@Buster:
There is a balance in all these moving parts and I’m not sure what the ‘magic’ is. Is it ‘do this or go away’ or ‘let’s work on this and see where we end up’ sort of thing. I would like to set benchmarks stricter for my training to ensure I deliver a proper wingman to the exams when teaching. What has been your experience in this specific phase?
Again, there’s a million approaches to this so I’ll share mine that has been used in the past. Please note that none of the following is currently used, nor is any of it shown here in its entirety.
Step 1. Conduct a live interview. My personal choice, but I don’t care for a written form to provide enough information for an entry/denial decision. We’re looking for an honest “benchmark” of the candidate’s experience, knowledge, and expectations (both from their viewpoint, and ours) and a “face to face” interview can be a crucial ice breaker/first impression. Here’s a snippet of our interview outline:
NAME:
CURRENT CALLSIGN: *make sure they know they WILL be assigned a new one at some point
AGE:
LOCATION:
FALCON EXPERIENCE:
PAST MULTIPLAYER EXPERIENCE: Wing/squadron/callsign/former commanders
WHAT DID YOU LIKE THE MOST ABOUT YOUR PREVIOUS GROUP?
WHAT DID YOU LIKE THE LEAST ABOUT YOUR PREVIOUS GROUP?
SELF RATING: PILOT RATING, cadet, nugget, veteran, ace, legend
SELF RATING: Best assets
SELF RATING: Worst assets
SELF RATING: What can you bring to the wing/IE: What can we expect from you?
SELF RATING: What can the wing bring to you/IE: What do you expect from the wing?
Step 2. Based on the interview, if we like what we’ve heard (which is practically a 100%) we’ll schedule a “show us what you’ve got” flight. We have several prepared TE’s of varying difficulty to select from, which one utilized will depend on the “self assessment” answers. EX: you self describe yourself as a veteran… prove it. EX 2: you self describe yourself as a nugget, let’s go up and see what your strong points are, your weak ones, and we can custom tailor our syllabus to meet your specific needs; focusing on the weaker points and re-enforcing the strong ones.
Step 3: The actual flight: It’s graded. We have a points system for each phase of the flight with a minimum overall percentage being a pass/fail benchmark. This flight is critical, we can truly discover how the candidate approaches challenges (or doesn’t), and can provide a truthful assessment (or not). You’d be amazed at how many pilots have no idea of their true capabilities. The ones who say they’re green more often than not ACE the flight. The ones who say they’re aces more often than not fail miserably. This doesn’t mean we reject their application, but it does provide us with a very good “here’s what we’re facing” starting point for actual training. (speaking candidly, we tend to be a bit more accommodating to those who score themselves lower rather than higher… the higher self rating guys who can’t “back it up” have statistically been the mentalities that don’t lend themselves to a team structured environment)
Step 4: As long as SOP’s are followed, and DLO’s are met, we give our IP’s “free reign” on how they teach the syllabus. We have the expectation that the materials will all be presented, and DLO’s will be met, but the manner in which they are presented is up to the individual IP based on the individual student. No one learns the same way, and no one teaches the same way… so why make it a mandatory objective doomed to fail.
In no way is the above meant to be the only way, the best way, or even the desired way… it’s just A way.