PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Ryanair Interview and Sim Assessment (merged)
Old 30th Aug 2016, 19:19
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dondapin12
 
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Spain
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Got the positive answer recently

Since pprune helped me a lot in getting prepared for the assessment, I want to share my experience so others can benefit from it:

Less than a week after I applied, I got an email saying that they would call me within the next 14 days. I was called on the 3rd one for the phone interview, and the next day I was called again to be offered an assessment date. I couldn’t attend that day, I explained the reason and they kindly offered another date. (When talking about days I mean WORKING days)

The day before the assessment I booked a sim prep session in Simtech (Dublin). It was of invaluable help, and if I went back in time, I would go there again. It probably made the difference for the next day.

On the assessment day, the assessors were really nice and tried to make us feel relaxed. You start at 8.00 am with a briefing on how will the day go on, and some basic things about the simulator (pfd, nd, toga buttons, flight profiles…). You are also told in which airport are you going to fly from that day, the SID clearance and the METAR. In my case it was Liverpool RWY 27, SID WAL2T, and the met conditions were 300/10KT 8000 OVC008.

Then I went into the tech/personal interview, and the questions I can remember are:
Cruising altitude along a transatlantic flight
VOR range
INS, IRS
Great circle/rhumb line
They would draw a great circle in the northern hemisphere curved towards the Equator. It is wrong and explain why.
Is it faster to travel over the Atlantic westbound or eastbound?
737 pax, engines, absolute ceiling, flight controls, hydraulic systems and pressure
Some basic questions about my MEP aircraft during flight training
Type and number of fleet in RYR.
Why do you want to work for RYR?
Have you applied to other airlines? Which ones?
Do you have any friends working in RYR?
How can your academic background help you in the cockpit?
When can you start? Base preferences?
Can you self-fund your TR?
Also a presentation about myself and some political information about my country.

After that, we went into the sim. Short departure briefing and then takeoff. Amended clearance during the SID, turn right hdg 360 and climb 5000 ft. Then some maneuvers (climb, descend, turn, increase/decrease speed). Then we were frozen and asked to point in the app plate where we were. After that, continue flying, asked QDM to the locator, and ATC called to clear us to fly inbound with a different QDM. When we were approaching the locator, ATC clearance to hold, asked which entry into the hold and suddenly the assessor acting as cabin crew no. 1 comes and says we have a fire onboard, or that we have a dying passenger. Hand over control to the PM, brief DODAR, NITS, take back control, declare mayday or pan pan and ask for vectors to come back to land. ATC will probably answer that vectors are unavailable and probably give you an undesired clearance, so don’t be pleased with it. Request what you want. Then raw data full NDB ILS procedure to land again in RWY 27 Liverpool, and ILS failure on final approach. We were visual so decided to continue. My partner got roughly the same exercises, changing altitudes, headings, QDM, type of emergency…

Bear in mind that you are assessed both as PF and as PM, they want to see good CRM. It’s not a big deal if your handling skills aren’t perfect, after all, you are not type rated. What matters is that both of you have good communication. If you make a mistake (turn the wrong side into the holding entry, have difficulty finding that new QDM, or struggle to follow the ILS) it won’t be that important if your partner corrects you. It is OK to ask your partner to advise you before a turn, when to deploy the flaps… So try to release workload when acting as PF.

Also the briefings are important. Although you don’t have much time to do them, since you won’t be for long in the simulator, make good and concise briefings in a methodic manner and try not to forget any important aspect (MHA, max speeds…)

Best of luck to all of you
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