Hello guys,
As this forum was pretty useful for me to prepare, I thought I ’d give my feedback on my assessment.
About me:
I am 24 years old, finished my ATPL and earned my licenses in the beginning of February 2018 with 145 hours+60 FNPTII. I have a degree in transportation engineering (BsC) and a year experience as a simulator technician in an FNPTII sim.
Application process:
1st: 14th of Feb to APC with e-mail on 28th of Feb about oncoming call then mail about the closure of APC on 7th March.
2nd: applied to the bonded scheme on 7th of March, received the e-mail about completed application on 20th March ,will call e-mail on 6th of April, and call on 13th of April.
Assessment:
I got the date for the 2nd May with 11 other guys. I was scheduled to the afternoon group with 3 really nice lads. We were met by the assessors in the hall at 12 o’ clock and guided through the building to our area where the assessment was about to take place. Our assessor was a nice and experienced captain who gave us a briefing about how things going to happen, and then he asked for our paper work and gave us the charts and let us do the briefing with our partner.
Technical interview:
I prepared a lot for the technical because I expected a wide variety of questions from different ATPL subjects due to my low flying experience. I went back to my flight school a week before my assessment to have an hour of flying with the Be76 which I did my ME/IR on just to refresh both manual skills and AFM as well. I got the following questions:
Be76 related: Max Xwind, VNE,VFE , VLO (What speed and what is it?) ENG type. Why is it a good plane for training? (No Crit Eng and it has a T-tail) What is CritEng? What advantages does a T-tail have? What kind of prop does it have? What happens with a constant speed prop’s RPM if we descend? What happens with it if you suddenly pitch up the aircraft? What is the CRZ MAP and RPM setting?
Other technical questions: What are the advantages of stabilizers? What are the disadvantages of swept wings? How many Pax maximum on 737-800? How many 737-800 does RYR have? In a METAR what is BR and how is „Snow Grains” coded? What is TEM (Threat and Error Management)? What Threats can I think of in the upcoming simulator session? (New partner, different MCC, different charts( we used Jeppesen back in my school)) How can we reduce those threats? ( comprehensive briefing what I answered) How does the TCAS work? What does it communicate with? How does the radio altimeter work? What is TAT? Do you know anything about CFIT?( I told them that I wrote part of my final thesis about it so then we jumped to the next question
)
Simulator:
After the technical we had about 45 minutes to wait so we did another briefing with my partner. I was paired with a really nice French guy who also really wanted to get the job so he prepared very well. I suggest taking the free time you have to go through the briefing in small details, who is doing what, what speeds, what actions and so on, because things in the sim are going to happen pretty fast. We had Liverpool that day, SID departure then aerial work, QDM,QDR capturing then company message that the DEST is closed and we shall return to Liverpool. We made a DODAR then APP briefing. I have forgotten to give the FA a NITS briefing so later he ”came in” and advised that we have smoke in the aft cabin. We decided to continue without further actions back to LPL, we declared and EMER and meanwhile I gave a NITS briefing as I realised that probably that’s why the smoke scenario was made up. Then ILS approach, seat swap, same things but we had a sick passenger in the next round.
I am not giving such detailed feedback about the sim because each scenario can be different, but as long as you think and communicate as a team and you are able to fly and operate the aircraft safely it should be all right.
I stayed in an Airbnb house just 10 minutes walk from the HQ where I met some guys arriving for the Wing Ceremony so it was a good place to stay. The house is operated by Brian who was very helpful and a nice host.
For the technical I prepared from Pprune and used the Ace the technical pilot interview book as well as my ATPL notes.
For the simulator I was lucky enough to have a 737 in Hungary which is pretty cheap, around 50 EUR/hr on weekdays in a company called Pilots Simulator Center. The sim is very well built, however it has no force on the stick which makes it harder to properly fly the aircraft but it takes around 30mins to get used to it and then you will be pretty happy how stable the sim is on the assessment.
I wish everyone the best for the assessment. I won’t tell that you should not worry because probably you will, but prepare, and then it will be a great experience.