Gentlemen,
Thankyou for the encouraging and honest feedback.
To go into a bit more detail and help settle some arguments on here.
I applied for a Flying Scholarship and Sixth Form Scolarship back in 1997, upon receipt of my GCSE results.
I attended Part One of OASC which was the assessment for these schemes. I passed the medical and the interview. I was pulled to one side - as is customary and informed of my aptitude failure for Pilot, Navigator and Air Traffic Controller. I had passed for Fighter Controller, NCO Aircrew and for Army Air Corps Pilot. I was advised that I had just missed out on RAF/FAA Pilot and that I had done very well on one of the newer tests which was considered difficult - but had messed up one of the 'easier' tests.
I believe the 'harder' test consisted of coloured diamonds moving across the screen that you had to 'target', mental arithmetic and memory recall - simultaneously. The one I failed was the red spots running down the screen and you had to track them with a white spot - moving a joystick left and right. If I remember right.
The aptitude test was sold to me by one of the reviewing officers as a statistic - nothing more. If you could pass the RAF/FAA Pilot aptitude, then you would be statistically likely to go on to pass a Fast Jet OCU. That was how the test was skewed - or so I was told.
Prior, to my attendance at OASC my flying experience consisted of about twenty hours of 'cadged' AEF flights, from my time as a Flight Staff Cadet on the Bulldog at RAF Woodvale in the late nineties.
I attended the Flying Scholarship the following year at Cumbria Aero Club in 1998 and soloed after 6:25 on the Cessna 152. I was assessed as an 'Above Average' pilot on the Final Progress Check.
I returned home and completed the PPL in a 'sporadic' fashion on a different aircraft over the following two years with various instructors and considerable gaps in the training, primarily due to shortages of funds and the weather. I was unaware of 'unscrupulous' hours builders and schools that weren't interested in their students at this stage... Needless to say, the school went bust in 2001, a few months after I passed my Skills Test.
My CPL is going okay at the minute...
Feel free to assess my aptitude, gentlemen! I appreciate honesty!
I do not consider airline flying second best - I just quite liked the idea of 'hooning' around at low-level in something green, before going on to more 'sedate' flying.
In my opinion, the
average military pilot is far more skilled than the
average civilian pilot due to the standard of training they have received. Just my view.
I believe that I have also been rumbled - the military side of things was always a close second to the flying. Henceforth, that is why I decided to pursue a self funded CPL, funded by my Aerospace Engineering day job... rather than go for a ground based military role.
Thanks again for the feedback - it has been enlightening!
