pyscho testing

[Capt Wally]

....................am wondering how the airlines in the good 'old days got by with just a pilot with suitable flight experience only, no brain teasers required way back by way of 'hoop jumping' pleasing some uni educated pen pusher, & the planes that they flew (such as the super connie) needed some very well adjusted drivers/engineers to make some very brain orientated decisions !

.............ahhhhhhh the good 'ole days

capt wally :-)

[Sunfish]

Dont you know about the "special" handshake??????

[gas-chamber]

Ahhh, but in them far distant days, the ATPL theory exams sorted it all out. Stuff like Nories Tables, Mercator Sailings, logarithms, calculating precession, pressure pattern flying etc. Then there was Morse Code and the dreaded Link with DME homing exercises and VAR (not VOR) orientation. Very strict time limits to complete exams, or you did the lot again. If you were a bit slow, you got overtaken by less senior pilots. Even on the induction course seniority was decided on by exam results. If you didn't have the exams passed within a certain time, the airline could lay you off. Sure, little of that stuff is relevant today and wasn't even always relevant back then, but just getting through all those obstacles at least provided the airlines with the jumping hoops. No need for shrinks. 10 years to a command also gave them plenty of time to weed out the weak and the lame. Now, any half-wit can pass the ATPL (yes, I have met some who definitely lack smarts). If hired, they could be eligible for a command in some airlines in 2 years, so all prudent employers have to impose some sort of intelligence test. Whether the tests some do are pertinent to the job or not is another debate altogether.

[Capt Wally]

..............well said "gas-chamber" & i do believe that the airlines of the day would also like a pilot to have a mechanical background, (probably 'cause a super connie was the best 3 engined plane of the day) now am sure most young pilots would be hard pressed finding the bonnet catch for their own car!:-).......still I guess that's called progress...........something that at times isn't always the best thing!
Modern day airliners require modern day pilots, dictated & driven by CEO's at the top with weekly salaries that would take us plebs a year to make!...now there's another mystery !:-)

Capt wally:-)

[king oath]

The mangers doing the interview had read a book on "do- it- yourself "Phsycology. These were mostly old ex WW2 pilots, and some from the early fifties.

You'd be sat in front of 3 honchos who'd fire unrelated questions at you like a machine gun. Things like: explain basically how a jet engine works, who is the federal treasurer, how fast do you need to fly at the equator to keep up with the sun, why do jets have swept wings, where is Vietnam located,(it was that era) why do jets fly at high altitudes, etc. You get the drift.

They were looking for how you handled pressure and if you tried to bullsh*t your answer if you didn't know it. The best idea was to say you didn't know, and they'd ask further questions that may prompt you to getting the original answer by deduction. I think while this was going on they used old fashioned nouse to form an opinion of you.

Strangely enough they had a better success rate picking the right blokes(they were all blokes in those days) than the crap shrinks QF used for many years, in my opinion.