Cadet Pilot 1st Stage Assessment

TODAY is my exam day for the AirAsia cadet pilot assessment. I had a few hours of sleep the night before as I only reached home after midnight from Malacca. Managed to crawl out of the bed at 6.45am after several alarm snoozes and after a hot shower I prepared myself before leaving for the academy located at near the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT).

The AirAsia Acedemy

By the time I arrived it was 8.05am. Many candidates were seen waiting outside the gate. I read through some notes for the last time before leaving the car. Out of the 69 person sitting for the exam, there are six females. I also recognized one air steward whom I saw during one of my AA flight, is taking the paper as well. I think he was one of the cabin crews trying their luck to become pilots.

Candidates waiting outside

Our first paper, English started at 9am, lasted for an hour before moving on to Physics and Maths. There are 30 minutes break between every paper. During that time, you can see some really semangat people still holding their books, memorizing every single formula into their head. Madness.

The main lobby

The test is not difficult as I thought would be and I’m glad I did not study much. Some questions are pretty straight forward. Though, there are a few who do not have answers. They said it meant to be like that. Catchy one! Among the panels in the hall that I could recalled were Alan, Selva, Najib and Captain Feavin. Not sure of their position though.

Cafeteria where we had break and lunch

However, the last paper, IQ was quite a tough one. Lots of complex calculation and questions involving layers of cracking and understanding. Like Inception. I am only able to answer like, five out of the 20 questions. It was IQ anyway, there is nothing we could study.

Apart from the pool and the mock-up plane where they are used for training, I also saw several simulators of different aircraft inside the academy. Looks kinda cool!

There is a mock-up plane and pool

There are two friends which I got to know on that day, Harry and Mei Yin. So there were some chatting to keep us occupied before the papers. Harry took his SPM in 2009 and Mei Yin has just completed her SAM in Taylor’s College. I guess I’m one of the eldest among the candidates. By the way, Mei Yin’s father is a pilot in AirAsia. According to her, it was him who inspired her to become a pilot. Not forgetting her cool cockpit seat belts story.

With Harry and Mei Yin (hope I get the names correct)

Well, as told, we will get to know the results after two weeks via email and they will shortlist the number of candidates to 120 (out of 500) for the 2nd stage assessment. So…let’s see.

Will I be back again?