jrh
Well-Known Member
I interviewed at AirNet yesterday. Not sure how well I did. I think everything was great except for a lousy sim ride. Here was the entire process:
Airlined in the day before and got in to town about noon. Did "sim prep" session with Walter Robinson (one of the recruiters/pilots I believe) at 3:00 p.m. Walter's a nice guy, decent instructor, just kind of quiet and gets straight to the point. I *HIGHLY* recommend doing sim prep the day before the actual interview.
They have Frasca 142 sims set to simulate Barons. This was my first time flying a sim. I have a couple hours in a PCATD from several years ago, but it's not like that counts for anything.
Basically, I sucked hardcore. The sim isn't as sensitive as the PCATD I used to fly, but it's still pretty sensitive. I found it very hard to hold altitude, particularly because I couldn't figure out the secret to trimming out a sim and I wasn't sure what baseline power settings to use for various tasks.
We worked on approaches, engine failures, and basic attitude flying for about an hour and a half.
Then I went back to the hotel, studied, ate, went to bed, got a good night's sleep, and went in for the real interview in the morning.
There were supposed to be five of us total interviewing, but only myself and two others showed up. The other two guys both had flight instructing backgrounds. One guy had about 700 TT and the other I'm not sure of his times, but I think both were going for SIC spots.
First thing we did was take a tour of the entire operation. Saw the maintenance hangar, looked inside the planes, toured the dispatch offices, etc.
Next we went in to a conference room and Craig Washka, the top recruiter, gave a presentation on the company, its history, it's future, why it's a good place to work, etc. During the presentation Craig said they were wanting to hire 150 pilots in 2008.
Next came the written test. They give a 60 question multiple choice test over IFR knowledge, multi-engine flying, aerodynamics, and weather. In general, pretty basic stuff. Straight out of the FAR/AIM mostly. Several scenario questions where pages from a DUATS weather briefing and NOS approach plate book are given and questions are asked about when an alternate is or is not needed, what the requirements for the alternate are, etc. If you're an active CFI/CFII/MEI you should have no trouble with this. I don't think I aced it, but I probably got an 85-90% without much effort.
During the written test they pulled us out for a while to do either the sim eval or one on one interview with Craig. I did the sim first.
It went like this:
Takeoff out of CMH Runway 28L. Engine failure on the takeoff roll. Reset the sim.
Takeoff, everything goes normal. Climb to 3000, fly a couple vectors. Do 50 degree bank steep turns. Do slow flight, holding 90 knots, gear and flaps extended. Reduce power in to a power off stall, recover.
Get clearance to hold as published over the APE (Appleton) VOR. For me it was a direct entry. While flying to the VOR the attitude indicator failed. Before I got to the hold it "fixed" itself. Entered the hold, was cleared for the VOR-A approach in to Newark-Heath. Flew the procedure, had to go missed. On the missed, had an engine failure. Flew the missed approach on one engine.
Got vectors for the ILS 28L in to CMH. Shot the ILS single engine to minimums, broke out, and landed single engine. That was it.
I definitely didn't fly that great in the sim, but I was leaps and bounds ahead of myself compared to sim prep the day before. That's why I strongly suggest doing sim prep unless you have a lot of time in a Frasca. My weakest area is probably basic attitude flying. My altitude still wandered up to 300 feet off at one point, but I never busted any minimums at least. My strong areas are probably good situational awareness, good decisionmaking/CRM, and decent procedural (following checklists, IDing navaids before use, etc.) skills.
I went back to the training room and we all had lunch together. AirNet provides lunch (sandwiches, chips, water). Very casual, informal atmosphere. We all sat around swapping stories and asking questions about the company.
After lunch I finished my written exam.
Then I went for the one on one interview with Craig. He's not too scary, but doesn't give any hint as to if he liked my answers or not. Felt sort of like an oral exam.
Started out by making sure my paperwork was in line. Asked me some basic questions about if I was willing to relocate, sign the training agreement, etc.
Then he asked these questions:
What twin are you most familiar with? (Turbo Seminole)
Tell me about the engines in that plane. (Turbocharged, 180 hp, carbeurated (sp?). He asked me if it was possible to have a turbocharged, carbeurated engine. I wasn't sure if he was seriously curious because Turbo Seminoles are rare and he'd never heard of them, or if he was trying to mess with me. I told him it'd been a year since I'd flown it, and it was fuzzy in my memory, but I was fairly certain it was carbeurated. He just nodded and moved on.)
How can you tell that the landing gear is down and locked? I told him three green lights, mirror on the engine nacelle, and aircraft performance. He said the mirror and performance don't tell me if it's *locked*. I thought for a while and told him I didn't know of any ways to verify that the gear is locked other than the lights, but in the Seminole, there's no way to force the gear down. Manual gear extension is through gravity, so if you go through the manual gear extension procedure and still can't get a light (I also talked about swapping bulbs to verify the indicators), there's nothing more as a pilot I could do, it is whatever it is. If it's unlocked, it's unlocked. I'd treat it as being unlocked and land accordingly, holding weight off the wheel as long as possible, etc. He seemed satisfied enough with that answer...not sure what he was looking for.
What should I do if I have an engine failure below Vmc while taking off? (abort the takeoff)
What should I do if I have an engine fail on climbout and can't maintain altitude at Vyse? (try Vxse)
How should I configure the plane if I know for sure I can't maintain altitude on a single engine and I know I'm going to hit the ground? (I told him a lot of the same things as a single engine aircraft emergency...pop the door, drop the gear to absorb energy on impact, cut the electrical system, make sure I'm belted, put a jacket in front of my face, point in to the surface wind...again, I'm not sure what he was looking for.)
Why do you teach students to takeoff and land into the wind? (Use less runway, have a slower groundspeed, less likely to overrun the end of the runway, less wear and tear on tires and brakes, more options for aborting a takeoff, climb/descend at a steeper angle, a lower noise footprint for the airport neighbors, easier to return to the airport in case of an emergency on takeoff, etc.)
What do you think makes a good freight pilot?
Why do you want to work for AirNet?
What are your short and long term career goals?
How do you think your coworkers would describe you?
Have you ever gone out of your way to help a customer? Tell me about a time.
What's the best part of your current job?
What's the worst part?
And that was about it. Interestingly, he never once looked at my logbooks. In fact, nobody looked at my logbooks throughout the entire interview. The whole time it seemed as though the company is more interested in what I can offer them in the future rather than what I've been doing in the past.
Let me know if you have any specific questions about the process.
Airlined in the day before and got in to town about noon. Did "sim prep" session with Walter Robinson (one of the recruiters/pilots I believe) at 3:00 p.m. Walter's a nice guy, decent instructor, just kind of quiet and gets straight to the point. I *HIGHLY* recommend doing sim prep the day before the actual interview.
They have Frasca 142 sims set to simulate Barons. This was my first time flying a sim. I have a couple hours in a PCATD from several years ago, but it's not like that counts for anything.
Basically, I sucked hardcore. The sim isn't as sensitive as the PCATD I used to fly, but it's still pretty sensitive. I found it very hard to hold altitude, particularly because I couldn't figure out the secret to trimming out a sim and I wasn't sure what baseline power settings to use for various tasks.
We worked on approaches, engine failures, and basic attitude flying for about an hour and a half.
Then I went back to the hotel, studied, ate, went to bed, got a good night's sleep, and went in for the real interview in the morning.
There were supposed to be five of us total interviewing, but only myself and two others showed up. The other two guys both had flight instructing backgrounds. One guy had about 700 TT and the other I'm not sure of his times, but I think both were going for SIC spots.
First thing we did was take a tour of the entire operation. Saw the maintenance hangar, looked inside the planes, toured the dispatch offices, etc.
Next we went in to a conference room and Craig Washka, the top recruiter, gave a presentation on the company, its history, it's future, why it's a good place to work, etc. During the presentation Craig said they were wanting to hire 150 pilots in 2008.
Next came the written test. They give a 60 question multiple choice test over IFR knowledge, multi-engine flying, aerodynamics, and weather. In general, pretty basic stuff. Straight out of the FAR/AIM mostly. Several scenario questions where pages from a DUATS weather briefing and NOS approach plate book are given and questions are asked about when an alternate is or is not needed, what the requirements for the alternate are, etc. If you're an active CFI/CFII/MEI you should have no trouble with this. I don't think I aced it, but I probably got an 85-90% without much effort.
During the written test they pulled us out for a while to do either the sim eval or one on one interview with Craig. I did the sim first.
It went like this:
Takeoff out of CMH Runway 28L. Engine failure on the takeoff roll. Reset the sim.
Takeoff, everything goes normal. Climb to 3000, fly a couple vectors. Do 50 degree bank steep turns. Do slow flight, holding 90 knots, gear and flaps extended. Reduce power in to a power off stall, recover.
Get clearance to hold as published over the APE (Appleton) VOR. For me it was a direct entry. While flying to the VOR the attitude indicator failed. Before I got to the hold it "fixed" itself. Entered the hold, was cleared for the VOR-A approach in to Newark-Heath. Flew the procedure, had to go missed. On the missed, had an engine failure. Flew the missed approach on one engine.
Got vectors for the ILS 28L in to CMH. Shot the ILS single engine to minimums, broke out, and landed single engine. That was it.
I definitely didn't fly that great in the sim, but I was leaps and bounds ahead of myself compared to sim prep the day before. That's why I strongly suggest doing sim prep unless you have a lot of time in a Frasca. My weakest area is probably basic attitude flying. My altitude still wandered up to 300 feet off at one point, but I never busted any minimums at least. My strong areas are probably good situational awareness, good decisionmaking/CRM, and decent procedural (following checklists, IDing navaids before use, etc.) skills.
I went back to the training room and we all had lunch together. AirNet provides lunch (sandwiches, chips, water). Very casual, informal atmosphere. We all sat around swapping stories and asking questions about the company.
After lunch I finished my written exam.
Then I went for the one on one interview with Craig. He's not too scary, but doesn't give any hint as to if he liked my answers or not. Felt sort of like an oral exam.
Started out by making sure my paperwork was in line. Asked me some basic questions about if I was willing to relocate, sign the training agreement, etc.
Then he asked these questions:
What twin are you most familiar with? (Turbo Seminole)
Tell me about the engines in that plane. (Turbocharged, 180 hp, carbeurated (sp?). He asked me if it was possible to have a turbocharged, carbeurated engine. I wasn't sure if he was seriously curious because Turbo Seminoles are rare and he'd never heard of them, or if he was trying to mess with me. I told him it'd been a year since I'd flown it, and it was fuzzy in my memory, but I was fairly certain it was carbeurated. He just nodded and moved on.)
How can you tell that the landing gear is down and locked? I told him three green lights, mirror on the engine nacelle, and aircraft performance. He said the mirror and performance don't tell me if it's *locked*. I thought for a while and told him I didn't know of any ways to verify that the gear is locked other than the lights, but in the Seminole, there's no way to force the gear down. Manual gear extension is through gravity, so if you go through the manual gear extension procedure and still can't get a light (I also talked about swapping bulbs to verify the indicators), there's nothing more as a pilot I could do, it is whatever it is. If it's unlocked, it's unlocked. I'd treat it as being unlocked and land accordingly, holding weight off the wheel as long as possible, etc. He seemed satisfied enough with that answer...not sure what he was looking for.
What should I do if I have an engine failure below Vmc while taking off? (abort the takeoff)
What should I do if I have an engine fail on climbout and can't maintain altitude at Vyse? (try Vxse)
How should I configure the plane if I know for sure I can't maintain altitude on a single engine and I know I'm going to hit the ground? (I told him a lot of the same things as a single engine aircraft emergency...pop the door, drop the gear to absorb energy on impact, cut the electrical system, make sure I'm belted, put a jacket in front of my face, point in to the surface wind...again, I'm not sure what he was looking for.)
Why do you teach students to takeoff and land into the wind? (Use less runway, have a slower groundspeed, less likely to overrun the end of the runway, less wear and tear on tires and brakes, more options for aborting a takeoff, climb/descend at a steeper angle, a lower noise footprint for the airport neighbors, easier to return to the airport in case of an emergency on takeoff, etc.)
What do you think makes a good freight pilot?
Why do you want to work for AirNet?
What are your short and long term career goals?
How do you think your coworkers would describe you?
Have you ever gone out of your way to help a customer? Tell me about a time.
What's the best part of your current job?
What's the worst part?
And that was about it. Interestingly, he never once looked at my logbooks. In fact, nobody looked at my logbooks throughout the entire interview. The whole time it seemed as though the company is more interested in what I can offer them in the future rather than what I've been doing in the past.
Let me know if you have any specific questions about the process.
