Physics for Pilot Assessments

A ground-up recap of the physics the knowledge tests draw on — mechanics, energy, heat, electricity and light — explained step by step, with diagrams and worked examples.

56 lessons

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Course Lessons

Mechanics

Forces, motion, and how solids and fluids behave. The largest module, and the one everything later leans on.

Mechanics is where the rest of physics gets its vocabulary. Force, mass, acceleration, pressure and density all start here, and the later modules assume you have them — so this module is deliberately the longest, and the fluids and materials lessons in the middle of it carry more weight in the real batteries than their length suggests.

1Quantities, Units and Reading a Physics Question10 min read 2Units You'll Meet in Aviation10 min read 3Speed, Velocity and Acceleration8 min read 4Forces and Newton's Laws8 min read 5Mass, Weight and Free Fall8 min read 6Friction10 min read 7Balanced Forces and Resultants8 min read 8Moments, Levers and Centre of Gravity8 min read 9Simple Machines: Levers, Pulleys, Ramps and Gears9 min read 10Circular Motion8 min read 11Momentum and Collisions8 min read 12Projectiles14 min read 13Gravity Beyond the Ground10 min read

Matter & Fluids

What things are made of and how they behave under pressure: density, floating, hydraulics, flowing fluids, and why materials bend or break.

This module is the other half of mechanics. The lessons before it were about motion; these are about what matter is actually like — how tightly packed it is, how it transmits a push, why some things float, and what happens when you stretch something too far. It carries more weight in the real batteries than its length suggests, because pressure, hydraulics and Bernoulli come up repeatedly. In the practice exercises these questions sit under the Mechanics topic filter, since the test itself does not separate them out.

1Density and the States of Matter12 min read 2Pressure in Solids and Liquids14 min read 3Pascal's Law and Hydraulics10 min read 4Floating, Sinking and Upthrust11 min read 5Fluids in Motion: Continuity and Bernoulli13 min read 6Stretching, Squashing and Material Strength12 min read

Energy, Work & Waves

What energy is, how it moves between forms without ever being lost, and how waves carry it. Supplies the vocabulary the heat and electricity modules assume.

Energy is the idea that ties the rest of physics together, and this module is where it gets defined properly — what work means, where energy goes when it seems to disappear, and how a wave carries it from one place to another without carrying any matter along with it.

1Work and the Joule10 min read 2Kinetic Energy8 min read 3Gravitational Potential Energy10 min read 4Conservation of Energy13 min read 5Power and Efficiency12 min read 6What a Wave Is11 min read 7The Wave Equation7 min read 8Sound12 min read 9Doppler, Interference and Resonance14 min read 10Oscillation and the Pendulum10 min read 11The Electromagnetic Spectrum9 min read

Heat & Thermodynamics

Temperature versus heat, how heat travels, what happens to gases when you squeeze or warm them, and why some energy always escapes as waste.

Heat is energy on the move, and almost every question in this module comes back to a single picture: matter is made of particles, and heating something means giving those particles more to do. Once that picture is in place, the gas laws and the direction heat flows stop being arbitrary rules.

1Temperature, Heat and the Kelvin Scale11 min read 2Kinetic Theory: Why Gases Push12 min read 3Specific Heat Capacity10 min read 4Changing State and Latent Heat12 min read 5Conduction, Convection and Radiation13 min read 6Emissivity: Why Dark Surfaces Radiate Better12 min read 7The Gas Laws13 min read 8The Atmosphere: Pressure, Temperature and Density with Height15 min read 9Compressing and Expanding Gases14 min read 10The First Law and Where Energy Goes15 min read

Electricity & Magnetism

Charge, current and voltage; how resistance shapes a circuit; and the two-way link between electricity and magnetism that makes motors and generators work.

Electricity is easier to reason about than it looks, because almost all of it follows from three quantities and one relationship between them. This module builds those up in order, then turns to magnetism and the connection between the two that underlies every motor and every generator.

1Charge, Current and the Circuit11 min read 2Voltage, Energy and EMF10 min read 3Resistance and Ohm's Law11 min read 4What Resistance Depends On9 min read 5Series Circuits8 min read 6Parallel Circuits10 min read 7Electrical Power and Safety9 min read 8Magnets and Magnetic Fields13 min read 9Electricity and Magnetism Together16 min read

Light & Optics

How light travels, what happens when it meets a surface or crosses into glass or water, and how mirrors and lenses form images.

Light is a wave, which the previous module established, and this one follows what that wave does when it runs into things — a mirror, a water surface, a lens, a prism. Nearly every question here is answered by tracing rays, so the diagrams are doing more of the work than the prose.

1How Light Travels13 min read 2Reflection and Mirrors12 min read 3Refraction13 min read 4Total Internal Reflection10 min read 5Lenses and Image Formation16 min read 6The Eye and Corrective Lenses11 min read 7Colour, Dispersion and What the Spectrum Is Used For14 min read