in. There isn't much to do other than chat with the other applicants. I ended up buying a sandwich out of the vending machine for lunch which held me over til dinner.I was second til last to be called in for HR and Tech. It was with one lady from HR and a Mesaba line captain on the CRJ. Both were very nice and they created a relaxed atmosphere. First I was asked to tell them about my flying career. Then, why Colgan? How will you deal with low pay and being on reserve at first? Then I was asked a couple Tell Me About A Time questions...TMAAT you flew when you shouldn't have. TMAAT you were uncomfortable/scared in a flying situation. What has been your toughest obstacle in your flying career? Then the CRJ Captain began asking technical questions. First one was a scenario where before the first flight of the morning a ramper tells you (the FO) that an electric space heater had malfunctioned on the airplane overnight leaving burn marks around the electric outlet on the plane. You are at an outstation and no maintenance is available. What do you do? He will try to convince you to go by telling you that all your passengers are going to miss their connections, but just remember that safety should be your number 1 concern. Next I was asked about some airport signs and markings. These were trickier than I thought they would be because you have no context with them, and he also threw in kind of a trick question with a taxiway named 15 (it was a taxiway that leads onto a runway). Know when to hold short of an ILS hold short line at an uncontrolled field (weather below 600-2 for precision approaches and weather below 800-2 for non-precision). He then had me decode a METAR and TAF for CLE. Know the remarks section of a METAR such as RMK AO2 LGTCCCG SLP159 T14741409. He then asked me if based on the TAF, could we make the flight to CLE? Would we need an alternate? What does the forecasted weather have to be at an airport in order to file it as an alternate? Does it have non-standard alternate minimums? My alternate was ERI, and it did not have non-standard alternate minimums. Then he pulled out an approach plate for ILS 6 into ERI. ATC tells you "Colgan 1, turn left heading 090, maintain 5,000 until established, cleared ILS runway 6 into Erie." When can you descend down to 2,800? When are you considered on a published segment of the approach?=within 1 minute of the Erie VOR on the inbound course. At what rate would you need to descend at to be at 2,800 at the VOR?=2,200FPM. He then told me that we are inside the final approach fix and we receive a new report telling us that the weather has dropped below the approach minimums, can we still continue inbound on the approach?=yes Why?=if you are inside the final approach fix then it is legal to continue, ceiling and visibility can change very quickly and you just have to be able to say that you saw the runway environment before reaching minimums. Runway not in sight, go missed, what kind of entry to the hold on the missed? On the approach plate, what does the star next to the tower frequency mean?=part time tower, does not operate 24/7. That was it for the technical portion. I was surprised that I was not asked anything about aircraft systems or any airplanes that I have flown but I think it might have been because we were running low on time. Following the HR and Tech. portion, they take you out of the room so they can talk for a few minutes to decide if they want you to move on to the sim. They bring you back into the room and have you sign a conditional job if they decide that you will move on to the sim, but of course, you have to pass the sim eval to get hired though. Out of the 8 of us that interviewed, 2 were sent home early and 6 were sent to the sim. Next was the sim. Before going into the sim room, they have you read a packet of directions for the sim. Pay close attention to the part that explains how to use the RNAV/DME HOLD/NAV radio. I have never used a true RNAV before and hadn't even seen one like this before. It really ended up throwing me off and I wish I had paid more attention to the directions packet, although I still think I wouldn't have done much better. The sim is a basic multi engine airplane, like a Baron. Do yourself a favor when you sit down in the sim chair and look at what all the frequencies are set to. Don't let the sim instructor rush you which is what happened to me. First, takeoff from runway 8 (can't remember what airport it was), fly runway heading, climb and maintain 3,000. DON'T FORGET TO RAISE THE LANGING GEAR! He had me climb at 500FPM. Climb power was 25/2500. Leveled off and set cruise power 23/2300. One steep turn to the left, and one steep turn to the right. Then he had me intercept and fly outbound on the 330 radial from the VOR. He then wanted me to intercept the 270 radial outbound. Once I had the CRS selector set on 270, he asked me what radial I was currently on, so I went to center the CRS needle and he told me not to touch the HSI, and to tell him based on the information I had in front of me. It took me a little bit but I finally realized that the RMI was tuned to the VOR and I was able to use that (I wish I would have known what the RMI was tuned to before I started the sim eval, but I didn't pay much attention to it because he had said earlier that day that all we would need to pay attention to is the HSI). I intercepted the 270, and he told me to brief the approach and get everything setup while I tracked outbound on the 270. This also threw me off a bit because earlier in the day he said he would pause it so I could brief the approach. The ILS 8 approach used DME off of the VOR, and setting up the DME which is actually on the RNAV is not intuitive. I finally figured it out, but the NAV 1 radio does not have a flip flop switch. What you have to do is before you put in the frequency for the ILS, you have to hold down the "HOLD" button for a few seconds in order to the hold the DME information on the RNAV. Then you can dial in the ILS frequency. He vectored me for the ILS approach, cleared me for it, and asked me to report final approach fix inbound. Power setting is 15/2300 on the approach at about 110KIAS and gear comes down just before glide slope intercept. Flew to minimums, went missed - this is where I messed up. Instead of climbing to 1,500 ft. on runway heading and then joing the 097 radial of the VOR, I dialed in the VOR frequency, set the CRS to 097, and joined the course outbound immediately. It was a stupid mistake and I know I wouldn't have messed that up had I not had to brief the approach while trying to track a course outbound. He asked what type entry to the hold I would make, and I told him parallel, briefed the hold, and that was it. The sim flies ok, the pitch is fine, but the roll is weird. It will roll on you even if the yoke is level so you constantly have to correct for the roll to maintain straight and level, and it really takes away from your concentration if you have to brief an approach while flying that thing. Overall, I thought the interview process was mostly laid back and meant to make you feel at ease with the exception of the sim evaluation. This was my first airline interview and now I feel much better prepared for other airline interviews. Not sure how many of the others were given job offers. I received an email saying thanks but no thanks 2 days later and I know one guy got a phone call offering him the job the same day I received the email. Hope this was helpful. Good luck everybody! (06/19/11)
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