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Pilot Interview Gouge and Question Bank

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Company website

http://www.fedex.com

Bases

MEM, LAX, ANC, HKG, CGN (Cologne Germany)

Fleet

MD11, MD10, A310, A300, 777F, 757, 727

Interview Profile

New Process (April 2011)-

Phase One

Written Test in Memphis
If sucessful called for Phase Two
More Aviation based questions
Cognitive Assessment test still being given

Previous (Pre-2011) Experience

Day One

Show at 0700
Sim evaluation
- DC-10
- Given Briefing
- See profile below
Back to hotel by early afternoon
Phone call to ask you back for day 2 if simulator was successful

Day Two

Meet as a group at the FedEx complex (Building "D")
Turn in paperwork
Taken to holding room to be called out individually for interview
Two-on-one Interview
- Logbooks checked
- FE written results checked
- Two interview Captains
- All human resource questions
- Tell Me About a Time (TMAAT) format
- Approx. 45 minutes, about 8 questions with follow-ups
- Interviewers will take notes the entire time
Computer Based Testing
- 7 Sections
- All section, except the psychological exam, have a time limit
- Read directions for each section to determine if guessing is advantageous

Please send your interview information

Interview Question Bank

Simulator

DC-10 Simulator
- Raw data, no flight director
- Aircraft set with aft CG and light load (pitch sensitive)
Given Brief prior
- Briefed as a group in a classroom
- Power settings
- Pitch attitudes
- Air work portion
- ATC portion
- Sim order chosen at random (draw a number)
Air work profile
- 2 minutes to fly the sim as a warm-up
- Maintain 250 knots at 5000ft
- 30 degree level turns, left and right
- Slow to 200 knots while in the turn
- At 200 knots descend to 2000ft at specific rate (1000fpm-500fpm)
- Climbing turns to 5000ft
- Accelerate in the turn from 200 to 250
- Level at 250/5000
- Steep (45degree bank) turns, typically only 90 degree heading changes
- Told air work portion is complete, pick up hand mike
ATC portion
- Read back all instructions per AIM
- Given direct a VOR (usually 8-10 miles away)
- While in the turn to direct, given holding instructions
  - Example: FedEx 100 Heavy cleared to MEM VOR, hold east on the 090 degree radial, after crossing the VOR descend to 4000. Expect Further clearance at 0245.
- Slow to 200
- Start time crossing the VOR
- Report entering hold
  - After initial hold entry, asked what direction next turn would be
End of simulator

Human Resource Questions

Tell us how you got here, and your experience so far.
Tell us about yourself.
Tell us about yourself-things that aren't on your resume.
Define professional.
Tell us about the most significant emergency you have had
Tell us about an emergency you could have handled better.
Describe your decision making process.
Tell us about how mistakes in your past have changed your decision making process.
What has improved your decision making process?
What is one decision you would change if you could?
Tell us about a time you had to take initiative/control in the cockpit. What was the end result?
What kind of pilot are you?
Tell us about a procedure or policy that you bent or broke. Did you tell your superiors and fellow pilots?
Tell us about a time when your knowledge of ATC procedures/FARs helped you out in a difficult situation. What specific FAR was it?
Tell us about a policy or procedure you thought was unsafe or inefficient. What did you do? Who did you tell? How did you accept their answer?
How often do you think rules get in the way?
Have you ever caught an error that you or another crew member made that would have caused an incident or violation had it not been caught?
Tell us about a time someone junior to you brought up an idea or suggestion that you had not thought of before and used
As a captain how would you treat a new first officer?
Give us an example of when you worked with your crew as a team to solve a difficult problem.
Tell us about a time things went well in the cockpit. How was the CRM?
Tell us about a CRM situation you had that went well.
TMAAT there was confusion in the cockpit.
Tell us about a time you had to deal with a captain that purposefully broke the rules and how you handled it. Did you tell anyone? Who?
TMAAT when you brought the crew together.
Give us an example when you worked with you crew as a team to solve a difficult problem
Have you ever had a conflict in the cockpit?
TMAAT had conflict with CAPT that wasn't resolved until airborne.
Tell us about a time you had a disagreement with another crewmember in flight and it was not resolved or resolved after you landed.
Situation where you were negatively criticized and how you handled it?
Tell us about a time you had to work with someone you didn't like. How did you handle it?
Tell us about your most trying time with support personnel, (MX, catering, ramp workers, etc.).
Tell us about a time when you did not get along with another crew member.
Tell us about a time you did a job outside your responsibilities. Were you recognized for your efforts? If yes, how?
How would you handle a captain who did not like to talk?
Tell us about a pilot you respect and look up to. One that you do not think highly of.
Have you ever taken yourself off the flying schedule and why?
What type of situation would you take yourself off the flying schedule in the future?
What is the worst part of your current job?
What was your worst decision?
What was the most difficult decision you ever made?
How do you manipulate people?
What irritates you in an airplane?
What kind of people do you like/dislike working with?
Are you a good judge of people?
Give an example of a disagreement with a family member/friend and how did you handle the situation?
What was your most awkward situation?
What would you do if you realized someone padded their logbook?
What would you do if one of the guys admitted to padding his logbook? What if he said that this isn't affecting you and that this job is too important for them?
Tell us about a time you went above and beyond the call of duty
Tell us about a time when stress affected your performance.
Tell us about a time when a stressful situation in your life affected you at work?
Most stressful single situation been in?
How do you handle stress in your family?
How do you deal with stress?
Do you know when you are fatigue?
How to you combat your fatigue?
How do you relax?
How do you stay happy?
What kind of exercise program do you have?
What do you do to keep yourself motivated to exercise?
How do you maintain a good diet on the road?
How would you prepare for night flying or flying on the backside of the clock?
What time do you normally go to bed and what time do you get up? o What are your short and long term goals?
Have you ever busted a checkride?
Tell us about your last checkride. How did you prepare for it? Did you learn anything?
Tell us about a time you failed?
Tell us about a situation where no matter how hard you tried you couldn't make it work.
Tell us about a situation you had that went well.
Have you participated in any community service?
What should we be looking for in a pilot candidate?
Who recommended you, how do you know them and have you ever flown with them?
What would other pilots say good about you? What bad things would they say?
What are your professional and personal strengths and weaknesses?
What would people that fly with you say are your best/worst attributes?
Tell us 3 good and 1 bad quality other pilots would use to describe you.
What would your friends say about you?
What would your worst enemy say about you?
What would your spouse say about you?
What does your wife think about you working at FedEx?
Tell me what kind of employee you would be at FedEx.
What brought you to FedEx or why do you want to work for FedEx?
What problems does FedEx face in the future?
What is FedEx's biggest obstacle to growth?
Why FedEx?
Have you interviewed with anyone else?
Do you have any questions for us?

Computer Tests

7 sections, all but one is timed
Read the directions for each section

General Science - 40 questions, 25 min

Electrical
- Capacitor - device used for storing energy, blocks direct current while allowing alternating current to pass, essential in tuned circuits
- Current Formula (Ohms law) - V=IR where V=voltage, I=current, R=resistance in ohms
  Impedance - total opposition to current flow
- Resistor - device used in a circuit to provide resistance to current (converts electrical energy into heat energy)
- Transistors -
- Vacuum Tubes - give a lot of output for small amount of input
- Voltmeter - has a large resistance and is used in parallel to measure voltage ( potential) in a circuit.
- P = I2 x R where P=watts, I=amperes, R=ohms
- Sample - an electrical loop has an output of 60 watts and a current of four amps.
- What is the resistance. Answer -3.75 ohms
- Volts = Amps x ohms
- Volts x Amps = Watts (DC circuit)
- Volts x Amps = Volt-Amps (AC circuit)
- One Horsepower = 1000 watts
- Why Tubes vs Resistors - greater output power, requires less voltage, amplifier
Physics
- Acceleration = 9.8 meters/second2 or 32 feet/second2
- Amplitude - the amount of work that a wave can do in displacing the molecules of the medium through which it travels
- Boyles Law - if temperature is constant, the volume of a dry gas will vary inversely with the pressure exerted on it. PV = C where P = absolute pressure, V= volume, C = constant
- Cooling- types of cooling - ambient adiabatic
- Doppler effect - the change in pitch produced by the relative motion of the source and the observer. An object moving toward you has a higher frequency than one moving away.
- Fission - the splitting of the nucleus of an atom into the nuclei of lighter atoms
- Fusion - nuclei of light atoms join to form nuclei of heavier atoms
- Joule - measurement of work in metric - a force of one newton acting through a distance of one meter
- Newton's first law - an object at rest tends to stay at rest until acted upon by some external force
- Newton's second law - the acceleration of an object acted upon by a constant force is directly proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the objects mass. In addition the acceleration occurs in the same direction as the applied force
- Newton's third law - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
- Pendulum - is an example of the conservation of total energy
- Potential energy - stored energy
- Kinetic energy - moving object
- Scalar quantity - having magnitude (amount) not direction
- Vector quantity - magnitude and direction
- Vfinal = (Initial Velocity + Acceleration) x Time
- (Vfinal)2 = (Initial Velocity)2 + 2A(Distance)
- Four stroke engine - suck, squeeze, bang, blow
- In comparison to a straight wing of the same area, a swept wing has the advantage of a higher critical mach number
- A ball is thrown up 80 feet - how high up is it after .5 seconds? V=AT
- Drop a ball - 5 seconds later what is the distance dropped? V=AT, D=1/2 a t2
Science
- Acids - sour taste, turns blue litmus paper to red, hydrogen is common to all acids. Ph less than 7. Produce hydrogen gas when interacting with metal
- Bases - bitter taste, turns red litmus paper blue. Have a slippery feel (soap, sodium hydroxide, ammonia) Ph more than 7
- Adiabatic - without gain or loss of heat
- Adiabatic cooling - the cooling of air as it rises due to a decrease in pressure
- Anode - the positive electrode of an electrolytic cell
- Atomic number - number of protons in the nucleus
- Atomic weight - average weight (mass of the protons plus neutrons) of the various isotopes of an element compared to the weight of a carbon-12 atom
- Amplitude of a wave is the maximum value of the displacement of a wave from the mean
- Amorphous solid - indeterminate, non-crystalline, ie glass
- Atom - smallest particle which an element can be divided and still retain it's properties
- Bound electrons - electrons in orbit in an atom
- Cathode - the negative electrode of an electrolytic cell
- Chlorophyl is used by plants to make glucose through photosysnthesis
- Compass needles tend to line up parallel with the lines of force of a magnetic field
- Concave Lens - thinner at the center than at the edges - focus light
- Convex Lens - thinner at the edges than in the center - diffuse light - magnifying glass
- Convection - tranfer of heat energy by the movement of heated matter An example of Convection is mixing two fluids of different temperatures together
- Cybernetics - the study of communication and control both in machines and living organisms
- Electron - the very small negatively charged particles which are almost weightless and circle the nucleus in orbits
- Free electrons - electrons that have left their orbit in an atom and are wondering freely through a material; Electric current is movement of free electrons
- Heat Transfer - in meteorology the two most important types are radiation and convection
- Radiation - transfer of heat through space or the atmosphere with the speed of light
- Conduction - transfer of heat energy through a substance be molecular contact
- Ion common to all acids - (h+) hydrogen
- Ion common to all bases - (OH-) hydroxide
- Positive Ion - cation - it has less electrons than protons
- Negative Ion - anion - it has more electrons than protons
- Isotopes - are atoms that have the same atomic number but have a different number of neutrons
- Latent heat - heat either absorbed or radiated during a change from liquid to vapor, solid to liquid, solid to vapor, and vice versa at a constant temperature and pressure
- Mass Number - total number of nuetrons plus protons
- Molecule - smallest unit which a substance such as water can be divided
- Neutron - heavy neutral particles in the nucleus that behave like a combination of a proton and an electron
- Nucleus - heavily positively charged central part of the atom
- Photoelectric effect - electrons flow due to sunlight on metal
- Proton - heavy positively charged particles in the nucleus
- Positive charge - a deficiency of electrons
- Negative charge - a surplus of electrons
- Pascal's Law - pressure applied to a confined fluid at any point is transmitted equally in all directions and at right angle to the confining vessel
- Refraction - bending of light rays, heat ray, or sound wave away from original direction when passing from medium of one density into that of another. No refraction occurs if the ray enters the surface at right angles
- Mirage - deceptive appearance of distant objects caused by bending of light rays in layers of air of varying densities (refraction)
- Transmutation - changing of one atom into another. Like trying to make gold from lead
- Water exists in three forms - steam, liquid, and ice
- Heat Speeds up chemical reactions - cold slows them down
- Solids - have definite shape and volume usually described as crystalline or amorphous
- Crystalline - solids with regular arrangement of particles (metals and other minerals)
- Amorphous - have random particle arrangement, expands when heated, contracts when cooled (glass, plastics)
- Pressure P=F/A where ....
- The primary difference between a solid and a fluid is the degree of movement of the atomic or molecular particles
- The measurement of temperature change is actually the measurement of changes in average kinetic energy
Universe
- Aurora - collisions of charged particles from the sun with gasses of the upper atmosphere
- Aurora borealis - northern hemisphere, northern lights
- Aurora austalis - southern hemisphere, southern lights
- Order of the planets - My very educated mother just served us nine pickles
- Earth's diameter - 8000 miles
- Earth's circumference - 21,600 nautical miles
- Layers of the earth-
  - Inner core
  - Outer core
  - Lower mantle
  - Upper mantle
  - Crust, called the hydrosphere
- Distance from earth to moon - 240,000 miles
- Distance from the earth to the sun - 93 million miles
- Earth's rotational velocity at the equator - 1000 mph or 900 knots
- Earth's atmosphere 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen
- Layers of the atmosphere
  - Exosphere
  - Thermosphere
  - Mesosphere - temps fall with altitude
  - Stratosphere - temps increase with altitude
  - Ozone layer
  - Tropopause - higher in the summer
  - Troposphere - also known as the weather layer
  - Ionosphere - deflects some radio waves
- Pulsars - Neutron stars called "Pulsars" because they give out radio waves which are received on earth as regular, rapid pulses
- Quasars - is an abbreviation for quasi-stellar object or an object that appears to be a star
- Comets - are composed chiefly of frozen methane, ammonia, and water, with clusters of meteoric material in the nucleus
- Meteors - small bodies that enter the earth's atmosphere and burn up (shooting stars), meteors that make it to the earth's surface are called meteorites
- Sun is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium
- Sidereal day - shorter than normal day by 3 minutes, 56 seconds
- Equinox - when the sun passes over the equator March 20 or 21 and September 22 or 23
- Solstice - where the sun is at it's maximum declination opposite the equinox; summer solstice is june 21, winter solstice is dec 22
- Axis of the Earth tilted 23 degrees in relation to it's orbit
- Tropic of cancer (june 21 at 23'27 north lat), equator, tropic of capricorn (dec 22 at 23'27 south lat)are geographical points defined by the sun
- Waxing - moon going to full
- Waning - moon changing from full
- Closest to earth - Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
- Largest - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Earth's moon, Pluto
- Which planets have rings around them - Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus
- The strength of gravitational attraction between two objects is dependant upon the mass of the two objects and the distance between them
Weather
- Advection - the horizontal movement of air - stratus clouds are caused by advection (horizontal appearance caused by winds) - cumulus clouds are caused by convection (puffed up by heat)
- Cyclone - area of low pressure
- High Clouds - Cirrus, Cirrostratus, Cirrocumulus
- Middle Clouds - Altostratus, Altocumulus
- Low Clouds - Strattocumulus, Strattus, Nimbostratus
- Cumulus clouds - are formed due to convection heating. When air is cooler than the earths surface convection causes bodies of air to rise to regions of lower pressure, as a result they expand cool and condense
- Isobars are lines of equal pressure
- Isotherms are lines of equal temperature
- Isotachs are lines of equal winds
- Jetstream -
- Orographic - air moving up a mountain
- Stratus clouds are associated with advection fog
- The pressure of the earth's atmosphere at 20,000' is 13.75 in hg
- Cold fronts are not normally associated with High pressure
- Earths winds affected by - Coriolis effect
- Winds across the equator move faster
- Equatorial winds start strong easterly
- Suns radiant energy drives the wind direction and force
- Warm fronts Cold fronts
- Stratus clouds Cumulus clouds
- Poor visibility Good visiblity
- Steady Precipitation Showery precipitation
- Stable air Turbulence
- Slower moving Faster moving
- Squall lines in front
- Standard Temperature @ sea level 59 F 15 C -
- Standard Pressure @ sea level 29.92 and 1015 millibars
- Flight Level 180 = 14.96 and 500 millibars
Conversion Formulas
- Degrees F = C x 2 - 10% + 32
- Degrees C = F - 32 + 10% x .5
- Degrees K = C + 273
- 1 Statute mile = 1.6 kilometers
- 1 Kilometer = .625 Statute miles
- 1 Nautical miles = 1.15 Statute miles
- 1 Statute miles = .9 Nautical mile
- 1 Inch = 2.54 Centimeters
- 1 Meter = 39.37 inches
- 1 Kilogram = 2.2 pounds
- 1 Ounce = 28.35 Grams
- 1 lb = 454 grams
- Force = mass x acceleration
- Work = force x distance
- Power = work / time

Vocabulary - 40 questions, 15 min

Definitions to words similar to GRE vocabulary test
Examples:
- adumbrate: To represent beforehand in outline or by emblem.
- blandishment: Flattery intended to persuade.
- capitulate: To surrender or stipulate terms.
- ignoble: Low in character or purpose.
- nadir: The lowest point.
- perfidy: Treachery.
- truculence: Ferocity.

Math - 30 questions, 7 min

Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division
Easy, but must work fast with the time limit
Example: (((9x3)-3)/2)/4=?? (Answer:3)

Graph Reading- (2 tests) 30 questions, 4 min (each)

30 questions on the same simple graph
The scale on the instructions and the actual test are different
Use both hands- one to move cursor and one to advance arrow key to next graph

Reasoning 1 - 30 questions, 12 min (syllogisms)

Question will be something like -- all musicians are rich -- some actors are musicians pick the most logical conclusion: 1. some musicians are actors 2. some actors are rich
Can use logic or memorize syllogisms rules (do an internet search to find rules)

Reasoning 2 - 30 questions, 12 min (brief statements)

Choose most logical conclusion
Pick the answer that is the most true

Personal Inventory - 140 questions, no time limit

Most questions center on high school involvements/attitudes

Please send your interview questions

Comments

Most people stay at the Holiday Inn Memphis Airport, (901) 332-1130
Also close is the Holiday Inn Select East
They now have phases 1-4, with written test being phase 1 and then getting invited back for phases 2-4. (03/31/2011)
Anybody know what's on the written test? (ergo what has changed since the new format listed above....besides fleet type changes and new domicile (777F and Cologne, Germany, respectively) (03/31/2011)
Any recent updates to the interview process? Info above is very helpful, but the latest round of hiring has begun (04/02/2011)
Note: The updates for the 2011 hiring only includes the process. The questions listed are from previous (pre-2011) interview experiences. Without specifcs the editors have heard they are moving away from the science based questions and toward more aviation based questions.

Please send your comments

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