Not a lot of time available to be on here of late, so one big response to multiple posts follows:
Roger123 said:
When you went through Loachman, was it just the CAPSS selection system. Was there any other written tests required for pilot selection at ACS?
CAPSS (The Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services, Caribbean Association of Principals of Secondary Schools, Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety, Columnar Alteration with Prominent apical Snouts and Secretions - finally: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/p010363.pdf and http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/training-establishments/cf-aircrew-selection-centre.page but still no photographs of the beast)?
Hah!
Try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Trainer in a round room with a landscape painted on the walls. It only yawed and seemed pretty lame and pointless.
The photos in the second link look very modern in comparison to what I remember of ASC in Downsview. Definitely last century rather than almost the previous one.
And, yes, written tests, and a numerical sequence on tape (add the first number called out to the second number called out, state the sum, and the second number to the sum, state that sum, and keep going; I think that the speed may have gradually increased during the process) and the afore-mentioned EEG.
Pre-flight said:
I think at that time the ACS pass rate was higher and the PFT pass rate was much lower.
It seems they use the ACS to weed more people before they start the training process, and those that go on to PFT have pass rates in the 80% range (based on talking to about a half dozen guys that recently passed PFT, that's the pass rates in their classes. Most of the failures are people that weren't really cut out for it mechanically or had other personal issues).
I no longer recall the ACS pass rate, largely due to a multi-year period of fast living in Moose Jaw, Portage, Petawawa, and Lahr plus the places visited during those times (much of which is a fuzzy blur, but what I remember of it all was great fun; don't try any of those things today), but the failure rate during Primary was about thirty percent on all but the 01 course of each year, which was about fifty percent.
No official reason or theory was given for the higher 01 course rate. I have always believed that it was due to the fact that instructing on the Musketeer in Portage was the least-popular flying posting in the whole CF, the bulk of the pipeliner instructors were RMC grads with dashed jet-jockey-knight-of-the-skies dreams as opposed to DEO or OCTP guys (I'm not sure if that was just the way that the posting plot worked out each year of if successive career managers didn't like them), and they'd just returned to the depth of a prairie winter (before our climate began returning to normal) in a place with no available women of quality (Officer and a Gentleman without the fancy uniforms, sound track, and decent writing) and the daily grind of doing the same thing endlessly in a very boring aeroplane after spending Christmas holidays on pristine, exotic, bikini-covered beaches. I'd not accuse any of them of actively taking their frustrations out on students, but their enthusiasm and morale was certainly most likely more lacking January/February than at any other time of the year.
I was on an 01 course, but had a mature, married, and experienced instructor with at least one Tracker tour, and possibly on another machine or two. In that, I was very lucky.
Portage was viewed more as the "real" selection course and not somewhere where real training took place (I found that very little was directly transferrable to Moose Jaw and the Tutor) - and hence was also known as the Nav Selection Centre.
The first trial course with civilian instructors and only ten students - all CT people and, I think, all Captains - had a one-hundred-percent pass rate. Student maturity probably had a lot to do with that, but the instructors competed for those jobs and would, naturally, have put more effort and enthusiasm into them.
I am not a fan of civilianization, but it does seem to have benefits in some places.
mt.chep said:
I am stoked and prepared to obliterate the ASC .... I will be prepared to set course records.
Said no thousands of people who did not get through ever.
"Confidence" and "Cockiness" begin with the same two letters. There endeth the comparison.
Pre-flight said:
This is probably THE key piece of info I'd pass on to anyone looking to do the ACS. Each part takes probably 15 minutes and gets more and more challenging until it ends. Essentially everyone will get overwhelmed and fail as the section approaches the end. If you feel like you are sinking towards the end of each section, do not let it bother you. That's normal. All that matters is how long you were able to succeed until you were overwhelmed, and how well you can start the next part. Don't let stress carry from the end of one section to the next, you are probably doing better than you think.
Key.
After every single test, everybody would discuss how they thought that they did. "Strangely", none of the ones who answered every question made it through, no matter how much they thought that they aced each such test. A smaller number of correct answers outweighed a large number of incorrect ones. Quality counts. Mistakes can kill. Problem with a question? Move on, and come back to it if time permits. Don't keep thinking about it in the background. Just let it go. That was critical in the tape test that I mentioned. Nobody could keep that up indefinitely. Miss a response? Take a breath, and begin again with the next two numbers called. Don't get flustered.
This carries over into real flying.
I know of several people who focussed on relatively trivial distractions in their cockpits rather than the bigger picture around them and thumped in. I've been at some of the crash sites, charred bodies still present. "The first thing to do in any emergency is to wind one's watch" (or something equivalent given the lack of windable watches today) - ie, suck back, breathe, and don't stop aviating, navigating, and communicating, in that order.
Roger123 said:
As stated before, the best piece of advice you are going to get on this forum is to expect to be overwhelmed. Realize that people have gone through, felt like they were failing, continued to give it their best, and were surprised they passed. Dont give up when you missed your call sign, when you failed to cancel a diamond, forget a numerical code, or had no idea which plane changed direction to the west. Focus on the task at hand, not your prior perceived level of performance.
As perfect advice as you will ever receive.
Roger123 said:
And, if successful, dont be arrognant or smug about.
There or anywhere else. Such only increases the number of people who will laugh at you when the inevitable happens, and the duration and volume of the laughter.
Roger123 said:
Then you can do a cartwheel and realize, in motion, that the room is too small, before slamming into the wall.
Snort.
Personal, or observed, experience...?
All of this is dated, of course, but basic principles seldom change.
