By the numbers
Every DGCA paper ranked by pass rate, so you know where to put your prep hours
We ranked all seven CPL papers by how often a written paper passes, using every result DGCA ever published. Some are coin flips. One deserves the biggest block on your calendar.
Aryan · Founder, Ready Aviator·11 June 2026·4 min read
You get the same weeks as everyone else sitting these papers. Where you spend them is the whole game. So we ranked every DGCA CPL paper by how often a written paper passes, using every result DGCA ever published. Read it as a map for your calendar.
The ladder, from friendliest to toughest
Here’s every paper, ranked by how many pass out of every 100 written.
Out of every 100 papers written, how many pass
Every published result, 2024 – April 2026 · *DGCA-conducted RTR results cover one session (2025) only.
RTR sits on top, though that’s a single session of results, so hold it loosely. Technical Specific passes about three papers in four. Aviation Meteorology is roughly a coin flip, and Air Regulation sits a little below one. Then the floor drops.
Radio Aids lives at the bottom of the ladder, but only a small fraction of candidates sit it: about 3,400, against seventeen thousand for the mainstream papers. If it isn’t on your syllabus, cross it off your worry list entirely.
Air Navigation deserves your respect, and most of your hours
30
Read that as a sizing instruction, not a warning. Air Navigation rewards method over memorising: wind triangles, drift, headings, the CX-3 sequence. Give it the biggest block on your calendar, learn it as a method, and it behaves like any other paper.
The ladder also shows where unfinished business piles up. About half of everyone who has ever attempted Air Navigation hasn’t cleared it yet, against roughly one in four for Meteorology. Most of that gap is students giving their toughest paper the same hours as their easiest one.
How to read this as a prep calendar
Split your weeks by the ladder, not evenly. Meteorology and the technical papers reward steady revision. Air Navigation wants daily problem-solving, the way you’d train for a sport. The papers near the top of the ladder still need real prep, just not your biggest block.
Next in this series: how many attempts clearing these papers actually takes. A preview: the Air Navigation average is about two, and the data says that’s completely normal. Quality prep buys back calendar months, and months are the expensive part of this process.