FAO: Scuzi or anyone else working at an Aiport.

Stinky said:
well im leaving for london tomo afternoon. so im craming in as much as possible today! (although with my boss working the only saturday ever makes it hard)

Scuzi, smart casual! so Black trousers and black shirt then?? no tie / suit jacket!

im actually get nervous :(
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If it's just for the initial tests then smart casual is fine, no need for a tie or jacket. As long as you wear a collared shirt you'll be grand. No jeans like some people! If it's for the interview then a full suit is essential. I personally would wear a suit to all tests/interviews but everyone is different.

Best of luck with it. If you have any last minute questions, fire away.
 
Scuzi said:
If it's just for the initial tests then smart casual is fine, no need for a tie or jacket. As long as you wear a collared shirt you'll be grand. No jeans like some people! If it's for the interview then a full suit is essential. I personally would wear a suit to all tests/interviews but everyone is different.

Best of luck with it. If you have any last minute questions, fire away.
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ideal.

i'll have a think whilst reading all this again. see what i can think up.

one i did think of! if i dont pass say the motivation part. can you try again in x amount of months etc?? or do you get one chance??

not that im thinking im going to fail. but exams where always my worst point at school! :( Lol
 
Scuzi said:
"Let TCAS resolve it" as an answer is likely to see you ushered out the door with a "Don't call us, we'll call you" goodbye.
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That's what the Russians do.

And the last time I recall a Russian plane blimming into another aircraft in mid-air, wasn't it ATC error?

Makes you wonder if they've got it the right way round.
 
andyp said:
That's what the Russians do.

And the last time I recall a Russian plane blimming into another aircraft in mid-air, wasn't it ATC error?

Makes you wonder if they've got it the right way round.
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That's exactly what the Russians didn't do. That particular incident which happened over Uberlingen in Switzerland was caused by one aircraft following TCAS instructions and the other following ATC instructions which conflicted.

TCAS is an absolute last line of defense and is far from foolproof. The aim of ATC is to prevent TCAS from ever being relied upon.
 
Scuzi said:
That's exactly what the Russians didn't do. That particular incident which happened over Uberlingen in Switzerland was caused by one aircraft following TCAS instructions and the other following ATC instructions which conflicted.

TCAS is an absolute last line of defense and is far from foolproof. The aim of ATC is to prevent TCAS from ever being relied upon.
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If both pilots had followed TCAS RA, the incident would have been avoided.

I think as an example of tremendous bad luck (given they were the only two aircraft in god-knows how many hundreds of miles of sky) and human error contributing to a potential incident that TCAS as a whole system could and should have prevented - it speaks volumes.

As you say, TCAS is far from foolproof - as are humans, and therefore ATC.

Looking quite a few years down the line, do you think we'll ever see a fully or partially automated ATC system? Or an evolution of the way NATs and PACOTs work with ACARS into non-oceanic areas.
 
right i'll try and explain yesterday for those that are intersted.

Got up about 10ish after a rubbish night sleep (hotel was right on the main road, room on first floor with heating stuck on and loud traffic lol)

anyway got the tube into Charing Cross ended up at the hotel about 12.30. My Tests / selection day started at 1.30, so stood around and waited with all the others.

1.30 arrived and few guys arrived and checked us all in, and asked for ID, then told us are application numbers that we would need for all the tests. We then got split into 3 or 4 groups. i was in group 1.

Room 1

First Room for us in group one was the Motivation test. Which to my supprise was Multi-Choice and had hardly anything in it that we had been told to read. lol *great*

Questions such as what is the distance between london and glasgow? etc. what is the crusing speed of an Airbus 300? even one question asked how long it would take for 2 planes to colide if both traveling at 420mph and 28miles apart?

all the questions in this part where very surprising. overall im not overly confident, but then again i never am ;) all this was timed and you had 18mins to complete this test.

Room 2

This was nice and easy, laid back chat with a guy that is in his last year of college becoming a Ground Movement Controller at Heathrow, really sold the job, and the college to me, really got me excited :p

after watching a few dvd's etc i had wished i had been in the group that had this first, a lot of the things we had been told about had come up on the test. But o well was to late then to worry about that.

The guy that was talking to us (Simon Rose - if anyone knows him) really seemed to know what he was on about, only 20 himself gave me something to work for :)

Room 3


This was the aptitude tests

I had done a few online test papers, but nothing could prepare me for what was to come.

Test 1

The first test was timed at 5 mins. with 40 questions. The questions where all match the number to one of the answers next to it. for example this is what we saw.

2908 A) 2089 B) 9082 C) 9802 D) 2908 E) 8902

idea is to match the original answer to one of the answers.

easy enough you think? now every 9 questions the number increased. from 4 digits to 5 , 6, 7, 8 etc.

With only 5mins to get through 40 of these it really gets your mind working. On this test i got to question 32 :(

Test 2

The same as test one but using Letters

Again on this test i got to 32

Test 3

Test 3 was totally different, you are given a Net of a Box with different patterns on each side, you where then given 5 choices with the Net then built as a cube, you had to match the Cude to the net, Answer E was always None of the above.

on this test i think there was 50 to get through. but only 4 different nets (i think) again this is a lot harder than it sounds.

I cannot remember how far i got with this, This test was timed at 20mins.

Test 4

Test 4 was the most confusing of them all. you are presented with a seperate sheet from the question paper which explained what all different symbols mean. Ranging from invert the box, reverse the box, cancel previous command, cancel next command, reverse the order of the boxes, omit the previous box, omit the next box etc.

you are then given to start with 2 boxes with different designs in them, next to each box is a different symbol that corresponded with one of the commands listed above. basically carry out the commands and choice the right answer.

this again started with 2 boxes and increased up to 5 with different commands being added + the reverse the order symbol and othersr where used towards the end.

again, timed at 20mins with 50 questions.

think i got to about 25 on this one, which seemed to be about the same as many others (i chatted after the tests)


Overall one hell of an experience, if i do not pass this time, i have to wait 1 year before trying again, now that i know what to expect i will try again if i am not acceptable.


this lasted untill 5.30 and was a very good but intense day.

now i await my results within the next 3 weeks (15 working days)

any quuestions from anyone please fire away :)
 
Wow, just read this thread again. When you first posted I thought hahaha, another waste of time pie in the sky idea from Stinky. How wrong I was.

Congratulations for getting so far and good look with the results :)
 
[TW]Fox;12141247 said:
Wow, just read this thread again. When you first posted I thought hahaha, another waste of time pie in the sky idea from Stinky. How wrong I was.

Congratulations for getting so far and good look with the results :)
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why thank you fox :)

i really hoping the results come back and say yes, then get to go for only the second stage :( (well stage 1.5 lol)

not confident, but we will see :D
 
Good luck mate, I thought exactly the same as Fox when you first created this thread, but I'm glad you've gone ahead and done it.

Fingers crossed. :)
 
They sound pretty much like the tests that I did although I did some sort of personality psychoanalysis bullcrap test which had about 100 questions on it. Most of the questions were repeated 4 or 5 times though.

Good luck and keep us up to date with the results. If it's any consolation, everyone on my course didn't finish any of the papers in time.
 
ideal lol.

i was expecting that people wouldnt finish them, you have to be unreal to get through all that.

just hope i did enough
 
GL and fingers crossed matey. It's great to see someone with a bit of ambition take on something that on face value is pretty intimidating!
 
Thanks for that mate, and good luck! Ive got my test on 15th August in manchester. Just started reading through all the material. Take it the London - Glasgow was a multiple choice question and you dont need to know exactly?

I really didnt understand the programming test (test 4), but are you saying that it actually tells you what the symbols stand for? If so :)

Anyway hope you get accepted for the personality test next which seems straight forward from what i've read.

A quick question for anyone whose had the medical..ive recently had a hernia repair operation and Im having trouble running at the moment.. its not going to be "that" sort of medical test is it? Was just thinking about it today and got me worried!
 
mr tommo said:
A quick question for anyone whose had the medical..ive recently had a hernia repair operation and Im having trouble running at the moment.. its not going to be "that" sort of medical test is it? Was just thinking about it today and got me worried!
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I just had my renewal yesterday. There isn't any running or exercise involved. Your initial test will involve an ECG, a hearing test, eyesight test, height, weight, urine sample and a thorough 'going over' by the doctor. They do the whole stethoscope thing, tapping your chest, pulse, blood pressure, note down any scars or tattoos you may have, check your balls for lumps etc.

You might be lucky like me and get a bollocking for drinking too often and hence getting too fat. :p

When I got my initial medical done, I had to go to my local hospital and get chest X Rays. I cannot remember if I had to pay the bill there and then but either it was billed to Nats or they reimbursed it. You will need to bring the xrays to the medical examination with you.

Some people depending on their medical history may require extra tests.


Someone who has been through the college recently may be able to tell you more but I believe they don't actually give you a CAA Class 1 medical before you go to the college in order to save money. I think they just check you out to make sure you are fit enough to pass it. I dunno, it has changed a lot.
 
mr tommo said:
Thanks for that mate, and good luck! Ive got my test on 15th August in manchester. Just started reading through all the material. Take it the London - Glasgow was a multiple choice question and you dont need to know exactly?

I really didnt understand the programming test (test 4), but are you saying that it actually tells you what the symbols stand for? If so :)

Anyway hope you get accepted for the personality test next which seems straight forward from what i've read.

A quick question for anyone whose had the medical..ive recently had a hernia repair operation and Im having trouble running at the moment.. its not going to be "that" sort of medical test is it? Was just thinking about it today and got me worried!
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can i recommend you have alook at other things rather that whats just on that booklet they send you lol

read up on all the planes in the back of it. and some random distances from one airport to another :p

and yes, test 4 we are told what each symbol does :)

it is very intense when you are tehre though! good luck with yours :)

a lot of people turned up in jeans and a t-shirt which seemed odd to me, but i still went with the shirt and trousers :)
 
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