Did you buy sim prep?

[I'mbatman]

I'm interested to see who here did NOT buy sim prep and was succesful at Cathay and what your feelings regarding that choice were? Thanks
IB

[Harbour Dweller]

Well worth every cent..

Do not underestimate how important the Sim ride is in the CX process.

[Jaguar7777]

I would not have liked my chances without the sim prep.

Strongly Advised - esp for not jet applicants.

:ok:

[boxjockey]

I didn't take the sim prep, but ONLY because I got the 400. If I had gotten the 200 I definitely would have done it. Either way, it's well worth doing, as you can never be too prepared.

box

[CMOTDibler]

Didn't buy any Sim Prep time and did the Sim ride in the -200 at CX. Got in no probs. When I joined I was flying Helicopters, zip big jet time. It's just a plane, use the basics and show improvement and you'll be fine.

[CMOTDibler]

I was rushed for time and so brevity took precedent for my initial reply. Just to quantify things, although I didn't do any Sim time I still practised the procedures and learned the approx. power settings/attitudes etc. I'm a straight average kind of pilot, not especially brilliant so I figure if I could get in without doing spending money on a sim most people can.
Having said that many of my friends used the Qantas -200 sim in Syd and had no regrets. As always it comes down to personal choice, my choice was influenced by a bit of laziness, a bit of naievity and always lack of cash!
My advice would be that if you can afford to do it it can only have positives, but if you can't its not a game breaker, you can still pass by applying yourself and the proper basic techniques.

Hope thats more help and good luck.

[HeavyWrenchFlyer]

I did a sim eval in a 707 seven years ago, without any time in a 707 sim or any jet time whatsoever (I did spend 12yrs as AMT on almost all types of widebody aircraft except the 707 for what it's worth). I did my prep on my own in a Frasca-142 which is very sensitive and hard to control if you're not used to it and makes the full motion large jet sims seem easy to fly. I was extermely well prepared compared to the others and to my surprise I did so well on the eval which was very similar to CX's profile that the evaluator literally could not contain himself going on about it for a good ten minutes saying it's the best he's seen for his past 6 years of doing interview evals including USAF 707 drivers. But in retrospect that job wasn't nearly worth as much as this one to me, so even I don't plan to skimp out on actual sim time before going for the CX eval, even though I did it before and it worked perfectly well for me and now I have a few thousand hours of jet time. This one is too important.

[Hugh Gorgen]

If you havent flown an aircraft of significant size and momentum, Id definately recommend spending the time and money to receive some sim instruction. It is after all an investment in your future and you would kick yourself if you failed to gain employment due to a poor sim performance.
I spent quite a few hours flying a heavy jet sim and it was worth every second. Reduced the mystery of the sim assessment and greatly improved my performance ( from a 1 to a 3 out of 10 I might add !!).

[HeavyWrenchFlyer]

Well, I'm coughin' up $1100 USD for a couple of hours in the UAL 747-200 sim in DEN thru FTI.:ouch: We'll see how it goes. Any one else going there?