I'm an old guy, been in the business some time, and have interviewed a few people for this sort of role over (cough) years. On that basis, here are a few thoughts:-
Originally Posted by
sphan
Hi All,
I'm a new guy trying to get in the business. I interviewed for a junior FTE position, but didn't get it ( :-( ). After beating myself up for a few days, I'm trying to put together a gameplan to reapply in 3 months time (hopefully the position will still be open and I didn't make too much of a fool of myself). I'm going to work on my interview skills (keeping my cool during questioning and not blabber) as well as my technical knowledge.
I'd like to poll the audience for technical interview questions that you have seen or think would be appropriate. As important as the answer is the process as to how you determine that answer. Maybe this test bank will help others trying to get into the business as well.
Here are some questions that I encountered:
1.Q. Is a helicopter rotor disk parallel to the ground during hover
A. Use F = ma to find the answer
F=ma is at the root of just about any solution in physical sciences, so that doesn't really answer the question.
The answer in this instance will depend a lot on wind, but there's also such a thing as coning angle. I suspect that the interviewer mostly however wanted to see if you'd adequately read around the subject and could think on your feet.
Prouty's multi-volume (1, 2 or 3 volumes, depending upon which edition - 2 at present) "Helicopter aerodynamics" would be a very good introduction here.
I'm guessing that a constructive interviewer will ask, if you give a good "zero wind" answer, "what about when there's a wind ?".
2. Q. You have a new aircraft. How can you get Calibrated Airspeed from Indicated Airspeed
A. Formation flying with a aircraft that has calibrated data or fly between landmarks (need to take wind into account by going upwind, downwind, and crosswind)
Personally I use GPS for a low performance aircraft rather than landmarks which is a rather "early 20th century" solution. For higher performance aircraft, formation, tower fly-bys or trailing statics are all "industry standard" solutions, depending upon what the aircraft is, and what capability you have available. AC23-8 or equivalent documents should cover this quite well.
Incidentally, I'd always like to see a candidate who knows the IAS/CAS/EAS/TAS/GS relationships. If they haven't got that, then there may be no hope!
3. Q. Pitot- static tubes are usually close enough to the airplane that some disturbances occur. How do you get pure, unadulterated V_infinity?
A. Test planes usually drag a line behind them that is far enough from the plane that it can be considered essentially V_infinity. I said a long pitot static far outfront could work
A trailing static is intended to get rid of static errors, not pitot errors. A long leading pilot is a fair suggestion used on quite a few aircraft. Look up a kiel probe as well.
The truth is, you can't achieve free stream conditions, you can only get the errors small enough (or known enough) to make the results useable.
4. Q. You are in a 2g turn, what is the estimated minimum speed needed to maintain this?
A. Use F = ma, relating the g load to the lift equation.
At 2g, L=2W. L=0.5.Rho.V^2.S.Cl.
Rho and Cl won't change. So, to double lift, you need to multiply V by sqrt(2).
5. Q. What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow (African)?
JK. They didn't ask me that
Any questions would be much appreciated. Good luck to anyone else trying to be an FTE.
Buggered if I know either, but it's a great "see if the blighters can think through something not in the textbooks" question.
My favourite is usually to take a model of a flexwing microlight that lives on my desk and ask the interviewee to explain how you achieve a level turn with it. I have absolutely no expectation that they know the answer - as Rogallo wings aren't, so far as I know, taught on any degree course - I am interested in their thought processes, not their knowledge. If I ever get a hang-glider pilot to interview, I'll probably have to ask something about gyroplanes instead.
Suggested bedtime reading:-
Stinton - Flying Qualities and Flight testing of the Aeroplane.
FAA - AC23-8 and AC90-89
Cooke and Fiztpatrick - Helicopter Test and Evaluation.
Gratton - Initial Airworthiness.
Prouty - Helicopter Aerodynamics
Croucher - JAR Professional Pilot Studies
All live on my office shelf or hard drive, and are reasonably maths free "go to" books for basic understanding of any stuff I don't normally deal with, or am doubting my memory and understanding.
Another standard question I usually use if interviewing somebody for an airworthiness job is to derive the V-N diagram for a sample aeroplane and give me the main V-speeds.
For more advanced FTE positions, I'd also anticipate CRM / teamwork type questions. I great one I was asked when being interviewed for a job I didn't get at Learjet once was "okay, you're FTE on a prototype flight, the TP does something stupid that endangers the aircraft - what are you going to do about it ?". [I think that my answer was good, they laid off 2000 people and put a recruiting freeze on a week after my interview, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.]
On my ETPS entrance panel 20 years ago, I was asked how the SR71 achieved directional stability. That's a fun one.
Best of luck,
G