, Bristol Groundschool), use the 2018 bank :
| Source | Format | Updates | Cost | |--------|--------|---------|------| | | App/Web | Real-time, tracks EASA changes | ~€12–20/month | | EasyATPL | App/Web | Regular updates | ~€10–15/month | | Bristol Groundschool | Books + App | Annual updates | Higher (course) | | PadPilot | Books + Question bank | Frequent | Medium–High | | OAT Media | App | Good for EASA | ~€10/month |
| Risk | Explanation | |------|-------------| | | EASA removes, rewords, or changes answers every year. You may learn a “correct” 2018 answer that is now wrong. | | Missing new topics | New regulations (e.g., revised Air Law, PBN, UAS integration, EASA Part-FCL changes after 2020) are absent. | | No performance tracking | Most 2018 banks are static PDFs, not adaptive learning apps. | | False confidence | Memorizing 2018 answers may give 60% in real exam if 40% of questions are new/changed. | | No explanation updates | Reasoning behind answers may have changed (e.g., altimeter settings rules, separation minima). |
Before the massive overhaul of the 2020 syllabus (Amendment 4), the 2018 version was considered the most stable and reliable set of data for student pilots. Breakdown of the 14 ATPL Subjects