merry christmas: the Cx interview notes are back
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Hello guys...(gals?)....I need the notes really quick....can anyone help?
I am attending the initial very shortly......please pm me.....
Many thanks.........................
I am attending the initial very shortly......please pm me.....
Many thanks.........................
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CX DEFO
Format of the 1st stage DEFO and notes;
Intial quiz :30 questions in 30 mins covering Met,Aerodynamics/Systems
I finished this in around 15mins but found 3 or 4 rather tricky. Plenty of time to go back over them.
Eg’s: If cloud base is thickening and lowering it indicates; Cold Front / Warm Front / Orographic Cloud
What is not an input to the ADC? Mach No. / air temp / pitot pressure
A high Aspect ratio wing compared to a low ratio one will; Produce less induced drag / produce more lift / Allow higher speed flight
On a wet runway, the most effective initial braking comes from; Brakes & Spoilers / Spoilers and Rev. Thrust / Brakes and Rev. Thrust.
What type of flap directs high pressure flow over upper surface of flap to energise the boundary layer? Split / Slotted / slat
Clearway may be include in ASDA; Always / If temp is less than 30 deg.C / Never
Which control surface most counteracts the Dutch-Roll tendancy Aileron / Rudder / Flaps
What type of aileron reduces adverse yaw; Counterbalanced / Frise / Symmetrical
Beginning at stall speed and increasing to max. speed, what happens to total drag; Decreases / decreases then increases / increases
LRC is; same as max range / faster than max range / same as max endurance
Then into interview with two senior guys, one asked all the personal questions and the other stuck to systems and running various scenarios. Perfect gentlemen and made you feel at ease and relaxed.
Firstly came the personals; Have you been to HK, Did you like it, what specifally appealed to you.
Wife / Partner, what to they think of HK,
What would they say your 2 weakest traits are,
Why CX, applications with other airlines, What 2 things will you bring to CX as a pilot,
Went through my work history and general Q’s about why I left previous employers,
If you had your time again what would you do differently (in Aviation).
What were some of the best jobs you’ve had, did you ever hold an instructor rating, why did you not keep it current( I had an old GradeIII rating).
Chatted about where I did my training, why I did it in that city, why that school etc…
What was your first job, best job/ worst job.
Then into the technical questions. There were 3 models on the table. A333 / A343 / B744 pax.
Initially had to identify them and then straight onto the 74. General description of the Hyd. Systems, how many, how are they powered. What produdes the largest output Pneumatics or Elecs,Why are the 1 & 4 systems air driven and 3 & 4 Elec (Demand pumps)
What runs which groups of gear, flap, surfaces etc..
Senario was eng 1 fire. Ran through the recall items and then just chatted about things you’re thinking about with Sys 1 knocked out, given that we took off with an U/S demand pump on sys 1.
Why is there a tank in the Stab, why would you want to put it there.
This led into a general discussion on W&B, I said the aircraft is nose heavy at high weights etc. How the CG has to be Fwd of CP and why, which led back to the Stab tank and having fuel there would assist rotation at high-weights etc. and why the tail produces down-force
What number of 74 freighters do we have, what types, what power plants, why are there different engines through the fleet.
I found it tricky to get the engine details so whaffled on a bit here about some of them being leased or came equipped that way from previous owner.
What is EPR and how and where is it measured? I got myself tangled up a little here with by-pass ratios but talked myself in a loop and with a bit of prompting got back on track.
Which is a better method of measuring engine thrust EPR or N1? Why?
That’s as much as I can remember now, will add more as it comes into head.
The whole process was about 1hr 15 mins.
They asked me if I had any questions and pointed out that the positions they were interviewing for are the Syd and Mel bases. Said to call the recruiting people in HK in 10 days time to see whether I was successful.
Intial quiz :30 questions in 30 mins covering Met,Aerodynamics/Systems
I finished this in around 15mins but found 3 or 4 rather tricky. Plenty of time to go back over them.
Eg’s: If cloud base is thickening and lowering it indicates; Cold Front / Warm Front / Orographic Cloud
What is not an input to the ADC? Mach No. / air temp / pitot pressure
A high Aspect ratio wing compared to a low ratio one will; Produce less induced drag / produce more lift / Allow higher speed flight
On a wet runway, the most effective initial braking comes from; Brakes & Spoilers / Spoilers and Rev. Thrust / Brakes and Rev. Thrust.
What type of flap directs high pressure flow over upper surface of flap to energise the boundary layer? Split / Slotted / slat
Clearway may be include in ASDA; Always / If temp is less than 30 deg.C / Never
Which control surface most counteracts the Dutch-Roll tendancy Aileron / Rudder / Flaps
What type of aileron reduces adverse yaw; Counterbalanced / Frise / Symmetrical
Beginning at stall speed and increasing to max. speed, what happens to total drag; Decreases / decreases then increases / increases
LRC is; same as max range / faster than max range / same as max endurance
Then into interview with two senior guys, one asked all the personal questions and the other stuck to systems and running various scenarios. Perfect gentlemen and made you feel at ease and relaxed.
Firstly came the personals; Have you been to HK, Did you like it, what specifally appealed to you.
Wife / Partner, what to they think of HK,
What would they say your 2 weakest traits are,
Why CX, applications with other airlines, What 2 things will you bring to CX as a pilot,
Went through my work history and general Q’s about why I left previous employers,
If you had your time again what would you do differently (in Aviation).
What were some of the best jobs you’ve had, did you ever hold an instructor rating, why did you not keep it current( I had an old GradeIII rating).
Chatted about where I did my training, why I did it in that city, why that school etc…
What was your first job, best job/ worst job.
Then into the technical questions. There were 3 models on the table. A333 / A343 / B744 pax.
Initially had to identify them and then straight onto the 74. General description of the Hyd. Systems, how many, how are they powered. What produdes the largest output Pneumatics or Elecs,Why are the 1 & 4 systems air driven and 3 & 4 Elec (Demand pumps)
What runs which groups of gear, flap, surfaces etc..
Senario was eng 1 fire. Ran through the recall items and then just chatted about things you’re thinking about with Sys 1 knocked out, given that we took off with an U/S demand pump on sys 1.
Why is there a tank in the Stab, why would you want to put it there.
This led into a general discussion on W&B, I said the aircraft is nose heavy at high weights etc. How the CG has to be Fwd of CP and why, which led back to the Stab tank and having fuel there would assist rotation at high-weights etc. and why the tail produces down-force
What number of 74 freighters do we have, what types, what power plants, why are there different engines through the fleet.
I found it tricky to get the engine details so whaffled on a bit here about some of them being leased or came equipped that way from previous owner.
What is EPR and how and where is it measured? I got myself tangled up a little here with by-pass ratios but talked myself in a loop and with a bit of prompting got back on track.
Which is a better method of measuring engine thrust EPR or N1? Why?
That’s as much as I can remember now, will add more as it comes into head.
The whole process was about 1hr 15 mins.
They asked me if I had any questions and pointed out that the positions they were interviewing for are the Syd and Mel bases. Said to call the recruiting people in HK in 10 days time to see whether I was successful.
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>What type of flap directs high pressure flow over upper surface of flap to
>energise the boundary layer? Split / Slotted / slat
I'm a bit confused by this question. Does anyone know the answer?
My understanding is that a leading edge SLAT causes a SLOT (when deployed) which re-energizes the boundary layer...thus delaying stall. A non-moveable SLOT is a non-moveable aerodynamic design that causes the same effect. A split flap is for old timers...
>energise the boundary layer? Split / Slotted / slat
I'm a bit confused by this question. Does anyone know the answer?
My understanding is that a leading edge SLAT causes a SLOT (when deployed) which re-energizes the boundary layer...thus delaying stall. A non-moveable SLOT is a non-moveable aerodynamic design that causes the same effect. A split flap is for old timers...
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Hmmm
Thinking of the 74, the T/E group moves aft and downwards, and picks up high press. flow there from the mainplane's underside and directs this over the flap upper surface(?) Double-slotted Fowler flaps(??). That's the path I took anyway...
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Legends of pprune
crossbleed you are the man!!! Thanks for the awesome post.
Also keen to find out more from anyone who knows about the maths test for the final interview???
Cheers fellas.
Also keen to find out more from anyone who knows about the maths test for the final interview???
Cheers fellas.
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Jeez, some pretty heavy Q's on the 744 there - a bit ridiculous if you were non typed (which I assume you are) I mean, recall items? detailed type specific Hyds Q's?
Surely they do not expect you to know all that, and if you did as a non-typed applicant, then all that displays is that you knew exactly what was coming in the interview and studied accordingly. As I said, pointless excercise that doesn't prove too much.
Surely they do not expect you to know all that, and if you did as a non-typed applicant, then all that displays is that you knew exactly what was coming in the interview and studied accordingly. As I said, pointless excercise that doesn't prove too much.
Dixons Cider
If you take the time and check Crossbleed's profile you will find he is type rated on tyhe -400 and probably flying for an operator out of Taipei. At the interview you will be grilled on your current aircraft type if the interviewer is familiar with it. In this case I would suggest the interviewer was very familiar with the -400 as he was probable a senior checker on it here at CX.
If you take the time and check Crossbleed's profile you will find he is type rated on tyhe -400 and probably flying for an operator out of Taipei. At the interview you will be grilled on your current aircraft type if the interviewer is familiar with it. In this case I would suggest the interviewer was very familiar with the -400 as he was probable a senior checker on it here at CX.
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404
Fair enough then. I jumped to the assumption that he was non typed due to the fact that CX employs without the applicable type rating.
Slap on the wrist for moi!!!
How silly of me 
Crossbleed
Best of luck with the process
Fair enough then. I jumped to the assumption that he was non typed due to the fact that CX employs without the applicable type rating.
Slap on the wrist for moi!!!
How silly of me Crossbleed
Best of luck with the process
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Part I Notes
For anyone interested, below is my experience with the CX Part I interview which I did about a month ago in San Francisco. There was nothing that really that I hadn’t seen on here, Aviation Interviews, or Flight Info. This is just a current perspective.
Thanks in advance to all those who have posted as well as a few who have PM’d or emailed me with specific answers & gouge.
I stayed with a friend and drove into the city so I ended up about an hour and a half early for the 0900 interview. I bought a coffee from the nearby Starbucks and relaxed in Union Square while reviewing notes one last time. (The café in the Square does not open until about 0830.) FYI, for that last minute check in the mirror, the parking garage under Union Square has very clean restrooms on the north side across from Cathay’s office in the Tiffany building that one can access with the parking ticket.
A polite woman from the staff met me at the door and had me wait about 3 minutes in the lounge area. She then came back, collected my passport, licenses and logbook and then escorted me to the test room. The test was 30 question / 30-minute multiple-choice test. Most questions had three choices and were fairly straightforward – standard aero stuff but there were a few I had to think about: the axis of rotation were labeled with the British nomenclature, there were questions on Frise ailerons, ground looping on tail draggers, stability, etc. I finished in about 15 min and then took another 10 min to double check the answers since I invariably end up marking an answer wrong, which I did, so I was glad to have time to recheck.
I turned in the test to the same woman and took a quick head break. When I came back into the Cathay spaces, one of the gentlemen who I would be interviewing with met me. We made some polite small talk walking back to the interview room, which overlooked Union Square, where we met the other interviewer. A model of the CX-747-400 pax bird was in the center of the table, my logbook and other documents were on the side, and it appeared that they had reviewed them while I had been taking the test. The second gentleman asked most sincerely that I make myself comfortable and since the room was a bit warm I took my jacket off; I also keep my bottle of water out on the table. He then described the process in which he would go first with HR type questions and then the other interviewer would follow with mainly technical questions and maybe some follow-up HR questions.
HR questions from the first up to bat: Take as much time as you need and walk us thru your career. How did you pay for college? There were questions about my previous professional career in the tech industry before I joined the Navy and started flying. Why do you want to fly? Tell us about your first flight. He was curious about the Navy’s selection process for Post-graduate School. He asked about what I did in my present job on the wing staff. Was I involved with determining if students meet training standards? (Yes specifically when I fly as an instructor, not for their overall grades thru the syllabus.) What other companies had I applied to and what were the attributes at those companies, other than the financial aspects, that were important to me? What was the attraction to Cathay? What would I do if I had a class date from company X that was before the second interview from Cathay? Why are you retiring from the military? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Why should we hire you? Will I have the same job satisfaction if I am just flying and don’t have all the ground jobs? (YES!) How do I think I did on the tech test? How had I prepared for the interview? Where does CX fly in North America? (I forgot Toronto & Anchorage; I just could not pull those two out of my brain even though I had looked at the route map about an hour before and told him so. Win some, lose some.) He also asked if I knew what the recent aircraft order was.
Toward the end of his questioning, he told me that if I were called back, the sim check would be in the -200 so I would want to ensure that I was prepared for that. I took that as a good sign.
The next gentleman followed up with some HR questions as well: How does customer service apply to the freighter side? Why hadn’t I applied to company Y? Company Z is hiring lots of Navy pilots, what about them? Questions about moving to HK – how would we cope, what did we expect, it not the same as with the Navy…etc. (This whole subject btw, was very easy for me; we have lived in Hi & twice in Italy and the opportunity to live in Asia for a few years is very attractive to us. My wife is a 10-move veteran and says, “Bring it on!”)
The general theme of the HR questions seemed to twofold: 1) one for them to get to know you, your career and motivation to fly and 2) to get a feel for your sincerity, interest and motivation for Cathay Pacific and your willingness to move to Hong Kong, if even just for a short while.
Interviewer number two then moved into the tech questions: What is the tropopause? Mach number effects in a climb? Wx in HK? Hurricanes in HK? A hurricane is coming at HK from due south, what would I expect the duty rw to be the few days prior? Where is gas kept in the -400? Why in the horizontal stab? Questions on the P-3 prop system and failure modes. What are the differences between the motors on the Metroliner (previous aircraft) and the KingAir (current aircraft)? He started to ask about the Saberliner, I told him that was a long time ago (14 years), and he waved off on that. I hadn’t flown anything heavy (P-3 was the largest in my background) and so how did I think that would affect my flying? (I think he was looking for the momentum factor which I didn’t state explicitly, but said that you need to think farther ahead on the g/s and on the descent since the jet flies differently than a prop due to spool-up time and he seemed happy with that.)
The general theme with the tech questions just seemed to get a feel for if your knowledge matched what was in the documentation and had you actually put some prep into the interview.
They then asked if I had any questions, which I did. Before I asked my I asked those five or six questions I had come in with that were important to me, I discussed a minor medical issue that hadn’t come in the course of the other discussions just to be up front and honest with them since it did have an impact on my career early on. I then asked about: DFW as a base (a handful there now and growing); age 55 retirement (yes it will change but who knows when, take the job with the assumption that it won’t); upgrade & captains board; I asked them to confirm that once thru the captains course, then are you always a captain and if you switch airplanes is it just a type conversion? (Yes was the answer I got.) I think that was about it.
The whole interview was just under an hour. Both men were very professional, polite, and cordial. I must say it was a relaxed and non-confrontational situation.
I started studying in earnest for this about 6 weeks out by reading Handling the Big Jets, then near constant review of Ace the … Interview, Aero for Naval Aviators, the AIM and the ATP Oral Exam Study Guide. I reviewed HR questions from multiple sources (PPrune, FlightInfo, etc.), studied the State Department’s web site on HK, Hong Kong’s web site, Cathay’s web site, etc., etc. During logistic runs, I had the other pilots randomly review interview questions with me. I did two workshops with Emerald Coast, one phone prep with them, and a video prep locally. Finally, I abused my long-term friend who I stayed with by having her grill me most of the day before the interview. My friend has worked in HR for a major tech company and told me that I had done at least 5 times the amount of prep she had ever seen any one else do and despite all that, I still felt I could have done more.
It paid off though because I found out about two weeks later that I had been asked to come to HK for Part II! So now, it is back to the books for me.
Best of luck to all!
Thanks in advance to all those who have posted as well as a few who have PM’d or emailed me with specific answers & gouge.
I stayed with a friend and drove into the city so I ended up about an hour and a half early for the 0900 interview. I bought a coffee from the nearby Starbucks and relaxed in Union Square while reviewing notes one last time. (The café in the Square does not open until about 0830.) FYI, for that last minute check in the mirror, the parking garage under Union Square has very clean restrooms on the north side across from Cathay’s office in the Tiffany building that one can access with the parking ticket.
A polite woman from the staff met me at the door and had me wait about 3 minutes in the lounge area. She then came back, collected my passport, licenses and logbook and then escorted me to the test room. The test was 30 question / 30-minute multiple-choice test. Most questions had three choices and were fairly straightforward – standard aero stuff but there were a few I had to think about: the axis of rotation were labeled with the British nomenclature, there were questions on Frise ailerons, ground looping on tail draggers, stability, etc. I finished in about 15 min and then took another 10 min to double check the answers since I invariably end up marking an answer wrong, which I did, so I was glad to have time to recheck.
I turned in the test to the same woman and took a quick head break. When I came back into the Cathay spaces, one of the gentlemen who I would be interviewing with met me. We made some polite small talk walking back to the interview room, which overlooked Union Square, where we met the other interviewer. A model of the CX-747-400 pax bird was in the center of the table, my logbook and other documents were on the side, and it appeared that they had reviewed them while I had been taking the test. The second gentleman asked most sincerely that I make myself comfortable and since the room was a bit warm I took my jacket off; I also keep my bottle of water out on the table. He then described the process in which he would go first with HR type questions and then the other interviewer would follow with mainly technical questions and maybe some follow-up HR questions.
HR questions from the first up to bat: Take as much time as you need and walk us thru your career. How did you pay for college? There were questions about my previous professional career in the tech industry before I joined the Navy and started flying. Why do you want to fly? Tell us about your first flight. He was curious about the Navy’s selection process for Post-graduate School. He asked about what I did in my present job on the wing staff. Was I involved with determining if students meet training standards? (Yes specifically when I fly as an instructor, not for their overall grades thru the syllabus.) What other companies had I applied to and what were the attributes at those companies, other than the financial aspects, that were important to me? What was the attraction to Cathay? What would I do if I had a class date from company X that was before the second interview from Cathay? Why are you retiring from the military? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Why should we hire you? Will I have the same job satisfaction if I am just flying and don’t have all the ground jobs? (YES!) How do I think I did on the tech test? How had I prepared for the interview? Where does CX fly in North America? (I forgot Toronto & Anchorage; I just could not pull those two out of my brain even though I had looked at the route map about an hour before and told him so. Win some, lose some.) He also asked if I knew what the recent aircraft order was.
Toward the end of his questioning, he told me that if I were called back, the sim check would be in the -200 so I would want to ensure that I was prepared for that. I took that as a good sign.
The next gentleman followed up with some HR questions as well: How does customer service apply to the freighter side? Why hadn’t I applied to company Y? Company Z is hiring lots of Navy pilots, what about them? Questions about moving to HK – how would we cope, what did we expect, it not the same as with the Navy…etc. (This whole subject btw, was very easy for me; we have lived in Hi & twice in Italy and the opportunity to live in Asia for a few years is very attractive to us. My wife is a 10-move veteran and says, “Bring it on!”)
The general theme of the HR questions seemed to twofold: 1) one for them to get to know you, your career and motivation to fly and 2) to get a feel for your sincerity, interest and motivation for Cathay Pacific and your willingness to move to Hong Kong, if even just for a short while.
Interviewer number two then moved into the tech questions: What is the tropopause? Mach number effects in a climb? Wx in HK? Hurricanes in HK? A hurricane is coming at HK from due south, what would I expect the duty rw to be the few days prior? Where is gas kept in the -400? Why in the horizontal stab? Questions on the P-3 prop system and failure modes. What are the differences between the motors on the Metroliner (previous aircraft) and the KingAir (current aircraft)? He started to ask about the Saberliner, I told him that was a long time ago (14 years), and he waved off on that. I hadn’t flown anything heavy (P-3 was the largest in my background) and so how did I think that would affect my flying? (I think he was looking for the momentum factor which I didn’t state explicitly, but said that you need to think farther ahead on the g/s and on the descent since the jet flies differently than a prop due to spool-up time and he seemed happy with that.)
The general theme with the tech questions just seemed to get a feel for if your knowledge matched what was in the documentation and had you actually put some prep into the interview.
They then asked if I had any questions, which I did. Before I asked my I asked those five or six questions I had come in with that were important to me, I discussed a minor medical issue that hadn’t come in the course of the other discussions just to be up front and honest with them since it did have an impact on my career early on. I then asked about: DFW as a base (a handful there now and growing); age 55 retirement (yes it will change but who knows when, take the job with the assumption that it won’t); upgrade & captains board; I asked them to confirm that once thru the captains course, then are you always a captain and if you switch airplanes is it just a type conversion? (Yes was the answer I got.) I think that was about it.
The whole interview was just under an hour. Both men were very professional, polite, and cordial. I must say it was a relaxed and non-confrontational situation.
I started studying in earnest for this about 6 weeks out by reading Handling the Big Jets, then near constant review of Ace the … Interview, Aero for Naval Aviators, the AIM and the ATP Oral Exam Study Guide. I reviewed HR questions from multiple sources (PPrune, FlightInfo, etc.), studied the State Department’s web site on HK, Hong Kong’s web site, Cathay’s web site, etc., etc. During logistic runs, I had the other pilots randomly review interview questions with me. I did two workshops with Emerald Coast, one phone prep with them, and a video prep locally. Finally, I abused my long-term friend who I stayed with by having her grill me most of the day before the interview. My friend has worked in HR for a major tech company and told me that I had done at least 5 times the amount of prep she had ever seen any one else do and despite all that, I still felt I could have done more.
It paid off though because I found out about two weeks later that I had been asked to come to HK for Part II! So now, it is back to the books for me.
Best of luck to all!
Last edited by VVJM265; 23rd Jul 2006 at 13:57.
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http://www.jetthrust.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6046
The gouge is here forever. Under General AViation Discussions. You may have to register to view it. Enjoy.
The gouge is here forever. Under General AViation Discussions. You may have to register to view it. Enjoy.
