NATS interview process

[Pat42]

Inchy,

This question comes up a lot, so well worth reading back through the thread a bit for more advice, but here's my two pence...

I recently sat my S1 and made a point of trying to memorise all of that data (though I must admit that there are a few details I probably couldn't recall perfectly). NATS include it in their document, so in theory they can ask you any of it. In my test, and I get the impression this is fairly standard, there were only two or three questions on this stuff... but you don't know which aircraft those two or three questions are going to be on (and I don't think it would be appropriate for me to tell you) so if you don't know it all then you risk throwing away a few marks here if you aren't lucky about which details they quiz you on.

The above said, if you are struggling then here are a few pointers:

Firstly, remember that all the tests are multiple choice, so if learning the exact details of every aircraft are a little too much then try to learn a few ballpark figures (e.g. x group of aircraft all fly within +/-20kts of speed y). This should hopefully give you enough to work out the correct answer from the selection on offer.

Secondly, I found quite a useful technique was to try and understand the relationships between the different aircraft. For example I know that, with the exception of the 747 (which is the big daddy), the boeing aircraft generally get bigger, fly further and fly higher as the numbers get bigger. Based upon this knowledge and given a multiple choice of answers you should be able to make a reasonably educated guess as to the specific details of any of the boeing aircraft based upon the details of one or two others. This means that if, for example, you know the stats for the 737 and the 777, then even if you can't remember the stats for the 757 or the 767 you should be able to guess these with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Memorising operators is a bit harder. I found it easier to approach this by learning which aircraft the main operators (as listed in the NATS document) fly, rather than learning a list of operators for each specific aircraft. For example I know that British Airways fly a predominantly Boeing fleet - thus I just remember one fact to recall a common operator of every single type of boeing aircraft (except the 737NG) rather than learning this as one fact for each aircraft... the end result is the same, but it is a different way of looking at the problem which I found simplified it a lot.

Hope this helps.