OUR FLEETS PILOT APTITUDE TEST What is it? How do I prepare? CONTENTCONTENT Why do I need one? What areas will I be tested in and how can I prepare? •Logical thinking •Perceptual capacity •Memory • Eye-hand coordination •Multitasking ability •Stress tolerance •Resilience •Mathematics How often are the test conducted? What does it cost to do a Pilot Aptitude Test? PILOT APTITUDE TEST PILOT PILOT APTITUDEAPTITUDE TESTTEST Pilot Aptitude Test - Why do I need one? The Pilot Aptitude Test measures your skills within several areas that cannot We are often asked what the Pilot Aptitude Test is all about, why it is re- be determined by your grades. It is important to assess these skills in order quired to pass one before applying to our programs and how one can pre- to determine if you are fit to work as a Pilot after all, you probably wouldn’t pare for these tests. To answer those questions in the best way possible, we be reading this guide unless your goal is to become a Professional Pilot and decided to put together this guide for you. work for an airline. In addition to finding out if you have what it takes to apply and succeed in one of the training programs at OSMAA, the Pilot Apti- There are many variations of Pilot Aptitude Tests, but they mainly evaluate tude Tests are also used by airlines during the hiring process. your skills within the same areas. The Pilot Aptitude Tests comes in many variations, but they all test you in the same areas. In other words, it is a good idea to make sure that you can pass them before putting in all of the time and effort required to become a Pilot. Regardless of which school you choose for your flight training, our advise is Your motivation to become a Pilot will also that you should do a Pilot Aptitude Test before starting your training. Even if be evaluated during the tests and is very the school does not require it! important if you are to succeed in becoming Passing the tests before starting the training will allow you to: a Professional Pilot > Have more confidence in your ability to prevail, even when going through the more challenging parts of flight training. > Know that you will be ready to pass an airline interview after you have completed the training. Since you have already been tested in the same areas and have proven that you can do it! Pilot Aptitude Test - What areas will I be tested in and how can I prepare? 1. Logical thinking - How to prepare: Games and Apps that are not intuitive - I.E. You need to read instructions to under- Before you can start thinking about booking the Pilot Aptitude Test you need to: stand what the game is about. The more complex the better! • Have completed high school / upper secondary school and; During all the different elements of a Pilot Aptitude Test you will be presented with instruc- tions to do tasks that you might have never encountered before. It is therefore important that you are able to read instructions and understand the goal of the different tasks/exer- • Be 18 years of age cises so that you can achieve a good score. During the Pilot Aptitude Test your abilities 2. Perceptual capacity - How to prepare: within the following areas will be tested: Video games where you have to do many things at once 1. Logical thinking A Pilot is expected to be able to work with accuracy and speed even during times of high workload, something that will be tested during several elements of a Pilot Aptitude Test. 2. Perceptual capacity If you want to improve this ability there are several ways of achieving that, but one of the more common ones that you might already be doing is playing video-games. Want to add another layer of difficulty? Have a friend or family member ask you difficult 3. Spatial orientation questions and ask you for the answer to math problems while you are doing other activities that take a lot of attention. 4. Memory 5. Eye-hand coordination 3. Spatial Orentation - How to prepare: 6. Multitasking ability Flight Simulator and/or other flying games 7. Stress tolerance Humans are designed to maintain spatial orientation on the ground. In the air however, it can be more challenging to know exactly where you are at all times. When Pilots are flying 8. Resilience they are presented with several pieces of information, of which some are in a two dimen- sional format. For example, a map or GPS-screen will give the Pilot information about what the position of 9. Mathematics the aircraft is, but no information about where the airplane is located in the vertical plane (if it is climbing, descending or maintaining altitude). In order to translate the two-dimensional information given by the map/GPS and the instruments, to a three-dimensional picture of where the aircraft is located, the Pilot needs to analyze the information from all sources to If you make it to the second part of the Pilot Aptitude Test there will also be an interview determine his/her location. During the Pilot Aptitude Test you will be given assignments with an Aviation Psychologist who will want to learn more about you as a person. An im- (with instructions, don’t worry), where you will need to interpret data from several sources to determine your position. portant segment of this interview is to make sure that you are motivated for the training that lies ahead and that you have a basic understanding of the aviation industry. 4. Memory - How to prepare: To learn more about the aviation industry we recommend visiting us during one of our App’s and games designed to train your memory cost-free Pilot Open Days that are held in several nordic cities. Our presentation during a Both on the ground and in the air Pilots are given clearances by Air Traffic Control (ATC). Pilot Open Day covers everything from what a typical day looks like for a pilot student to This enables the flow of traffic to run smoothly and it is vital that Pilots are able to store the what you can expect when entering the job market after graduation. Not only will this give information in their short-term memory so they can take the appropriate action. Such as you insight so that you can determine if becoming a Pilot is right for you, but it will also descending to a specific altitude or turning to a specified heading. Your memory can be trained, just like your body. The more you use it to remember num- educate you about the industry so you can make a better impression when speaking to an bers, information or other details, the stronger your memory will become. Combine your Aviation Psychologist (they will be able to tell if you did your homework). memory training with other tasks in order to improve your perceptual capacity at the same time. 5. Eye-Hand Coordination - How to prepare: 9. Mathematics - How to prepare: Flight simulator and video games where you have to make coordinated inputs based App’s for mental arithmetics and putting away the calculator on what you see on-screen We get it, it’s easy to pull out the calculator on your phone when something needs to be Glider Pilots normally have very good eye-hand coordination, but it is no requirement for divided or multiplied. But do yourself a favour and practice on doing it mentally instead! you to have already been flying or have a Pilot license in order to pass the test. Playing When the airplane is moving forward at several hundred knots per second you won’t have video games and other activities where eye-hand coordination comes into play will help time to pull out the calculator. Doing mental calculations due to last minute changes to you develop this skill. your flight path is something that a Pilot encounters on a daily basis. Practicing mental Physical activities such as such as for example basketball, climbing and driving a car with a arithmetics keeps your brain sharp and the better you are at this skill, the more mental stick-shift can even help in improving your eye-hand coordination abilities. capacity will be left over to focus on other tasks. It is also a good idea to dust off your math-book from high school if it has been a while since you graduated. This even applies if you have an engineering degree, as many of the engineers that have done similar tests have reported that they wish they looked over more 6. Multitasking ability - How to prepare: basic math before doing a Pilot Aptitude Test. App’s and games designed to train your memory We know that multitasking is a commonly misunderstood term. The human brain is not able to do several things at once, however, it is able to jump between tasks quickly. Which is a skill that is essential to a Pilot. Being able to prioritize several tasks at once and mak- ing sure that you don’t leave out any important element(s) is important and will be tested several times. A good tip is to focus on: You can improve this ability by trying to shift focus between several tasks. There are a lot of great games for multitasking and you can add to the difficulty yourself by asking some- one to put an even higher workload on you while you are playing the games.