PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Ryanair Interview and Sim Assessment (merged)
Old 14th Nov 2014, 06:51
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Photon85
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Europe
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I had the same experience as most of the other guys I think.

Arrived in the Stansted training center early morning. After talking with the other candidates for a while in the break room, we were all asked to come to a conference room.

In the conference room we were introduced to the HR guy, and two pilots/sim guys. They talked about what would happen today, and then went through the sim profile on a powerpoint.

Afterwards we were told to make our own sim partners, so I partnered with the guy sitting next to me. Two french people partnered up, etc.
We were then given a couple of approach plates for Liverpool, and told we would be flying the SID something, followed by the NDB approach.
So me and my partner went through everything, and talked about what we would do in each segment, what callouts we would use on top of the ones given in the PDF (we added 80 knots, and 1000 feet to go on climb/descent, didn't get any comments on that, but anyway).

Then it was turn for the sim, we were supposed to fly about 45 minutes each. Remember that you get graded equally for your PM and PF performance, so if your partner does something stupid and gets the plane into a bad state, and you said nothing, that's pretty much equally your fault. Think multi-crew here. Help each other as much as possible, but don't "fly from the PM seat".

Each of us took off, intercepted the SID, and then went through some normal turns, turns + descents/climbs (at the same time), airspeed changes etc.
When the assessor was happy with that, both of us got some sort of abnormality happening. My partner got a heart attack, I got a fight breaking out. Basically remember the NITS briefing for the FA, a PA if strictly needed (neither of us did one). Discuss with your partner (not too long) what the course of action will be, and make sure everyone concerned is on the same page (FA, ATC etc). During this our flight was frozen, so we didn't have to concern ourselves with where the plane was going, if you're not frozen, handing over controls while you are doing many of these things might be prudent, but up to you.

At this stage we were placed on a perfect inbound path to the NDB beacon, so we didn't have to do any racetrack or something, just straight in and straight out. We briefed the approach (while the plane was still frozen), and then told the assessor when we were ready.
We then flew the approach. Remember here to brief before you start the sim (with your partner) how you want the approach to be flown. We both flew a normal CANPA approach, where the PM called out each mile, and that worked fine for both of us.

The last part then was the landing from the approach. At no point here is it wrong to do a go around. If you feel the approach is unstable (too high, too low, too high sink rate, out of alignment with the runway in a big way) when you are getting close, just go around, and say later what went behind that decision. It's a lot worse to have some hard landing at xxxx fpm because you wanted to nail that touchdown.

After that, we were just placed on an ILS, already established on the GS/LOC, with perfect throttle setting, fully configured. So just don't touch anything (or do very very small adjustments), and the plane flew itself down basically.



So that was the sim portion, a short while later we had the interview. My interview was pretty straight forward, they looked at all my paperwork, including taking a look at all the originals, and collecting the copies.
The HR guy asked me a little about why Ryan Air, what did I expect to get out of Ryan Air, what my 3 top choice of bases would be.
Then the guy who did my sim check earlier, asked me a little about my logbook, like where was this last flight from and too.
He asked me a little about what kind of plane I flew last (C208B), but didn't ask any technical or detailed questions about it.
Asked me what my worst/most difficult situation in flying had been (flaps frozen), and what I did to remedy the situation, steps made, etc etc.
Asked me about wake turbulence separation requirements (medium behind medium, medium behind heavy) on approach, and on take-off.
Asked me about the reason behind having swept wings.
And that was it basically.
Was told good job, and left the premises.

I had a sim session the day before in a 737 fixed base sim, and it was nice to have some experience already in how the airplane is going to handle. Especielly the power/pitch couple, how many degrees you fly with, power lever movement, etc etc.
If you already have done your MCC in a 737, then no worres, but mine was in a TP, so good experience for me.
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