NC-Sean
Well-Known Member
I posted this on willflyforfood but figured I would copy it to here too.
Flown positive space to SLC Interview with 2 Captains, one CRJ one E175, both live in SLC but domiciled in DEN.
6 people interviewing, 2 young CFI guys, 2 Feeder Caravan pilots (one in his late 50s) and 1 former European military pilot.
The last gouge was pretty much spot on.
Started with a video and a discussion of the travel benifits. This was a big emphasis for them. Basically a selling point for them vs. bonuses at other regionals. Skywest you get travel benifits on United, Delta and Alaskan.
After the video we split up to do the CRM portion.
Myself and the other Caravan Capt. were paired up. We were given the option of who wanted to be Capt and FO. I was Capt by virtue of being closer to the left side of the mock-up, so we made the other guy the flying pilot.
Given scenario that we are 20 mins out of DFW from LAX, it's a 3 hr flight and we started with 4 hours of fuel. Given a few local airports to possibly divert to. Given 7 minutes..
FA comes on the radio and says that someone wrote in lipstick in the lav that there is a bomb under seat 20C. GO!
I thought the time went by very very quick. Talked to one of the other guys, he said he didn't think it went by quick so, who knows.
We quickly debriefed after it was over and I thought I generally did good. The other pilot thought it went well too.
Went back to the room and we were given paper and pencil and asked to write down 91.175, electrical system of a MULTI-ENGINE plane, and turbofan engine.
-Now here is where I started to sweat a little. I had read the previous gouges and been brushing up on the electrical system and engine of the plane I fly, the Caravan.
So I went ahead and drew a PT-6 turboprop and the electrical system diagram. I also drew a turbofan which I was less familiar with.
We went into the technical interview and it was very much like a checkride oral. Keep asking questions until he ran out of questions or I ran out of answers.
Started with the engine drawing. Talked through the turboprop briefly before moving onto turbofan. But asked about the bypass separator and de-ice equipment. Really needed to have brushed up on this in more detail before hand. Think I would have been better off not knowing anything about the PT-6 I think, just got me confused a little. Asked what pulls the air into the system, the N1 fan. Do the igniters operate throughout the flight. What other systems get stuff from the engine; Bleed air for de-ice, pressurization, hydraulics motors, environmental systems, etc.
Anyway moved on from that to the electrical system. Thought this was going to be an issue because its not a multi-engine, but the Caravan is certainly more complicated than a Duchess or something and I knew how a starter-generator worked and whatnot, so that went pretty smoothly. Did ask for a definition of Amps and volts, how a starter generator works, what is a bus, what would happen if a rat chewed through the wiring to the position light. Pop a CB.
Moved onto very briefly talk about what you need to go below MDA/DH.
Then onto finger flying the RNO 16 ILS. Asked me what the arrow coming off a VOR to the SE was, feeder route. Gave me a few metars and asked if it was legal to land. Where and when do you start the procedure turn. This caught me up to because it involved math, same as earlier when he said we were at 16k and need to get to 10k by a fix, how do you know how far out and how many minutes out to descend. Need to figure out how many miles a minute you are covering. Asked how you need to enter or do the procedure turn (anyway you want). Then weather goes down below 7miles viz before the FAF, what do you do. Then weather goes down to 1 mile after FAF what do you do. I said you can keep going to take a look. He then asked "In real life what would you do?" I told him in the Caravan I absolutely keep going, but wasn't sure how I'd feel in a passenger jet. He asked if I consider myself a professional pilot, uh oh!, and if I thought a missed approach was unusual or unsafe if flown correctly. I said no, so he said well than there is your answer. You go down and if you don't have the airport at mins you execute a missed approach and go from there...makes sense.
Moved onto weather. Read Metars and TAFs. Got tripped up on the one line that read DSTNT 25 SE CB or something like that. Cumulonimbus 25 miles SE...Also asked for the weather at a specific time. The line of TAF weather was from say 6-12 with a TEMPO line underneath it from 8-10 then another line from 12-18 under that. The time he wanted was 11. So I went to the next line after the tempo, which was wrong. The Tempo is just that, it ends and the weather reverts back to the forecast that encompasses it, not the next one in line.. Made a big point that we can get lazy by reading decoded weather from foreflight and whatnot but that the dispatch sheets for the flight come in standard code and you need to be able to quickly and correctly interpret them to make sure they gave you a legal flight and alternates among other things. Also talked about when we need alternates, but didn't get into how you pick the alternates.
Moved onto aerodynamics and swept wing vs straight wings. Another subject I need to read up on. I did know some key concepts but superficially. Talked about dutch roll, coffin corner, critical mach, mach tuck, advantages and disadvantages to swept wing design. Airflow over a swept wing. What a cross section of the wing would look like from an airflow perspective, laminar flow, etc.
That was all I can remember for the tech. We debriefed right then because we were running late he said. He said that I did very well and was clearly a smart guy, just need to read up on turbofan and swept wing aerodynamics. Told me to not punch HR in the face or doing anything else dumb and the job was mine... He did also go in more detail over some of the stuff that I missed and was clearly a good instructor and teacher, which I found reassuring going forward.
Went on to HR with Ana, who was just the nicest person. Being the end of the day we had already had a bit of time throughout the day, including during the icebreaker and lunch to speak to one another a bit. We sat down she asked how I thought it went in the tech interview. I told her I needed to brush up on some stuff but that I thought the Capt. was fair and a good teacher. She moved on and said that she had a few questions that she was required to ask. These were; anything that wasn't on your app that we need to know about, ever been fired, any accidents. Then that was it, she said "we really really like you and think you'd be a great fit, I'd like to offer you a position and a class date"
All in all it was a long day and my brain felt like mush after the tech portion. I really really liked everyone I spoke to there, including the random SW Capt. I met deadheading to Chicago. A few other take aways; They made a point to tell us that we should all be proud of our accomplishments and hard work to even get to this point, which might sound cheesy but I appreciated. The other Capt. joked, sort of, that "You are all qualified for the job, and in fact have the job already, so don't do or say anything today to talk us out of giving it to you. Because I want you to work here, I need my vacation time approved!"
All in all 10/10 would interview again.
Flown positive space to SLC Interview with 2 Captains, one CRJ one E175, both live in SLC but domiciled in DEN.
6 people interviewing, 2 young CFI guys, 2 Feeder Caravan pilots (one in his late 50s) and 1 former European military pilot.
The last gouge was pretty much spot on.
Started with a video and a discussion of the travel benifits. This was a big emphasis for them. Basically a selling point for them vs. bonuses at other regionals. Skywest you get travel benifits on United, Delta and Alaskan.
After the video we split up to do the CRM portion.
Myself and the other Caravan Capt. were paired up. We were given the option of who wanted to be Capt and FO. I was Capt by virtue of being closer to the left side of the mock-up, so we made the other guy the flying pilot.
Given scenario that we are 20 mins out of DFW from LAX, it's a 3 hr flight and we started with 4 hours of fuel. Given a few local airports to possibly divert to. Given 7 minutes..
FA comes on the radio and says that someone wrote in lipstick in the lav that there is a bomb under seat 20C. GO!
I thought the time went by very very quick. Talked to one of the other guys, he said he didn't think it went by quick so, who knows.
We quickly debriefed after it was over and I thought I generally did good. The other pilot thought it went well too.
Went back to the room and we were given paper and pencil and asked to write down 91.175, electrical system of a MULTI-ENGINE plane, and turbofan engine.
-Now here is where I started to sweat a little. I had read the previous gouges and been brushing up on the electrical system and engine of the plane I fly, the Caravan.
So I went ahead and drew a PT-6 turboprop and the electrical system diagram. I also drew a turbofan which I was less familiar with.
We went into the technical interview and it was very much like a checkride oral. Keep asking questions until he ran out of questions or I ran out of answers.
Started with the engine drawing. Talked through the turboprop briefly before moving onto turbofan. But asked about the bypass separator and de-ice equipment. Really needed to have brushed up on this in more detail before hand. Think I would have been better off not knowing anything about the PT-6 I think, just got me confused a little. Asked what pulls the air into the system, the N1 fan. Do the igniters operate throughout the flight. What other systems get stuff from the engine; Bleed air for de-ice, pressurization, hydraulics motors, environmental systems, etc.
Anyway moved on from that to the electrical system. Thought this was going to be an issue because its not a multi-engine, but the Caravan is certainly more complicated than a Duchess or something and I knew how a starter-generator worked and whatnot, so that went pretty smoothly. Did ask for a definition of Amps and volts, how a starter generator works, what is a bus, what would happen if a rat chewed through the wiring to the position light. Pop a CB.
Moved onto very briefly talk about what you need to go below MDA/DH.
Then onto finger flying the RNO 16 ILS. Asked me what the arrow coming off a VOR to the SE was, feeder route. Gave me a few metars and asked if it was legal to land. Where and when do you start the procedure turn. This caught me up to because it involved math, same as earlier when he said we were at 16k and need to get to 10k by a fix, how do you know how far out and how many minutes out to descend. Need to figure out how many miles a minute you are covering. Asked how you need to enter or do the procedure turn (anyway you want). Then weather goes down below 7miles viz before the FAF, what do you do. Then weather goes down to 1 mile after FAF what do you do. I said you can keep going to take a look. He then asked "In real life what would you do?" I told him in the Caravan I absolutely keep going, but wasn't sure how I'd feel in a passenger jet. He asked if I consider myself a professional pilot, uh oh!, and if I thought a missed approach was unusual or unsafe if flown correctly. I said no, so he said well than there is your answer. You go down and if you don't have the airport at mins you execute a missed approach and go from there...makes sense.
Moved onto weather. Read Metars and TAFs. Got tripped up on the one line that read DSTNT 25 SE CB or something like that. Cumulonimbus 25 miles SE...Also asked for the weather at a specific time. The line of TAF weather was from say 6-12 with a TEMPO line underneath it from 8-10 then another line from 12-18 under that. The time he wanted was 11. So I went to the next line after the tempo, which was wrong. The Tempo is just that, it ends and the weather reverts back to the forecast that encompasses it, not the next one in line.. Made a big point that we can get lazy by reading decoded weather from foreflight and whatnot but that the dispatch sheets for the flight come in standard code and you need to be able to quickly and correctly interpret them to make sure they gave you a legal flight and alternates among other things. Also talked about when we need alternates, but didn't get into how you pick the alternates.
Moved onto aerodynamics and swept wing vs straight wings. Another subject I need to read up on. I did know some key concepts but superficially. Talked about dutch roll, coffin corner, critical mach, mach tuck, advantages and disadvantages to swept wing design. Airflow over a swept wing. What a cross section of the wing would look like from an airflow perspective, laminar flow, etc.
That was all I can remember for the tech. We debriefed right then because we were running late he said. He said that I did very well and was clearly a smart guy, just need to read up on turbofan and swept wing aerodynamics. Told me to not punch HR in the face or doing anything else dumb and the job was mine... He did also go in more detail over some of the stuff that I missed and was clearly a good instructor and teacher, which I found reassuring going forward.
Went on to HR with Ana, who was just the nicest person. Being the end of the day we had already had a bit of time throughout the day, including during the icebreaker and lunch to speak to one another a bit. We sat down she asked how I thought it went in the tech interview. I told her I needed to brush up on some stuff but that I thought the Capt. was fair and a good teacher. She moved on and said that she had a few questions that she was required to ask. These were; anything that wasn't on your app that we need to know about, ever been fired, any accidents. Then that was it, she said "we really really like you and think you'd be a great fit, I'd like to offer you a position and a class date"
All in all it was a long day and my brain felt like mush after the tech portion. I really really liked everyone I spoke to there, including the random SW Capt. I met deadheading to Chicago. A few other take aways; They made a point to tell us that we should all be proud of our accomplishments and hard work to even get to this point, which might sound cheesy but I appreciated. The other Capt. joked, sort of, that "You are all qualified for the job, and in fact have the job already, so don't do or say anything today to talk us out of giving it to you. Because I want you to work here, I need my vacation time approved!"
All in all 10/10 would interview again.
