Just finished the interview for the PACE program on Thursday and thought that for those who are interested I'd post about it.
187 question psych test. Can't really study for that. You are who you are.
30 question knowledge test. If you've studied the Gleim IFR written book you should have no problems with it. The questions are straight from that book. Don't need a flight computer.
Sim evaluation.
You get 5 minutes to play around with the sim. This is your chance to fly around, get used to the power settings required to fly straight and level at a specific speed, do turns to a heading, climb at a specific airspeed and specific vertical speed. When you are ready, you start.
First evaluation lasts around 10 minutes and you are to fly a given profile. You cover straight and level, turns to heading, descents to an altitude.
The thing that screwed me up was the descent. Usually when I fly an airplane, when it's time to descend, I just lower the nose, trim out for a 500ft/min descent, maybe pull the power an inch or two as it creeps up during the descent, and let the airspeed go to get more groundspeed during the descent. Here you descend at a specified rate and at a specified airspeed in a specified about of time. So I wasn't used to that. I arrived at the altitude too soon (which means I descended faster than desired) and got dinged for every moment I was "off altitude."
After the profile, you fly the ILS into Farmington. They're only evaluating your ability to intercept and track the localizer and glideslope. No callouts, no procedures, no checklists, or setup. I flew the approach at 130kts, gear down, approach flaps. Several of us reported different ILS experiences. Some of us were told to fly the ILS all the way into the ground. Some of us were told to fly and then call out when you think you are at DH. So it depends on who you get. I think it's harder to follow the ILS all the way into the ground. But if you mess up the DH call, then I guess they know you don't know where it is. But looking back, I should have used my 5 minutes playing around with the sim better (doing what I said I should have done at the beginning of the paragraph).
Interview. I think the interview is tailored to the individual. They go thru your application, and clear up a few questions they have and try to get a sense of who you are. They are really harping on the traffic citations even the ones that won't normally show up in your driving record. Since I guess a few former graduates got let go from Mesa when Mesa found them in a background investigation... MAPD sends a pre-interview questionaire that you have to send back before you arrive and they are asking about any and all undesirable skeletons in your past history. This is your chance to come clean. Even though my traffic tickets don't show up on my driving record any more (it's been almost 12 years since my last traffic citation), I filled up all the blanks they had on the questionaire and felt like a criminal...
They were also interested in how I was going to fund this training.
Orientation
In the morning after the tests and before the sim/interviews, there was an orientation... covered basically what is expected of us, what the program is about and what it offers, etc. Another topic that was discussed was the US Airways bankruptsy and what that means to Mesa. Mesa hired 600 pilots in 2004, and, right now, is looking to hire 300 pilots in 2005. If US Airways does liquidate, Mesa will stop hiring until things stabilize. So that was good info to know going into the program. They were upfront and wanted us to have the info to make the decision on whether to continue or not.
Personal Observations
I know there is this whole Can 250hr pilots make good F/Os? discussion going on in another thread. I did some thinking, after everyone introduced themselves and I had had a chance to meet a few of the other interviewees. Of the 15 of us that were interviewing, most averaged right around 250-300 hours and didn't have the multi-engine rating. There was this former German AF guy with 2000hrs as a WSO, a British guy with 1500hrs, a MEI with 700hrs, and I think there was maybe two or three more people with more than 500hrs. But most of us just got our commercial single engine and just about everyone I talked to weren't interested in getting a CFI...
But I'd have to say, there isn't a lot of experience with 250-300hrs, especially when I was waiting for the sim evaluation, I encountered a few abinitio students, one who was about to go on his first solo cross-country, another one who just did his solo, and was bubbling like a kid let loose in the candy store (nothing wrong with that, I think we've all been there.)
I've started working on my CFI and have been flying IFR cross-countries (and flying ILSes at 120kts whenever I can) in the last two months, and have really learned a lot about dealing with weather, dealing with ATC, etc.
I think that knowing there is more to be learned and as long as I keep myself receptive to learning from every experience, I'll should do okay. It IS up to the individual and their attitude.
I think the point of the PACE program is not to teach you how to fly or how to fly instruments. You come to the program with that knowledge. They're working on refining your instrument technique and getting us used to procedures and flows.
Anyways enough of my typing.
187 question psych test. Can't really study for that. You are who you are.
30 question knowledge test. If you've studied the Gleim IFR written book you should have no problems with it. The questions are straight from that book. Don't need a flight computer.
Sim evaluation.
You get 5 minutes to play around with the sim. This is your chance to fly around, get used to the power settings required to fly straight and level at a specific speed, do turns to a heading, climb at a specific airspeed and specific vertical speed. When you are ready, you start.
First evaluation lasts around 10 minutes and you are to fly a given profile. You cover straight and level, turns to heading, descents to an altitude.
The thing that screwed me up was the descent. Usually when I fly an airplane, when it's time to descend, I just lower the nose, trim out for a 500ft/min descent, maybe pull the power an inch or two as it creeps up during the descent, and let the airspeed go to get more groundspeed during the descent. Here you descend at a specified rate and at a specified airspeed in a specified about of time. So I wasn't used to that. I arrived at the altitude too soon (which means I descended faster than desired) and got dinged for every moment I was "off altitude."
After the profile, you fly the ILS into Farmington. They're only evaluating your ability to intercept and track the localizer and glideslope. No callouts, no procedures, no checklists, or setup. I flew the approach at 130kts, gear down, approach flaps. Several of us reported different ILS experiences. Some of us were told to fly the ILS all the way into the ground. Some of us were told to fly and then call out when you think you are at DH. So it depends on who you get. I think it's harder to follow the ILS all the way into the ground. But if you mess up the DH call, then I guess they know you don't know where it is. But looking back, I should have used my 5 minutes playing around with the sim better (doing what I said I should have done at the beginning of the paragraph).
Interview. I think the interview is tailored to the individual. They go thru your application, and clear up a few questions they have and try to get a sense of who you are. They are really harping on the traffic citations even the ones that won't normally show up in your driving record. Since I guess a few former graduates got let go from Mesa when Mesa found them in a background investigation... MAPD sends a pre-interview questionaire that you have to send back before you arrive and they are asking about any and all undesirable skeletons in your past history. This is your chance to come clean. Even though my traffic tickets don't show up on my driving record any more (it's been almost 12 years since my last traffic citation), I filled up all the blanks they had on the questionaire and felt like a criminal...
Orientation
In the morning after the tests and before the sim/interviews, there was an orientation... covered basically what is expected of us, what the program is about and what it offers, etc. Another topic that was discussed was the US Airways bankruptsy and what that means to Mesa. Mesa hired 600 pilots in 2004, and, right now, is looking to hire 300 pilots in 2005. If US Airways does liquidate, Mesa will stop hiring until things stabilize. So that was good info to know going into the program. They were upfront and wanted us to have the info to make the decision on whether to continue or not.
Personal Observations
I know there is this whole Can 250hr pilots make good F/Os? discussion going on in another thread. I did some thinking, after everyone introduced themselves and I had had a chance to meet a few of the other interviewees. Of the 15 of us that were interviewing, most averaged right around 250-300 hours and didn't have the multi-engine rating. There was this former German AF guy with 2000hrs as a WSO, a British guy with 1500hrs, a MEI with 700hrs, and I think there was maybe two or three more people with more than 500hrs. But most of us just got our commercial single engine and just about everyone I talked to weren't interested in getting a CFI...
But I'd have to say, there isn't a lot of experience with 250-300hrs, especially when I was waiting for the sim evaluation, I encountered a few abinitio students, one who was about to go on his first solo cross-country, another one who just did his solo, and was bubbling like a kid let loose in the candy store (nothing wrong with that, I think we've all been there.)
I've started working on my CFI and have been flying IFR cross-countries (and flying ILSes at 120kts whenever I can) in the last two months, and have really learned a lot about dealing with weather, dealing with ATC, etc.
I think that knowing there is more to be learned and as long as I keep myself receptive to learning from every experience, I'll should do okay. It IS up to the individual and their attitude.
I think the point of the PACE program is not to teach you how to fly or how to fly instruments. You come to the program with that knowledge. They're working on refining your instrument technique and getting us used to procedures and flows.
Anyways enough of my typing.
