babydolphin
7th Mar 2009, 11:42
Just heard that the flight planning exercise has been changed. No more glider planning. Anyone have update on that? Much appreciated!
Momogai
10th Mar 2009, 15:42
I did the glider exercise late last year. We were asked by the HR staff not to discuss the flight exercise details with other candidates as we may actually do more harm than good if we passed on slight inaccurate information.
Although it is no longer in use anymore, I have highlighted the general format of the exercise to show roughly how the process works. IT IS NOT THE NEW FLIGHT PLANNING EXERCISE.
The exercise is about flying a glider from A to B via different routes. You need to take in to account the weather/ visability / runway length/ operational hours of intermediate airports etc. You will need to identify the best flight path for a given set of conditions and these kept changing.
The calculations are very simple. People only stumble under the perceived time pressure. The time given is actually sufficient but when they say you have 5 minutes to do something, it does not sound like a lot of them, but it is enough.
General activities,
1) Reading some background info
2) Calculates arrival departure times, how high the glider needs to be before being release at various points along the chosen route, total distance travelled etc. Basically lots of small calculations in a short amount of time. When you break it down in to steps, each step is really straight forward. The key is to understand what you need to do and to avoid getting nervous. Have confidence in yourself, it is like simple GCSE maths. I mean no disrespect to those who may have had a difficult time during this exercise but it realy is about about quick simple addition/subraction/division/mutliplication.
3) Respond to sudden changes in some of the conditions stated above.
4) Write a short report
Advice - Keep tidy notes! You might need the answers to earlier parts of the exercise to answer later parts. If you messed up or got the wrong answers earlier on, make sure you have have the right answers noted down for later use.
If you are unceratin how your partner arrived at a correct answer, it is ok to ask once or twice. This shows you are communicating, making an effort to understanding the correct answer and provides your partner a chance to show that they are helping you. Everyone wins. Hopefully you will not have to do it often though as this would not be good!
Just be thorough and systemic in the way you approach the exercise.
Don't worry if people seem to know more than you before the exercise. If you pay attention, read the notes properly, work & communicate with your partner and keep good tidy notes, you will have a good chance.