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Checked 4 September 2026

Which DGCA question bank
should you actually use?

A straight comparison of what the main DGCA question banks in India cost and what you get for it — including where AIVR CPL is behind. Every competitor figure is the one that platform publishes itself, read on 4 September 2026 and linked so you can check it.

Try ours free→ Where we lose ₹0 · no card · no tier to upgrade to

Side by side

What each one actually gives you.

Every figure in the three right-hand columns is what that platform publishes about itself, read on 4 September 2026 and cited below. Where a number is a marketing claim with nothing behind it, the table says so.

Competitor names are partly masked and none of them is linked. Every figure is one that platform publishes about itself, cited below — we would simply rather not spend this page’s search visibility, or its traffic, on the products it is arguing against.

 AIVR CPLP•lotSph•reAv•oQu•zP•lot Par•ksha
Price of the question bank₹0, permanently. No paid tier exists. aheadFreeFree starter; full bank is paid ProPaid membership, free trial
Questions121,793 distinct, across 457 chapters ahead9,0026,36350,000+their claim
Subjects15, including six aircraft types as separate subjects 6 DGCA subjects + 14 ATPL theory subjects9 subject areasDGCA, CPL, ATPL, RTR, airline prep, type rating
Per-aircraft Technical Specific banks2Six — C152, C172R, DA42 Austro, DA42 Thielert, Piper Archer III DX, Tecnam P2008JC, each its own paper aheadNot offered as separate banksNot offeredTechnical Specific listed, not split by type
Worked solutions3479 of 4,182 numericals solved in full, published as a count and growing weekly behindExplanations offeredDetailed explanations behind the paid tierExplanations offered
Full-length timed papers to the real DGCA shapeYes — 50 × 2 marks or 100 × 1, correct duration per paper, pass at 70, nothing revealed until submit aheadMock tests offeredChapter quizzes; score trackingMock tests offered
Score prediction4Item Response Theory model with a confidence range, a guessing floor and a coverage gate aheadPerformance trackingScore trackingProgress tracking
Account needed to practiseNo. Practice and the free video classes are open; an account is needed for Test mode, a full Exam paper and purchases Account requiredNo signup wall for quizzesAccount required
Free full-length video classes2 chapters, 2 hr 3 min, streamed in full with no account aheadNoneNoneNone
  1. The 50,000+ figure is that platform’s own published claim and is not independently verifiable; the others are counts their sites state. Ours is the number of distinct question records in the bank, which is smaller than the sum of the per-subject listings because a question that appears in two chapters is offered in both.
  2. This is the clearest gap in the market. A Tecnam candidate sitting a mixed Technical Specific paper is being asked about an aircraft they have never flown.
  3. We are behind here and the number is on this page for that reason. What we will not do is claim "worked solutions on every question" — a claim this site itself made for a month while the real figure was 11%, and which every platform in this table makes without publishing a number behind it.
  4. The distinction that matters: tracking tells you what you scored, a readiness model estimates what you would score on a paper you have not seen — and refuses to answer when it has too little evidence.

Sources

  • P•lotSph•re — Free, account required. The closest thing to a like-for-like free competitor. Figures from its own DGCA question bank page.
  • Av•oQu•z — Free starter tier; the full bank and the explanations are the paid Pro tier. Figures from its own DGCA question bank page.
  • P•lot Par•ksha — Paid membership with a free trial. Also covers RTR and type rating. Figures from its own question bank page.

Each figure was read from that platform’s own public page on 4 September 2026. We do not link to them — a page arguing that you should use this one instead has no business being their referral channel — but nothing here is hidden: search the description and you will find them. Figures change, so if one of these is out of date, tell us at admin.aivrcpl@gmail.com and it will be corrected, including where the correction goes against us.

The honest bit

Where we win,
and where we do not.

Where we are behindWorked solutions: 479 of 4,182 numericals

Every platform in the table above offers explanations. We publish how many we have actually written — 479 of the 4,182 numericals in the bank — and each subject page prints its own figure, read out of the bank at build time rather than typed into the copy.

This site claimed "a worked solution on every numerical" for about a month while the real number was 11%. That claim is gone, the count replaced it, and the count moves on its own as the queue is written down. If explanations on every question are what you need today, one of the paid tiers above will serve you better, and that is a reasonable thing to buy.

Where we are behindWe do not cover RTR or type rating

One of the three platforms above covers RTR and type-rating preparation; we do not sell either here. RTR Part 2 is taught on aivr.in, our sister platform, and the A320 bank on this site is a type question bank, not a type-rating course. If you want one login for everything including RTR, we are not it.

Where we are aheadThere is no tier to upgrade to

The distinction worth understanding is not free-versus-paid, it is free tier versus free product. A free starter tier is a sample of a bank you are expected to buy, and the questions you have not seen are the point of it.

All 21,793 questions here are open, including the timed papers and the readiness engine, and there is no paid version of them to sell you later. The video classes are a separate product you never need to buy to use the bank — and two of their chapters are free too.

Where we are aheadSix aircraft types, examined separately

DGCA Technical Specific is sat on one aircraft. Nobody else in this table splits it, so a Cessna 152 candidate revising Technical Specific is served DA42 questions about an aircraft they have never flown.

Each of the six types here is its own subject with its own chapters and its own 50-question paper, and a paper drawn for one type can never contain a question from another.

The other market

And what DGCA
ground school costs.

The question bank is free and always will be. The video classes are a separate, optional product, and this is the market they sit in — one DGCA subject, taught on video, priced by each provider on their own site.

CoursePriceWhat you get
AIVR CPL — Meteorology video classes₹14,00021 chapters, 13 hr 55 min, 28 days of unlimited replays. 2 chapters free to watch first.
Another online DGCA CPL Meteorology course₹20,000Payable in three instalments; recorded class available if you miss a live one.
An on-demand Aviation Meteorology CPL course₹49,900Recorded and self-paced. A free demo class is offered.
Full CPL ground school (typical market range)₹30,000 – ₹2.5 lakhFrom a single subject at the low end to a complete five-paper ground school at the high end.

Prices as published by each provider on 4 September 2026, named generically for the same reason as the table above. Ours includes 2 chapters you can watch in full before paying anything — see the Meteorology classes.

Straight answers

Comparison FAQ

Which DGCA question bank is the best?
It depends on what is missing from your preparation. If you want the largest genuinely free bank with full-length timed papers and per-aircraft Technical Specific, AIVR CPL is the strongest option and costs nothing. If you want a written explanation on the majority of questions today, a paid tier elsewhere will serve you better right now — our coverage is 479 of 4,182 numericals and published on every page. Nobody has to choose only one: they are all free to try.
Is AIVR CPL really free, or is there a catch?
It is free, and there is no paid tier of the question bank to upgrade to. All 21,793 questions, the mistakes bank, the full-length timed papers and the readiness engine are open permanently. The one paid product on the site is the video classes, which are separate, optional, and give 2 chapters away free.
How does AIVR CPL compare to the other free DGCA question bank?
The largest free rival publishes 9,002 questions, free with an account, and covers RTR and the fourteen ATPL theory subjects, which we do not. AIVR CPL holds 21,793 distinct questions across 457 chapters, adds six per-aircraft Technical Specific banks, full-length papers to the real DGCA shape and a readiness model, and needs no account to practise. Both are free — trying both costs nothing, and the sources section above says where to find theirs.
What about the ones with a free starter tier?
One of the three publishes 6,363 questions with a free starter tier; the full bank and the detailed explanations are their paid Pro tier. On AIVR CPL there is no starter tier — the whole bank is the free product. Their paid explanations currently cover more questions than our free worked solutions do, which is the honest trade.
What about the platform claiming 50,000+ questions?
That is their published figure and we have no way to verify it, so the table marks it as a claim. It is also worth knowing what a large number can be made of: counting the same question once per chapter it appears in inflates a total substantially. Our own listing counts sum to about 24,000 against 21,793 distinct records, and we publish the smaller number.
Why are the other platforms’ names partly hidden, and why no links?
Because this page exists to help you choose, not to advertise them. The figures are theirs and every one is cited, but a page arguing that you should use this one instead has no business sending traffic or search visibility to the three it is arguing against. The names stay readable enough for you to find them yourself. Nothing about the comparison itself is hidden — including the rows where we come off worse, which are marked exactly as plainly as the rows we win.
Are the DGCA video classes worth ₹14,000 when the question bank is free?
They are two different things. The bank drills questions; the classes teach the paper. Comparable single-subject DGCA ground school runs from about ₹20,000 to ₹49,900 elsewhere, so ₹14,000 for 21 recorded chapters and 13 hr 55 min of teaching is at the lower end of that market — and you can watch 2 full chapters before deciding, which most providers do not offer.

Try all of them.

Most of the banks above have a free tier, and ours is the whole product — 21,793 questions, 457 chapters, full-length timed papers, no card. Comparing them costs nothing but an evening.

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