Cathay Pacific Cadet Pilot Programme

[futureTP]

London Assessments!

Hello everyone, I have been meaning to post my experience of stage 1 but just have not got round to it until now (been lazy!).

First of all I want to thank all the guys that have posted their experience of the various stages for the cadet scheme which is very helpful, I read through all the posts and would highly recommend to anyone that has an interview coming up to do so, it can take a while though and don’t take every post so seriously!

Given that everyone has shared their experience so openly it’s only right that I share mine, most of the stuff has already been mentioned but each stage 1 format varies depending on your location and which country you do it in.

My post is to highlight a bit more info about the London assessments, which are held at Cathay Pacific office in Hammersmith, the day starts off by you signing in at the front reception and then making your way to CX offices on the first floor.

As you wait in the waiting area you will be given your itinerary for the day by one of the recruitment team, all the candidates have a separate one and they generally try to keep you separated for obvious reasons…

I was sent an email previously telling me what to expect on the day 1) JKI test, 2) Raven’s aptitude tests, 3) Personal and technical interview and 4) Personality test.

See previous posts about personality and aptitude tests. JKI test is fairly straight forward if you have been through the booklet, typical question from what I can remember…

·What is pitot pressure? (static + dynamic)
·Jet engine moves a Large amount of air at High speeds…
·Piston engine moves a small amount of air at low speeds…
·Rotation of the earth is around what axis?
·Direction of the earth rotation?
·If a constant speed is maintained and you increase the angle of attack what happens to lift?
·What happens to the pressure and velocity of air as it flows over the wing?
·What are the four forces acting in flight?
·The atmosphere is made up of which gases?
·Tropopause is a layer between which two spheres?

It’s quite easy if you have read the JKI booklet towards the end 5 or 6 questions are about the company so bit of searching needed… questions like who is majority share holder for CX and which aircraft they presently fly, they throw in the 747-300 to confuse you if your not a spotter know the difference!

Personality and Technical interview…

Bit of advice remember what you wrote in your initial application because they take so long to get back to you with an interview you may forget what you wrote!! I copied and saved mine and had a read before the interview as I had raved on about my brilliant customer skills and guess what I got asked, so ……. Tell me about these excellent customer skills how will you use them for CX and as a pilot? errrrr you get the picture!

Ill concentrate a bit more on the technical questions as some of them caught me off guard… if anyone can help with the ones marked ‘????’ feel free to post your reply!!

·What have you been doing recently?
·Why have you applied to CX?
·What do you know about CX?
·How many destinations do we fly to? This keeps changing so keep an eye out!
·What do you know about HK?
·Have you been to HK?
·What is the population of HK?
·Role of a second officer and what aircraft they flew…
·Name 3 destinations we fly to in Aus?
·Do you know anyone that works for CX?
·What makes a good pilot? so I start saying blah… so do you have those qualities?
·What are your strengths and weaknesses?
·What ethnicity is the majority of the population in HK? And so on…

Now technical…

·Explain how lift is generated?
·What aircraft is that… points to model A340-300 and how many do we have?
·What is induced drag and how is it formed?
·Why have swept wings advantages and disadvantages?
·What engines do we use on different aircraft?
·Why do we use the type of engines on 747 what are they and benefits?
·What's a bypass ratio? What is it for a 777?
·Tell me about winglets and why we use them?
·Does the 777 have winglets?
·Why doesn’t the 777 have winglets?
·You say the 777ER have raked wingtips what are they?
·What wx systems is HK effected by?
·What equipment do we have on-board the aircraft to detect wx?
·During which part of flight is lift the greatest?????Dodgy one!
·What is windshear?
·What is predictive windshear and how does it work????
·What windshear detection methods are there at HK airport?
·What is a cost index and how does it work????
·Describe and tell me the difference between Max and Long range cruise????
·What is a WAT limit????
·What is CAT?
·What is a Jet stream and how is it formed?

This is all I can think of atm… if I remember more ill post on here it’s turned out to be a long post!

I have heard that the next short course is provisionally due to start in Jan 2011 and the next long one in March 2011 is anyone on either of these courses?? And finally good luck to all the guys that have their stage 2/3 coming up and flight grading!

Happy landings...
FTP