CAE Skype Interview this week. Help
 

Hi, my son and I are revising for a CAE Skype Interview this week, and have, we feel, most of the subjects covered that we have been told about by CAE, however wondered if there were any other pointers anyone could suggest?
Many thanks in advance.

My first post on this fascinating site!

You may need to be more specific ? Is it for a specific job , sponsorship ?

Are you both doing the interview? :confused:

Hi, sorry, I missed out some critical details. I am helping my son revise for the stage 3 of the ATPL course at CAE Oxford (entrance interview), and wondered if there were any specific subjects, over and above the ones they tell you will be in the interview that may be worth revising.
Thanks guys!

Now that is most peculiar...

You're interviewing them, right? There are plenty of other schools...

and there is a worldwide epidemic! Think a quick perusal of these Wannabes forums should give you a number of questions to ask THEM!

Haven't you ever heard of the teleprompter?

In all seriousness, makes sense to get as much help as possible, though one of the key skills a pilot should posess is the ability to go and find stuff out for themselves. I mean this in the kindest possible way and not looking to precipitate a slanging match on here but perhaps some good advice would be to tell your son to sign up for this site and ask those questions himself. That's the kind of attribute CAE will want to see. Whilst being a pilot is a lot about team-work, becoming a pilot will require a massive amount of personal effort.

Another piece of advice, whilst I won't get into a modular vs intergrated debate here, if and when he does get in, delay the training as much as you possibly can to allow time to re-evaluate the state of aviation and the world economy at large. I got offered a place on an intergrated course in summer 2010 and delayed starting till April 2011 to let us get over the recession a little more. This was definately a good move as I waited only 3 weeks for a job afterwards. The longer you leave it, the more time you have to re-assess if it's a good idea right now. Note that I started 3 years after the recession, this one is looking a lot deeper with specific existential threats and barriers to aviation (as opposed to 2008). As much as your son might like the idea, training at the bottom of the market (economy wise) is probably a little too soon. Don't forget there are hundreds of pilots already in the training system that the airlines will have given conditional offers of employment to already, if the airlines start recruiting any time soon, your son will enter the job market behind every single one of these guys. A white tail cadet that graduated in March, just before this all kicked off, wouldn't be going anywhere near an airliner for 2 years I imagine, that's a hell of a backlog of pilots ahead of your son to get through before he starts getting any promising emails.

A final caution, CAEs business will have all but dried up so they'll be offering courses to anyone that waves the money at them. I trained in a recession and am sure that's probably the only reason they took me. Please think critically about any offer made. Assume you will never repay or get the training expenses back, if you can afford that with no real hardship then maybe, otherwise be prepared for the worst.

Thank you so much for the insight, and perspective. We will take all of those points on board. Some very valid points to consider indeed.
I didn't want to give the impression my son hasn't been researching any, he really has. I just guess I'm being an overhelpful dad perhaps...
All the very best for the future!
Chris.

Not to mention the thousands of pilots that are currently facing redundancy. As a graduate with 150hrs you are going to be up against type rated guys and gals with thousands of hours, who would you pick if you were recruiting.

Sorry to sound so pessimistic but anything other than modular training would be madness at the moment in my opinion, there is just too much uncertainty in the sector.

Thank you both for your input. This is obviously a massive investment for the family. All of your help and advice in hugely appreciated in these uncertain times. We do need to look more at the modular options also. Integrated seemed like the best option before Covid19, but clearly we're in a different world now...
If successful with the interview stage, we'll look to push back as far as possible with the start date, whilst considering all other options.
I'm so sorry for all of the qualified guys that have worked so hard to get where they are, only to be faced with such unprecedented uncertainty. I can only hope the rebound is quick, and significant.
Thanks again. Any more thoughts very welcome.

kpd is providing sound advice for your research.

The other ppruners are telling you, in a transparent unambiguous style, as is their want, what the prospects are just now. Ask CAE what the prospects are. Get them to put it in writing. At least MOL does.

Caveat emptor & due diligence is my advice.

In common with all transactions you clearly want to avoid being sold
“a pig in a poke” or even “sold a pup”

During the height of the boom I would have advised against going to OAA.

Doing it right now is pure insanity. Save yourself and your son a ton of grief (and money). Put the plans on ice for the time being. If he has ants in his pants and wishes to start doing something, then get cracking with the ground school at a modular school. There are very good schools dotted across Europe where you can get your training done for a fraction of the price and be just as airline ready (if not more) than going to one of these major schools.

I speak from personal experience, good luck

Fools and their money are easily parted. I am assuming that you are looking to commit 100 grand plus on flight training? If you have money to burn then that’s fine, otherwise get wise and listen to the advice of people in the know before CAE fills yours and your sons brains with BS. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of people on here who do zero due diligence.

Knock knock, nearly every UK Pilot is grounded at the moment, factor that in to your calculations before setting fire to a huge pile of money.

Echo all the above. It would make more sense to wire out £100K to Nigeria as an advance on the £50 million you are about to inherit from a previously unknown relative.

This......

A number of my friends are out of jobs, and those that are finishing training at CAE and L3 no job to go into, those with conditional offers have been terminated or on the odd occasion furloughed indefinitely (but may still lose their job). At least one of my friends is concerned about going bankrupt due to the cost of training and possibly no job for a few years. I seriously hope you wouldn't want a high risk of ending up in their boat, it is not good for your health...

This isn't exaggeration and is the real deal. Push past the Marketing and ask CAE what is really going on. It must be realised that pilot training is just an investment and has fairly high variability in risk levels. Wait it out, aviation is at a make or break point, It isn't a race to the flight deck, without a job to go to an ATPL is literally only a 100k fancy piece of paper issued by the regulator.

For now, Go do a PPL, Go Gliding, Do anything but sink large amounts of money to a crumbling airline industry...

Getting Pprune notifications saying my inbox is full but there's nothing in there? Am I missing something? Sorry to sound dim, but very new to the site.
Thanks so much for all of the responses guys, the replies will literally be life and finance changing! The whole family is very very grateful!

just tried again now. As a new subscriber you have exceeded your quoter it is saying. Go to private messages. Inbox. Then EMPTY FOLDER/ delete function.
Alternatively send a PM to me with an email address to circumnavigate pprune.

Lammy keep posting and as you post they will then enable your PM function- not sure what the minimum posts are but perhaps someone can advise?