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Interview: PSA Airlines. Date September 2, 00

Location: Dayton, Ohio

Equipment: Dornier 328's. 25 to date.

Comments: What a machine!!!!!!!!!!

I had a personal friend walk my resume in to the Human Resource office but I hear a fax is just as good. The person in charge is April Shereda. She is extremely friendly and a joy to interview with. If you meet their time requirments which is 1000 total, 250 multi and 150 actual, youll probebly get invited for an interview. When this happens, youll get space available on USAirways to Dayton from where every you might be. I drove to Dayton but I hear they throw you in the hotel across the street and your own expense. All this info is in the packet they send you before the interview. Just have your 10 year background check nailed. No gaps and I stress the word GAP. They need everything.

Myself consisted of 1100 total, 700 turbine and 150 actual. After April recieved the resume she called the same day. They need good people so send it in. I had about a week before the interview. Anyway. The interviews are held in their building at the Dayton Airport. Quite impressive to say the least. The first stage of the interview is April and another gentlemen named Mark (something). Both extremely friendly. They talk about the company, where it's going, pay, benefits and so on. After which you are given a series of battery tests. Math, comprihension, verbal, stuff like that. The math part is mostly all word problems so practice some of those. A Part of the test consists of determining if a sequence of shapes or numbers is alike or Not alike. Pretty easy stuff. These tests are timed I think seven minutes to be exact. There is no penalty for quessing. After that, you'll be givin a Instrument Test. 45 questions right out of the Instrument Book. There's! ! a few that you have to snag from the FARs for example. Definition of a crewmember, Service volume of a Low VOR. Stuff you should already know. This test is timed, but you should have no problem finishing. Just study the regs your currently flying. Youll thank yourself in the interview, but more on that later. After that test I was thrown for a loop on a cramming test. They give you three pages out of the Dornier training manual in which you must read as fast as you can and as much as you can in five minutes. Then they give you a test on it. I believe this is a test of how much you can comprihend in a short amount of time. My test was on the fire loops, squib bottles, etc on the Dornier. You cant study for it inless you know the Dornier extremely well but you can practice it say on another airplane your currently flying and have someone quiz you on what you just read. After all that and this takes about 3 hours they shuttle you out of the room into the break room to! ! grade everyones test scores.

There was 11 that day for the interview. 4 or 5 failed the testing stage. Ans they came and recieved the rest of us, we were givin a Interview time and a Sim time. I had my sim time first. Let me stress the importance finding a AST300 sim to practice. This thing is extremely sensitive upon the roll axis and It would certainly improve your odds if you can practice before you do the sim for the interview. The gentleman giving the ride is a great instructor very friendly and he wants you to do well. He handles everything. He handles the radios, flaps, gear etc. All he wants you to do is fly. Youll be givin the power settings before you take the sim so study these before you go in. I took of Indianapolis Runway 5R and like I said he put of the gear and flaps. Youll do some constant speed climbs, decents, and a standard rate turn to 360 degrees constant speed. After all that he will stop the sim and ask you where you are. In my case I was south of the Brickyard VOR and west of the NDB there at Indy. He gives you holding insructions and askes what type of entry you would do. I told him and that was it, I never flew the hold itself. He turns the sim back on and gives you vectors for the ILS 5R at Indy. Shoot that till you land and that was it. Extremely easy ride. Just watch the roll. It's fine with the pitch and trims out easy but it's real sensitive on airspeed as well. Like I said try to find a AST or if nothing else a Frasca.

They wont tell you how you did but you can sneak a peak as he prints it out to give yourself a clue. After about an hour wait I was called in for the HR interview. Consisted of April and that guy Mark. They really make it an easy interview and put you at ease. They ask you the same stuff like Why PSA?, How did you hear about us? , What do you know about the company?. Etc... These questions where asked by April. Then Mark started asking general questions on my 135 background and the regs concerning it. nbspke FAR 91.175. Know this cold people younbspl be askcomprihensionnbsp; He gave me a sample cnbspence with heading, altitude, speed, what type of approach and had to renbspt back. Your not allowed to write any of this down so try to remember as much as you can. He will throw a heading at you like 240. How long will it take you to turn to 350. Stuff like that. He asks you questions on Time, Speed and distace questions involving a VOR. He just wants to see how much you can figure out in you head. Just remember not to get flustered. Keep your cool, smile, and be yourself. That is what they are really looking at. They can see right through you if your lying, so dont even try. They will ask you about your avialibilty, and if you have any questions. Just a hint, never go into an interview without something to ask. It comes across that your not interested.

After the HR part I was sent home. They say you will either get a letter or a phone call in seven days. The letter is bad, the phone call is good. In my case, I was called the next day and offered the job. Obviously I took it and start my ground school next month. Let me stress again people that this is a great place and the people that are there now go out of their way to help you. Best interview I was ever at Im glad to be able to fly the Dornier. This is a great company, and I hope that you find yourself able to interivew. Till then, make luck be on your side and hope to see ya in a future class.

PS. Dont mind the typos, It's really late and Im tired.

I had my interview on Tuesday 29th, 9:00AM. The gouge sheet at Will Fly For Food was very helpful, however, it left some things out.

1. Know the electrical system on the airplane you are flying. And know it well!!! Know the difference btw. an inducer and transducer, and how many your airplane has. Don't cut any corners.

2. Practice time, speed, rate-of-descent questions. I got the following:

You are twenty miles N.W. of the DAY VOR @ 29,000ft. . ATC instructs you to intercept the 150 radial outbound and at 10 DME be level at 6,000ft. You are traveling at 320 kts. What would your rate of descent be, and how long would it take you to arrive at the 10 DME?

Good Luck being able to figure this out on a dime without having to ask the board to repeat themselves. I felt like telling them thats what an FMS is for! Unfortunately this set the tone for the following ten minutes. I literally blew it.

The company is in the process of hiring a new Chief Pilot. The rumor on the flight inbound to Dayton was that he jumped ship over the possible DC AIR scenario. PSA is financially stable, but hurting for pilots. B/C of the whole US Airways, United, DC Air situation they are having trouble with recruitment. They have no immediate plans for jets, and their overall position is shaky at best. It is possible they will be completely disolved with only 8 DO-328 surviving the DC Air creation and only 80 crew members making the transition to the new company, "GAME OVER" for all other employees. The worst part is they are not telling their own people what is going on. Consequently crewmembers are jumping ship faster than they can place adds for new pilots.

Otherwise good luck. The above was the only surprise in the entire day. I had no idea that they were even capable of asking such a question. You would have thought it was 1978 and you were sitting in a interview for on of the majors.

Let me begin by saying that everyone there is EXTREMELY nice. They go out of your way to make you feel at ease and to relax. Get there at least a half hour early. If you are staying at the Dayton Airport Inn, the shuttle is free over to the PSA hangar. It's just a 3 minute ride too. We got there about 8:30 and a guy named Dave sat with us in the room. He will probably be the one who'll do your sim eval. He just kicked back and gave us some idle chit chat info on the company until about 9am.

Then the HR woman and the chief pilot came in. VERY friendly. They gave us a little info on the company, most of which was in the packet you get sent. Bring the packet with you, cuz you go through it at this point. Make sure EVERYTHING in that application is filled out, including having the Driving Record notorized. One guy came without his and had to scramble to get it done. On the 10 year background sheet, make sure there is a phone number for everything! And no relatives. kinda sucks, since that took me back to high school.

Then we did a quick little tour of the place. Rather small, actually. Went into the classroom next door with CPT in it and then watched some guy practice on the FMS simulator. There happened to be a plane in the hangar, so we walked around it and gawked like children. Then, it was back to the classroom.

We did 5 written tests at this point. All were timed (bring a pen and paper too!). The first was a logic test: Jane types faster than John; John types faster than Larry; Who types faster? Jane or Larry? Basic stuff like that. Then a math test. Joe typed a letter in 55 minutes. Frank typed the same letter in an hour and 5 minutes. How much faster did Joe type the letter? 10 minutes, of course. Then the similar/different test. There were 25 of these and you had like 7 minutes to do it. There would be two items next to each other, and you had to declare them the same or different: xxxooxxx xxxooxx Those are obviously different. Next, the 50 question aviation test. The gouge on here has almost everything from that written test, so know it. Finally, they handed out a 2 page description on the Dornier 328 Fire Suppresion System. We had ten minutes to study it, then they took it away and gave us a 5 question quiz. Again, the gouge is right on. From what I cam remember, 2 fire bottle per engine; pressing the squib shuts off the fuel, the fuel flow valve, and the bleed air; a white light indicates the bottle is already discharged and consequently nothing will happen if you press the button.

Then we all broke for about 15 minutes, and hung out in the break room. We were all called back in, but somehow one guy washed out and wasn't there. They described that the interviews and sim would start at the same time. They had times assigned for each person on the interview and the sim. I had quite a bit of time between the two, so I walked with some others to the airport terminal for lunch. Takes less than 10 minutes to walk over there.

The interview was very relaxed. Of course, make sure you shake their hands when you go in. The Chief Pilot is quite the personality and loves to meet everyone it seems. The HR woman asked how I heard of the company and why I wanted to work there. Then asked about 135 duty time limits, 121 (1,000 hrs a year), service ceiling on the airplane I fly, useful load, what is an inverter. He then did a time/distance question: you're at 20,000, 36 nm from the VOR. ATC tells you to cross the VOR at 10,000 and begin your decent now. You have a groundspeed of 360. At what rate do you descend? About 1600 fpm. I actually screwed that one up, but did my thinking out loud. I initially gave a wrong answer, but they were very helpful in pointing out I had the formula right, I just didn't apply it correctly. Then he asked a question that he is a stickler about. Remember this rule: for an air carrier, you cannot begin the approach prior to crossing the FAF if the weather is reported below minimums. If you are past the FAF and it goes below, you can still continue. Here's the key. It is visibilty only that determines weather minumums, NOT ceiling. For example, if the mins are 200 & 1/2 and the ATIS reports 100 & 1/2, are you legal to begin? Yes, because the visibility is not below the mins, and ceiling doesn't count. If you nail that one, and I"m sure he'll ask you, then your golden.

Then they asked about my college degree, so I talked about that for a minute. Asked about when I could start groundschool. Then asked if I had any questions about the company. Think of a good one, because most of the key stuff will already be answered for you earlier in the day. They said they would call by Monday or Tues. Haven't heard back yet.

The sim ride is totally easy. All you have to do is fly instruments, no checklists, no tuning and identifying, no navigation. The evaluator does it all for you. Memorize the power settings he gives you at the beginning of the day. And just fly them. Don't jockey power around. You take off, Vr is 90, climb at 110, full power. Then, maintain some altitude at 110 (about 16" MP, but check the sheet he gives you since I can't remember exactly). He vectors you around here and there, nothing big, lots of time to relax. Then he stops the sim. You have to determine your position on the chart he gives you using a VOR radial and an NDB bearing. Very straightforward, and you're not even flying. He then gives you a hold and asks how you will enter it. Then, you start flying again, and he vectors you around for an ILS. You fly the approach down and that's it! About 15-20 minutes. The sim is a brnad new AST-300, but different from ones I've seen. The trim wheel is actually mounted on the panel, and it is literally about an inch big. Trim it, and let go is the best way to fly it. It is VERY roll sensitive. So once you get it where you want it, let go, especially if you take your eyes away for a moment.

All in all, it appears to be a great company to work for. They really go out of their way to help you relax and create an environment where you WANT to be there.

Once again thank you for your effort in trying to keep up with the ever changing world of interviews and training experiences. I recently completed PSA training within the last few months. It was the toughest thing I have ever tackled. My background is typical: instructed, freight, charter, and handful of turbine. To give some info I heard they are downsizing their training classes to 3 initials and 3 upgrades every two weeks and no more classes after november until the end of the year (could change with attrition). They have done away with interviewing at Cinncinatti. Instead they are interviewing at Dayton HQ and the sim is done in a Frasca twin. Hope this info helps you out.

did the psa interview on 9-22-99, what a great airline, people were very good at putting you at ease. they have changed the sim ride, they now have a ast 300 onsite and i got IND for the ride, the sim is computer graded. your are given simple air work ( turns, climbs, etc.) NDB hold, ILS. the rest of the info is still good.