abracadabra
The AHC usually takes place 1 month before the TR course starts. It lasts for around 7 days. You hand over £3000 at the start of the course. Your notice period in your current job is the tricky thing. If (like most people) it is 3 months that is too bad, you will be 2 months into your notice period when you do the AHC. If you fail to meet the required standard, too bad no job to get or go back to. This does happen, so beware. Ezy doesn't care, you are not an employee yet remember. If you are concerned about it and you want to screw someone else rather than be screwed in this lovely little deal, don't resign from your present job until you are through the AHC and your present company can chase you for the 2 months you will owe them. Most, if not all, of the people who do the course, try to do the right thing by their present company and some do get caught out. It is not a pleasant aspect of the TRSS, but nobody seems to care, and who said TRSS was a pleasant experience anyway. Only the people who didn't do it i suspect, oh and the people making money from it.
The AHC is a (very) expensive 7 day chop ride that the customer (you, the chap who paid 3 grand for it) will probably not enjoy, in a big computer game that was designed to teach SOP's cheaper than a full motion sim. It doesn't fly like the aircraft, they don't (or didn't) use easyjets SOP's but a cobbled together bunch of their own SOP's, and each instructor you get will have his own idea about how things should be done anyway. You learn very quickly to not say 'but the guy yesterday told us to do it this way'. The whole idea of the course is for ctc to get a look at the 'candidate' to ensure that they think the candidate will be capable of passing their course, because if they don't get through to the lpc/opc, ctc don't get paid the full amount. The best bit is they can do this at no risk AND make some money out of you at the same time. Do you get anything from the AHC? A lot of stress as you are in job limbo and down a significant amount of cash. You get to see what is coming for the TR course wrt some of the instructors and get a heads up on how the fixed base sim handles. Oh, the food was good. Thats about it.
Any second opinions out there from someone else who has had the pleasure of the AHC.....anyone who actually enjoyed it??