SiloeSid,
The flight test (only one, not two) was a fairly basic plan a few legs/brief/fly a leg/divert to a notional task/vehicle follow type of thing
. and a couple of little extras. You might view it as a fairly limited line check. I did wonder how someone would fare who had NEVER done that sort of thing before. It certainly would have massively favoured any ex-TFOs, and none should have failed it.
The motion sickness aspect
maybe the part where I was given a number of intensive head-in paperwork tasks to sort out, but I don't recall the aircraft being thrown around whilst I was doing them.
Certainly, when the boot was on the other foot, thats what we did (in fixed wing)
got someone to bury their head in a map book whilst carrying out a number of steep turns and changes of direction. Maybe not scientific, but seemed to work. It might seem a statement of the obvious, but fixed-wing motion is different to rotary. I never felt unwell in rotary, but there were some occasions over the years on f/w where I came close to losing my lunch (and many did). Everyone has their limits
mine were as good as or better than many, but not upto the best. I've done aerobatics and my limit was about about 10 mins
except for barrel rolls, which I instantly disliked (albeit that it is a positive G manoeuvre).
I had a colleague who, at the start of his career in Naval Aviation, did his training in fixed wing, and thought that it would be over before it had begun. The moment he moved onto rotary
no problem. And I've flown with a pilot who used to fight turbulence, rather than just let the aircraft 'go with the flow'. We ended up doing Dutch Rolls, and most observers felt sick.
Cranwell
hmmm! I was a guinea pig for that in the 90's - I did quite well
but I've known candidates pass it, and turn out to be hopeless in the air
and a female officer who, by her admission, did very badly at it
but went on to be an excellent observer. And I thought Mersyside or someone ditched it because of potential gender bias (or threat of being biased).
When I had to devise a flight test, it was structured to begin simply and, over 45 mins or so, to become more complex. Top marks were awarded for getting everything right, but it was also designed to credit those who made errors but managed to calmly and quickly recognise and correct any mistakes
because we have all been 'lost' or 90 degrees out in our map/ground orientation. And all of the candidates were given a pre-read
a summary of map-reading, topography, line and point features, etc, which they then had to demonstrate their understanding of on the day, before being thrown into planning their flight.