Importance of aptitude tests
 

G'day PPruners, long time reader first time poster.

I'm a student pilot, solo nav stage, but what is concerning me is that I have not made it through the 3 aptitude tests that I have attempted for the REX & Jetstar cadetships and the RAAF. I'm not the smartest chap around, but I have worked hard and achieved 90+ grades in school, university, PPL exam & one of the CPL exams that I have done so far so I'm assuming that something must be upstairs :}

How accurate / important are these tests when determining your ability as a commercial pilot? I understand that due to the limited number of places available for cadetships the pass threshold for these tests is often fairly high, but it's still disheartening when a computer tells you that you don't meet the required aptitude to fly a plane!

Thanks.

They are terribly important..
..to the HR department! Without them, they'd be lining up at centrelink with all the other unemployed and unfortunates!

Don't be discouraged. Those tests are designed by trick-cyclists in cahoots with human remains 'graduates' who may have never flown an aeroplane themselves. However, the military and airlines do look for certain attributes that you may not possess. It is their train set.
An example: Young guy I had the pleasure of flying Boeing 737s with. Had literally grown up with the type, knew plenty more about it than the average driver, flew it beautifully and loved it. Became a very competent training captain. Went to an Airbus operator which at the time did NOT select via psych testing; rather by interview and simulator evaluation. Anyway, by his own admission he has struggled with the Airbus. He does not like the technology, nor the flying. Apparently it shows. His progress back to the left seat will be slow compared with his earlier experience.
So maybe the trick cyclists are on to something after all?
But whether or not you have aptitude to fly will be known soon enough. If you are not solo in, say 15 hours, or fail your PPL test then you probably don't have what it takes. But if your progress is normal you probably do.
It is probable that you will have to content yourself with a career outside the military or the airlines. However a search of these forums will show that plenty of pilots have found satisfaction in general aviation and smaller regional carriers.
Plenty guys - myself included - had long, successful and accident-free careers without doing psych tests. Our aptitude was assessed in numerous check rides and gruelling simulator sessions, as well as by dealing with the occasional real in-flight emergency.
I, for one, could never pass a modern psych test. Although I am told that it is possible to practice them long enough to bluff your way through. Whether you would be doing yourself a favour taking that approach is your decision, I suggest.

Ability as a pilot seems to have not as much to do with aptitude so much as inclination.

I have trained and worked alongside all sorts of pilots. Those with mechanical/trades backgrounds are typically very good at the "pilot" part of piloting, but not always so hot on the academic/technical stuff.

Conversely, the guys I have trained or worked with who have a more academic orientation have blitzed the exams and can work wonders on a GPS or a computer, but have to work very hard at the practical stick skills.

Your natural inclination towards academia or mechanical/practical skills seems aligned to what you are exposed to as a kid, or what your parents thought was important.

If your Dad was always tinkering with cars or had you out on a motor bike you will develop different key skills to me, growing up in the city with both parents working in IT/management and strong history of academia.

An aptitude for one or the other is not important in your career - it is your inclination to work hard, identitfy your weaknesses, and develop your skills that will see you succeed in life (regardless of career choice) :ok:

Good luck & work hard

Aptitude tests are rubbish, designed to keep HR people in a job.

I underwent the same aptitude test (the RAAF ones) three times over five or so years:

1. for the "Sir Richard Williams Scholarship" to the RAAF Academy - they loved me, I won the scholarship (only 1 person per state)
2. For a QANTAS level 2 scholarship - they said I had "a problem with maths" (they back-pedalled a bit when I told them I did a maths/physics double major) - but they failed me.
3. For a QANTAS direct entry pilot - they were ambivalent and put me in the hold pool.

Now these were exactly the same tests - same words, same physical tests (apparently the guys who did the RAAF tests were poached by QANTAS). So - the same tests by the same person (growing in aviation knowledge and ability) with three different results.

Simply - aptitude tests are worth nothing.

(I have been an airline Captain for many years, BTW)

"Your natural inclination towards academia or mechanical/practical skills seems aligned to what you are exposed to as a kid, or what your parents thought was important."

What rubbish!
My grandad was a engineer and an amateur clock maker. He was always tinkering with something and I was always right there at his side 'helping'. I lived with the grands for my early years. I used a vice almost as soon as I was tall enough. Also, later, my dad would ask me to 'help' him rewiring the house, this in the days when it was acceptable for non qualified electricians to get involved with wiring.
However, I have no inclination nor aptitude for any kind of practical stuff whatsoever.
I was simply another useful pair of hands.
My job? Psychologist ... and aptitude tester. :p

with that background you should specialise in the 'Milgram Experiment'!;)

Hi Chockers,

I will bow to your professional expertise, I am only relating mypersonal observations over 20 years in the workforce.

Horatio
Amatuer psychologist & gynaecologist

Perhaps you could look into the problem:cool:

I certainly know a CASA inspector when I see one... :}

G'day Flying Saucer,

I think they use them to screen personality types more than anything else. I passed ADF pilot aptitude testing, with a band two pass, when I was in the Army. At the time I had only completed Y11, and in that year I had only done maths in society (only one up from vege-maths, MIP)!

I think it was my spacial awareness, co-ordination and attitude that got me through. Each airline might be looking for different attributes.

This:

And this:

Proves your bias. You obviously earn coin from aptitude testing.

I will take this blokes experience over yours any day of the week. I'll bet my left nut he could pick more succesfull candidates than your fluffy aptitude tests.

There are sites online that you can access that allow you to practise on and can give feedback on your results, certainly worth spending some time practising and honing your skills before an interview. These tests can be slanted to favour a certain personality type, but more importantly put the applicant under stress to see how they handle themselves. The more you practise these tests the more confident that you will become:ok:

At first glance, those figures indicate you may have a problem. But in the current general aviation flying school environment, the 15 hour figure is meaningless for several reasons.

Firstly how often are you flying? Are you operating from a busy general aviation airport or a country airport? More important than everything is the competency of your flying instructor. With new instructors coming off the sausage machine lines with barely 250 hours total time, including instructor course, then it is often the case of the blind leading the blind.

Friend of mine applied to join the RAAF as a pilot and failed the hand-eye coordination test (following a bouncing ball with a joy stick type thingie).

The Sergeant who administered the test said he would never make a pilot as these tests did not lie. However (said the Sergeant), as I know your father as he was in the RAAF too, I will give you a pass - but I am warning you,you will never be a pilot as these things don't lie.

My friend got into the RAAF and became a trainee pilot. I was his flying instructor and after successfully getting his `Wings`he flew Mustangs and Sabres and eventually became the CO of a C130 Hercules squadron. So much for "you'll never make a pilot"

Before that posting he became the CO of the RAAF Recruiting Centre in Rushcutters Bay, Sydney where he had done his initial aptitude test. One evening when everyone else had knocked off for the day, he closed the door and had another go at the same hand/eye coordination test. He failed the test again. Draw your own conclusions.

I did say "say" 15 hours.
Derived from recent experience at a busy GA airfield where they have a lot of foreign students. They were expected to solo at 20 hours and if they did not, were subject to various reviews before being allowed to continue. Given that these guys had very poor English and little prior exposure to any mechanical transport beyond a bicycle, my 15 hour estimate is what I would expect from a westerner who had at least driven a car.
Way back, solo was typically 6 to 8 hours, but back then we did not have much traffic or radio to worry about.
Certainly, continuity and quality of instruction is important - hence my qualification with the word "say", but any school which is not getting students off solo at about that average point is probably ripping them off or is itself sub-standard.

Thanks Ranga! :}

I suppose now is not a good time to admit I do believe in the value of personality screening tests for both single-pilot and multi-crew environments... especially multi-crew.

Personality screening and aptitude tests only form a part of a selection process, but they can be very enlightening to the recruiter if used intelligently.

Not too much point arguing about whether they're any good or not ...

Here's a Geoffrey Robertson hypothetical - say you're the boss of a big flying organisation picking people off the street to pilot your aircraft, and you're oversupplied with prospective employees. How do you cull them, or more charitably speaking, whittle away the excess so you're left with the best?

Hmmm ... use education as an initial sorting device, then have a first stage of testing and interviews (using what you judge to be the best available psych and aptitude tests available, which (crazily enough, pardon the pun) are likely designed with a lot of input from trained psychs. Medicals too.

Going on the results from the first round, pick the cream of the crop and get them back for further interviews and/or testing. Based on who is judged to do best and how many you need, send out offers.

Sounds eerily familiar, doesn't it?

On the subject of whether the psychomotor tests are any good as predictors, dunno - anyone got any good long term data?

HL, personality testing is a bit different to aptitude tests I reckon. And I agree with you on that front.

I know a bloke fairly well that failed the aptitude tests for ATC. He and a mate worked fairly hard, practicing tests that were similar, doing dummy interviews with a boss's wife who was a HR practitioner and boned up (so to speak :}) on maths. This bloke did the aptitude test when the opportunity came around again, he passed by one mark.

When it came to the ATC college this bloke didn't fail one exam and obtained an en-route rating. Comparing his aptitude test results to others on the course, some were much higher on first attempt, some of these people failed in the college.

ChocksAwayChaps cannot tell me that aptitude tests will predict anything other than the candidate can pass an aptitude test. How any organisation has been fooled into thinking that they predict or prove anything baffles me? Maybe it's to generate income for what is probably the most useless department in any organisation, HR.

This is fantastic.
I wonder if the mods could make this thread a Sticky thread, kept at the top, so Pilots can always read it and don't loose heart.