How did you prepare for your interview and sim assessment?
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How did you prepare for your interview and sim assessment?
I will be in a position shortly to start sending Cv's. I want to prepare myself as best i can for interview. Can anyone recomend any reading material. Thank you
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"Handling the big jets" dont know the author and have not read it myself but believe it gives an insight into moving onto the jets from turbo-props and pistons. Transair and other pilot shops will stock it.
If you are invited for aptitude tests then there are some books,"How to pass Maths test", "How to pass english tests" and "How to pass aptitude tests" they cover number sequencing, word association and technical problems most big book shops will stock those. Maths one is good tells you how the number sequencing is made up.
Also dust off your ATPL notes read up on P of F, Aircraft systems and engines.
You dont want to get a lucky break of selection then blow it due to not being prepared. Been there and got that t-shirt!!
If you are invited for aptitude tests then there are some books,"How to pass Maths test", "How to pass english tests" and "How to pass aptitude tests" they cover number sequencing, word association and technical problems most big book shops will stock those. Maths one is good tells you how the number sequencing is made up.
Also dust off your ATPL notes read up on P of F, Aircraft systems and engines.
You dont want to get a lucky break of selection then blow it due to not being prepared. Been there and got that t-shirt!!
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I´m a PPL with just over 100 hours and have a copy of D.P. Davies "Handling the Big Jets". I must admit, I thought it was aimed at the PPL pilot than someone with an ATPL. I would have thought most of the info covered in the book is covered in the ATPL theory? I haven´t read the whole book but that`s what i´m expecting ...... that`s why i´m reading it!!
Does anyone know if Penny Austin does her interview training anymore?
Cheers
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"Handling the Big Jets". I must admit, I thought it was aimed at the PPL pilot than someone with an ATPL. I would have thought most of the info covered in the book is covered in the ATPL theory? I haven´t read the whole book but that`s what i´m expecting ...... that`s why i´m reading it!!Does anyone know if Penny Austin does her interview training anymore?
Cheers
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Thanks guys
I suppose i was more thinking of reading material aimed at interview questions, and technique, i see there are quite a few books out there with some cheesy titles, anyone read, can recomend any. thanks.
PS have read Handling the big jets great book it was a library copy tough to read in 3 weeks!! so might have to buy it, anyone finished with their copy!!
I suppose i was more thinking of reading material aimed at interview questions, and technique, i see there are quite a few books out there with some cheesy titles, anyone read, can recomend any. thanks.
PS have read Handling the big jets great book it was a library copy tough to read in 3 weeks!! so might have to buy it, anyone finished with their copy!!
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Get "Ace the Pilot Technical Interview" by Gary Bristow. It is very good and contains a great summary of your ATPL notes, in an interview question style format. It is aimed at an international audience, so you will need to refer back to your notes for JAA specific stuff on performance and law etc., but it is worth EVERY penny.
It won't help you on the "what are your strengths and weaknesses" questions, but will be useful for any technical part.
Hufty
It won't help you on the "what are your strengths and weaknesses" questions, but will be useful for any technical part.
Hufty
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You may be interested in reading the following post
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...threadid=97111
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...threadid=97111
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Help and Advice on how to prepare
Okay peeps,
Here's my story:
I finished high school this summer and was accepted into ERAU (Embry Riddle Aeronautical University) in Florida.
Now two weeks before it was supposed to start I bailed out because of 3 reasons.
1.) Too long (4 years) too expenciv.
2.)FAA licences instead of JAA, pretty useless without a right to work in the US
3.) Too risky without a career to fall back on.
So now i'm 20 years old, studying Business at the European Business School, London. I'm originally from germany though. Now when I finish in two and half years time, I'll deffinatly persue my flying career and was thinking about applying for sponsored programs such as CTC.
I'd like to know the best way to prepare for interviews and the selection process or if there is something else I should maybe consider.
Thank you for your times guys.
Here's my story:
I finished high school this summer and was accepted into ERAU (Embry Riddle Aeronautical University) in Florida.
Now two weeks before it was supposed to start I bailed out because of 3 reasons.
1.) Too long (4 years) too expenciv.
2.)FAA licences instead of JAA, pretty useless without a right to work in the US
3.) Too risky without a career to fall back on.
So now i'm 20 years old, studying Business at the European Business School, London. I'm originally from germany though. Now when I finish in two and half years time, I'll deffinatly persue my flying career and was thinking about applying for sponsored programs such as CTC.
I'd like to know the best way to prepare for interviews and the selection process or if there is something else I should maybe consider.
Thank you for your times guys.
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Preparing an ATR pilot interview
Hi guys, how are you ?!
I would like people already flying in an airline operating ATR, to tell me what kind of questions they were asked during their interview?
I mean all kinds of questions are very welcome here in this forum !
(personal questions, ATPL questions, ATR questions, everything....)
Thanks a lot for your help, and i wish you all many, many happy landings in 2006
I would like people already flying in an airline operating ATR, to tell me what kind of questions they were asked during their interview?
I mean all kinds of questions are very welcome here in this forum !
(personal questions, ATPL questions, ATR questions, everything....)
Thanks a lot for your help, and i wish you all many, many happy landings in 2006
Last edited by hotelmodemetar; 4th Jan 2006 at 16:42.
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Re: Preparing an ATR pilot interview
hi,
yes indeed! but when i opened that topic i was just interested in gathering some questions that people had for their pilot's interview, and especially for ATR pilots, just to get an idea of the technical questions as well as the personality ones. Obviously, i agree that each company has its own profile point of view, which may be different from one to another.
yes indeed! but when i opened that topic i was just interested in gathering some questions that people had for their pilot's interview, and especially for ATR pilots, just to get an idea of the technical questions as well as the personality ones. Obviously, i agree that each company has its own profile point of view, which may be different from one to another.
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Re: Preparing an ATR pilot interview
Originally Posted by hotelmodemetar
Hi guys, how are you ?!
I would like people already flying in an airline operating ATR, to tell me what kind of questions they were asked during their interview?
I mean all kinds of questions are very welcome here in this forum !
(personal questions, ATPL questions, ATR questions, everything....)
Thanks a lot for your help, and i wish you all many, many happy landings in 2006
I would like people already flying in an airline operating ATR, to tell me what kind of questions they were asked during their interview?
I mean all kinds of questions are very welcome here in this forum !
(personal questions, ATPL questions, ATR questions, everything....)
Thanks a lot for your help, and i wish you all many, many happy landings in 2006
hi
I think it all depends on which company it is
Dirk
I know where you are coming from but I think he just wants ATR operator questions from anywhere as it may help him prepare. I think if you could remember some from your interview be it the same airline or not it may help to prepare.
Just my thoughts and I hope you dont think I am trying to get at you.
Regards
R.I
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Re: Preparing an ATR pilot interview
Hey
I was in Basel, Switzerland back in September for an interview with FarnAir.
First was a sim ride with their cheif pilot, Michel. Just basic IFR stuff : climb, holding, ILS, you might want to brush up on the ATR call outs, and departure/approach briefings. Afterwards comes a little performance session. Read up on climb segments, and general ATR performance, oh, and most definately read FCOM 3.03.01 Page 2 !
Then comes a meeting with someone from either management og human ressources. Human ressources is just a little talk about employment with FarnAir, but the Management guy will want to know your strengths and weaknesses, what you can add to the company etc. Prepare that.
Finally you will talk to all three of the people you met there. They will ask you all kinds of q's.
Would you dispatch with mice in the aircraft ?
What is a leader to you ?
If the ground crew is not going to be able to load the A/C on time, what do you do ?
Best of luck
If any of you have anymore input, please share it
I was in Basel, Switzerland back in September for an interview with FarnAir.
First was a sim ride with their cheif pilot, Michel. Just basic IFR stuff : climb, holding, ILS, you might want to brush up on the ATR call outs, and departure/approach briefings. Afterwards comes a little performance session. Read up on climb segments, and general ATR performance, oh, and most definately read FCOM 3.03.01 Page 2 !
Then comes a meeting with someone from either management og human ressources. Human ressources is just a little talk about employment with FarnAir, but the Management guy will want to know your strengths and weaknesses, what you can add to the company etc. Prepare that.
Finally you will talk to all three of the people you met there. They will ask you all kinds of q's.
Would you dispatch with mice in the aircraft ?
What is a leader to you ?
If the ground crew is not going to be able to load the A/C on time, what do you do ?
Best of luck
If any of you have anymore input, please share it
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How did you prepare for your interview and sim assessment?
How did you prepare for your interview and sim assessment?
Because of an interesting post on a separate thread, I thought I would start this topic here to get the stories of how you guys and girls prepared for your interviews and simulator assessments for up and coming jobs.
I attended one of these pilot interview courses. I found that this was the main reason I passed all three of the interviews that I managed to have in the last 14 months. Knowing what they are looking for in a person helped me fine tune my answers to possible questions and gave me the opportunity of selling the qualities that I felt I had and which were important to an airline.
In total I have had three simulator assessments.
The first one was on a BAC 1-11 at Cranebank in November 2005. For practice I hired a 727 in the southern part of the UK for an hour with instructor. After the practice, the instructor said that I should be ok for my assessment and saw no reason why I would fail. The following day I had the assessment, and boy was that an eye opener. I failed it miserably and learned an awful lot from the experience. Rule 1, fly the aircraft, rule 2, don't let the assessor distract you and remember to fly the aircraft. I took on boards the experience and brought what I had learnt from it to my two following future assessments.
My second sim assessment was on an Embraer 145 at Manchester in December 2006. As there are no Embraer sims available anywhere nearby in the UK, I thought long and hard about how to prepare for this. My decision was to simply buy the Embraer 145 add on for Flightsim 2004 and to set it up in the same weather, weight, and aircraft configuration as expected on my sim assessment. I then practised taking off and doing circuits from the airport that was mentioned in my briefing notes and I learnt the power settings, speeds, calls and responses and all the important things that I believed would be an issue on my sim assessment. To my surprise, I found the real Embraer simulator easier to fly than Flightsim 2004. Once trimmed it was finger tip flying. The fact that I memorised off by heart all the calls, pitch attitudes, power settings and speeds for certain stages of the flight, made my sim assessment a lot more easier than I imagined. I subsequently passed that sim assessment and four days later was offered a job starting on an Embraer type rating course five weeks later.
My third sim assessment was on a 737-300 in January 2007. As I was only given 4 days notice for this, I had to think quickly about this one. Did I go and borrow £1200 and hire a 737-300 sim for a couple of hours practice, even though I had a good jet job to go to in two weeks time? or, on the basis that I had in the previous two weeks been in a simulator assessment atmosphere and passed, should I just practice as much as possible on Flightsim 2004 and give it my best shot. I chose the latter, even though I appreciated it was a very big risk as the 737 job was one that I had longed for for many years. I did the same sort of preparation for the 737 sim assessment as I did for the Embraer assessment. I set the Flightsim 737 aircraft up with the same weight, weather conditions and on the runway from the airport that was mentioned in the brief and just learnt all the power figures, pitch attitudes, calls and responses. I learned the flight inside out and found that this took a lot of the workload off me on the day. The real 737-300 sim was a handful. You can only imagine the power pitch effect on Flightsim 2004 as compared to the real thing. I subsequently passed that sim assessment and was offered a job with the airline two days later.
If I had not already had a good jet job to go to two weeks later, I would most definitely have hired a 737-300 sim to brush up on. I was asked a couple of times during my assessment if I had hired a 737 sim for preparation. If I had, I would have told them. I am interested to know what their views on this would of been. Does it show determination and initiative, or does it raise the stakes and mean you will be expected to perform better? I would be interested to know the sim assessors views on this.
I have heard of many stories where guys tell them that they have practised on a real 737 sim, tell the assessors and subsequently pass and others that also tell them this and also fail. So telling them you have practiced does not mean you are going to necessarily pass or fail. I suppose its how you perform in the sim that counts. Just wondered what the assessors think about guys hiring sims before hand and does this make their assessment harder. One thing for sure, I know if you do hire a sim and are asked if you had, tell them the truth. If they don't believe you, I am certain you will fail.
I am interested to hear from guys and girls about what preparation they have done for interviews and sim assessments and if hiring a sim beforehand made the difference for them. Did you pass or fail and what did you learn from the experience. I would also be interested to hear what sim they hired in relation to the type of sim that was to be used in their sim assessment.
I put my success down to the pilot interview courses I attended for my interview successes, plus the lessons learned from my first sim assessment for my success in my next two assessments with lots of preparation.
I do however feel that if you walk into a sim assessment with a positive mental attitude and a smile, then your body language will win half the battle.
Good luck to everyone for 2007.
Because of an interesting post on a separate thread, I thought I would start this topic here to get the stories of how you guys and girls prepared for your interviews and simulator assessments for up and coming jobs.
I attended one of these pilot interview courses. I found that this was the main reason I passed all three of the interviews that I managed to have in the last 14 months. Knowing what they are looking for in a person helped me fine tune my answers to possible questions and gave me the opportunity of selling the qualities that I felt I had and which were important to an airline.
In total I have had three simulator assessments.
The first one was on a BAC 1-11 at Cranebank in November 2005. For practice I hired a 727 in the southern part of the UK for an hour with instructor. After the practice, the instructor said that I should be ok for my assessment and saw no reason why I would fail. The following day I had the assessment, and boy was that an eye opener. I failed it miserably and learned an awful lot from the experience. Rule 1, fly the aircraft, rule 2, don't let the assessor distract you and remember to fly the aircraft. I took on boards the experience and brought what I had learnt from it to my two following future assessments.
My second sim assessment was on an Embraer 145 at Manchester in December 2006. As there are no Embraer sims available anywhere nearby in the UK, I thought long and hard about how to prepare for this. My decision was to simply buy the Embraer 145 add on for Flightsim 2004 and to set it up in the same weather, weight, and aircraft configuration as expected on my sim assessment. I then practised taking off and doing circuits from the airport that was mentioned in my briefing notes and I learnt the power settings, speeds, calls and responses and all the important things that I believed would be an issue on my sim assessment. To my surprise, I found the real Embraer simulator easier to fly than Flightsim 2004. Once trimmed it was finger tip flying. The fact that I memorised off by heart all the calls, pitch attitudes, power settings and speeds for certain stages of the flight, made my sim assessment a lot more easier than I imagined. I subsequently passed that sim assessment and four days later was offered a job starting on an Embraer type rating course five weeks later.
My third sim assessment was on a 737-300 in January 2007. As I was only given 4 days notice for this, I had to think quickly about this one. Did I go and borrow £1200 and hire a 737-300 sim for a couple of hours practice, even though I had a good jet job to go to in two weeks time? or, on the basis that I had in the previous two weeks been in a simulator assessment atmosphere and passed, should I just practice as much as possible on Flightsim 2004 and give it my best shot. I chose the latter, even though I appreciated it was a very big risk as the 737 job was one that I had longed for for many years. I did the same sort of preparation for the 737 sim assessment as I did for the Embraer assessment. I set the Flightsim 737 aircraft up with the same weight, weather conditions and on the runway from the airport that was mentioned in the brief and just learnt all the power figures, pitch attitudes, calls and responses. I learned the flight inside out and found that this took a lot of the workload off me on the day. The real 737-300 sim was a handful. You can only imagine the power pitch effect on Flightsim 2004 as compared to the real thing. I subsequently passed that sim assessment and was offered a job with the airline two days later.
If I had not already had a good jet job to go to two weeks later, I would most definitely have hired a 737-300 sim to brush up on. I was asked a couple of times during my assessment if I had hired a 737 sim for preparation. If I had, I would have told them. I am interested to know what their views on this would of been. Does it show determination and initiative, or does it raise the stakes and mean you will be expected to perform better? I would be interested to know the sim assessors views on this.
I have heard of many stories where guys tell them that they have practised on a real 737 sim, tell the assessors and subsequently pass and others that also tell them this and also fail. So telling them you have practiced does not mean you are going to necessarily pass or fail. I suppose its how you perform in the sim that counts. Just wondered what the assessors think about guys hiring sims before hand and does this make their assessment harder. One thing for sure, I know if you do hire a sim and are asked if you had, tell them the truth. If they don't believe you, I am certain you will fail.
I am interested to hear from guys and girls about what preparation they have done for interviews and sim assessments and if hiring a sim beforehand made the difference for them. Did you pass or fail and what did you learn from the experience. I would also be interested to hear what sim they hired in relation to the type of sim that was to be used in their sim assessment.
I put my success down to the pilot interview courses I attended for my interview successes, plus the lessons learned from my first sim assessment for my success in my next two assessments with lots of preparation.
I do however feel that if you walk into a sim assessment with a positive mental attitude and a smile, then your body language will win half the battle.
Good luck to everyone for 2007.
Last edited by EGCC4284; 28th Jan 2007 at 23:55.
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Prepared similar to EGC for a regional airline interview. Sim used for the eval was a C-level ATR-42. I familiarized myself with the cockpit by checking out some of the cockpit photos on airliners.net, and played around with MS FS2004 with an ATR add-on, to get the feel for speeds, call-outs etc.
Nice thing was the sim evaluation wasn't there to decide whether I could fly an ATR but rather to determine basic instrument skills and "trainability". Worked out ok, got the job. Happy.
-T-
Nice thing was the sim evaluation wasn't there to decide whether I could fly an ATR but rather to determine basic instrument skills and "trainability". Worked out ok, got the job. Happy.
-T-
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I think you are wasting your money to hire out a 737 or any kind of jet sim.
If you have flight sim, use it if it makes you feel more comfortable, but lets be honest here, in a sim evaluation, they are not looking for how well you fly the jet, because you may never have flown a jet before, or that type, they are looking for how quickly you pick things up, how quickly you learn from a mistake, how quickly you get the hang of the ils, how well you work as a team with the other guy, how well you make use of information available to you.....the list goes on and on.
But to think they are just interested in how well you fly the plane is naive.
Remember, if successful, they are going to send you to a very expensive simulator and teach you how to fly the plane.
Be prepared, but there is more to passing a sim evalution than just knowing speeds, power settings, pitch attitudes and call outs.
If you have flight sim, use it if it makes you feel more comfortable, but lets be honest here, in a sim evaluation, they are not looking for how well you fly the jet, because you may never have flown a jet before, or that type, they are looking for how quickly you pick things up, how quickly you learn from a mistake, how quickly you get the hang of the ils, how well you work as a team with the other guy, how well you make use of information available to you.....the list goes on and on.
But to think they are just interested in how well you fly the plane is naive.
Remember, if successful, they are going to send you to a very expensive simulator and teach you how to fly the plane.
Be prepared, but there is more to passing a sim evalution than just knowing speeds, power settings, pitch attitudes and call outs.
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I have always found this a funny subject fraught with 'what' and 'what not' to do's. From a 'Newbee' perspective I think it can become deeply anguishing! If you find out that you have a Sim assessment on a jet and have absolutely no experience of jet handling, it has often been said to me that you cannot really afford not to purchase some pre-sim ride experience. I think having a general feel for things before hand may prove invaluable. You hopefully will be shown what to look for, where and when to make the calls and what you should generally be doing when you are both PF and PNF. Surely having a head start on this can only be of an advantage? The only downside is the cost; especially if unsuccessful. However I'd rather be unsuccesful knowing that I had explored all areas before hand, instead of wondering 'what if' afterwards.
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Having been lucky enough to get a 737 sim ride last summer I took the advice to get some practice in, having never flown a jet before. I spent £1100 for a couple of hours to give me the best chance of passing, but with hindsight, believe that this backfired.
Of the three of us to be assessed on the day, there was a 3000 hour TP captain, a 1000 hour 737 FO, and me on 300 hours with 2 hours sim practice. When the assessors knew I had been in the sim the night before I was told I would go straight into the assessment with no demonstration on the first departure, as was the norm. So the 1000 hour 737 guy got a demonstration, but I didn't.
Having compared notes with a friend who sat the same assessment several weeks later, it is obvious the way our assessments were conducted were totally different. I got the impression that because I had had some practice, I was expected to "nail" it all straight away with very little guidance, but with only 2 hours in the sim this wasn't going to happen.
The other point is that the practice session, although good in many ways, had it's downsides. For example, the climb speed should have been 210 kts, and in the practice session I was told to raise the nose slightly to maintain it. On the actual assessment I was pulled up by the assessor for this and told to maintain pitch and allow the speed to creep up towards 230 kts (cruise speed). I was only told this after my first attempt. My friend was told before he started to ignore the 210 kts and go for 230.
This is just one example of the different styles I encountered, many of them only small differences, but nevertheless important. Things like at what point to begin a turn on the DME, etc. So for me, having practice helped me to get the feel for the handling with the pitch / power couple, but had the negative effects of me flying slightly different techniques to what was expected, and having had a "practice", being viewed as someone who was ready to go without any demonstration beforehand.
If I am lucky enough to get another assessment I will not be paying for any practice sessions beforehand.
Of the three of us to be assessed on the day, there was a 3000 hour TP captain, a 1000 hour 737 FO, and me on 300 hours with 2 hours sim practice. When the assessors knew I had been in the sim the night before I was told I would go straight into the assessment with no demonstration on the first departure, as was the norm. So the 1000 hour 737 guy got a demonstration, but I didn't.
Having compared notes with a friend who sat the same assessment several weeks later, it is obvious the way our assessments were conducted were totally different. I got the impression that because I had had some practice, I was expected to "nail" it all straight away with very little guidance, but with only 2 hours in the sim this wasn't going to happen.
The other point is that the practice session, although good in many ways, had it's downsides. For example, the climb speed should have been 210 kts, and in the practice session I was told to raise the nose slightly to maintain it. On the actual assessment I was pulled up by the assessor for this and told to maintain pitch and allow the speed to creep up towards 230 kts (cruise speed). I was only told this after my first attempt. My friend was told before he started to ignore the 210 kts and go for 230.
This is just one example of the different styles I encountered, many of them only small differences, but nevertheless important. Things like at what point to begin a turn on the DME, etc. So for me, having practice helped me to get the feel for the handling with the pitch / power couple, but had the negative effects of me flying slightly different techniques to what was expected, and having had a "practice", being viewed as someone who was ready to go without any demonstration beforehand.
If I am lucky enough to get another assessment I will not be paying for any practice sessions beforehand.