How To Become An Airline Pilot
Dear Captain Lim,
How are you doing? I hope all is well. I send you an e-mail earlier about information regarding the Cathay Pacific Cadet Pilot Program.
Anyway, I would like to let you know what happen during my initial test yesterday. I am also suppose to get back from them within 3 weeks, but this morning, I received a call from Cathay asking me to go back for another interview. So I guess I passed my initial test. Now, I don't know what to expect from this interview. I guess I will just have to wait and see.
Here's the run down of what happened during Stage 1 initial test yesterday:
1. English Listening Test
This is a 100 questions test with everyone in the same room. You listen to a tape and try to pick out the key words said and then underline the correct answer. Watch out though, as the speaker on the tape has a very strong English accent. You might want to brush that up if you are from North America or elsewhere.
2. English Grammer Test
This is another 100 questions test with everyone in the same room again. You have 40 minutes to complete this test. Again, you are suppose to underline one of the three correct answers.
3. Aptitude Test
There are a few parts in the Aptitude Test.
a) First part of the test - there are two short parallel lines with a dot in between. The two parallel lines will move left and right at varying speed and distance and you are suppose to use the joy-stick to move to dot and keep the dot as close to the lines as possible. This test will gets more difficult when your scores get higher and if you are not keeping up, your score will drop. You get 3 tries to get an average score.
b) In the second test - it is pretty much the same thing but with a twist. Instead of having the computer increasing you score and difficulty, you are suppose to press the green button to increase your score and thus increase your difficulty. And if things get too hard and it is out of control, you are suppose to press the red button to reduce your score and difficulty. If you did not press the red button, you will automatically lose score once things get out of control. So it is quite hard as you try to get maximum points while keeping things under control. Again, you get 3 tries to get an average score.
c) In the third test, you are suppose to bring the aircraft to a point in the glide path. You are suppose to align the plane with the runway and bring it down to 50 feet from touch down and at the same time, reduce the speed to 100 km/h. In this test, you use your joy-stick and the red and green button for throttle control. You will get points according to the speed of your approach (you are suppose to keep your speed as fast as possible before you reach 50 feet as you get higher points for a faster average approach speed) and your angle of alignment. You will get 1 test try and 5 real tries.
d) Quick Subtraction - you will need to do 50 quick subtraction questions. All you need to do is to confirm the answer is right or wrong. You will get points for your speed and accuracy.
e) In this coordination test, you are going to use the rudder pedal and your joy-stick to try to keep this cross within this box. The computer will try to move the cross away from the box to simulate wind. It is an interesting test. You will get points for the horizontal and vertical errors. You get 3 tries.
f) Shoot the bandit. This test use the red and green button. You will be shown two aircraft with two different wing span, the one with the longer wing span is the bad guy, the one with the shorter span is the good guy. Then the computer will randomly pop up planes with different wing span on the screen and you get 1.5 seconds to decide to press the green to shoot or red to stop. If you did not decide within 1.5 seconds, the computer will automatically shoot it down. You will do this for a total of 3 times and each time there will be 50 planes to decide which to shoot or not, the difference in the wing span size get smaller each time. In the last try, you can barely tell the difference. You will be graded for your reaction time and accuracy.
4. Reasoning Test:
There's two section to this test but basically you are being test on the same type of questions. You are suppose to decide which one of the 8 symbols belong to the missing one. You have 5 minutes for the first test, you should have enough time to do it as it only has 10 questions. Then you have 40 minutes for 36 questions. These questions are more difficult but you should have more than enough time to do this.
5. Presentation:
Finally, you are suppose to do your presentation in front of one of the recruitment lady. She is very nice and I think the actual substance of the presentation does not really matter that much but it is more of an oral test. They want to know that you can actually speak proper English. The lady really only paid attention to me for the first 30 seconds and then she begin to do her own thing and write something down on your application. But you need to do at least some research on your assigned topics before you go into your presentation.
So that's it for Stage 1 and you will be doing this with 8 other candidates. It is a fun experience. I felt a little bit overwhelmed by the other candidates as most of them have either their PPL or some flying lessons but I have never flown before. But I guess it didn't really matter as long as you know you want to do this, you will get through.
Anyway, thanks for your help Captain Lim. I will let you know how everything goes for my interview next week.
Yours truly,
Peter
Hi Peter,
Thank you for your account of the stage one initial test with Cathay Pacific Cadet Pilot Program.
I look forward to how you would fare in the second stage of the interview. Having a PPL or some flying experience is an advantage but that does not mean it would guarantee you a place in the program. If you are well prepared, have good leadership qualities, possess the right attitude and aptitude, your chances of getting into the airline is just as good!
I wish you all the best!
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