Hey Littco
Not at all. I'm just going on experince. At a recent interview that I attended, The caliber was based upon ATPL style qu's, leaning towards making you think about the answers. I'm not saying a 2 stg candidate would have failed, but again going by my previous observation at the exam centre, the qu spotting mentality would have left you in some hot water.
Again all i'm saying is that I feel I personally had more of a knowledge Base, rather than a knowledge bank.
I passed the interview & subsequently have been offered a position with this particular airline. However, the interviewer stressed that he was particularly impressed with the fact that I had seen a somewhat different perspective to certain qu's, ones that I know other candidates found difficult to ans. Not because they did'nt know the exact ans, but by their own admission , "They wern't taught it in enough detail, or did not have time to look into it deep enough" 3 out of the 5 candidates were from a 2 stage course. I will not mention their school. It maybe coincidence, but myself & the other 3 stage girl were chosen.
BTW examples of the qu's were:
1) What is the difference between your a/c wing & that of the 747?
2) High bypass engines are used on commercial airplanes because....?
3) How would you teach a student about Vmca?
4) Tell me about GPS, is it better than IRS for navigation info & why?
5) you are in a 3 eng a/c going from xxxx to yyyy. You lose an eng after take-off. Would you rtn to an IFR minimum approach at xxxx, or continue to yyyy, where it is CAVOK?
6) Why does our airline use the CFM-56 engine? Also describe the difference between our engines and those used from 20-30 yrs ago.
As you can see, the type of qu being asked, is not looking for a stright fwd yes/no, a or b answer. Its with this in mind that I feel the extra time allowed to me on a 3 stg course, gave me the confidence to ans these questions witha degree of authority & accuracy, again, due to the time I had to absorb the relavent knowledge.
In closing I am not knocking the 2 stage system. Infact I know many people whom have gone onto great thing since completing a 2 stg course, but as I reiterrated in the 1st place, it's horses for courses!!
Good luck & hopefully see you up there soon
HPC
