Primary Training / Pilot Screening

[pym]

Just a question, do the Air Corps test a potential pilots aptitude for flying by putting them in simulators/cessnas before accepting them as cadets?

Reason for the question is I was just out having a smoke and noticed a 172 doing what seemed to be stall training. It would make sense to me, to have potential cadets take their first babysteps in a Cessna as opposed to just a simulator or for that matter a real PC-9.

[GoneToTheCanner]

Hi Pym
They could have been practising pylon turns using the glow of your ciggie as the centre-point of the turn...It has been written that the Cessnas would also be used as screeners, but they seem to have not done so for the most recent Class.So I'm told, at any rate....sims are all very well but you need real airtime to enable the pilot to get the feel for what he's doing,not to mind feeling the effects of wind and positive/negative "g".
regards
GttC

[John K]

As an apprentice, most evenings in the hostel, after a feed of the 'Killers' beans we'd all be 'feeling the effects of wind'!!
Good to hear from you, GttC.

[John K]

Oh, yeah, sorry Pym, in answer to your question, I think it depends on your surname whether you get an aptitude test! Mind you I might be a bit biased, but some of the jokers I flew with as a crewman shouldn't have been trusted with that amount of the taxpayers money!
Others were fantastic pilots!