This thread has benefited me greatly. I have been lurking on here for years. I want to return the favour by transcribing my experience of my Pilot application thus far to the best of my memory's ability.
I graduated from uWaterloo with a Bachelor of Mathematics, took that $50k piece of paper straight to the CFRC and said "put my name in the hat."
6 months later, I got booked for my CFAT. Barely slept that night. The day of, my eyes were black bags. Anyway, passed for all trades. It was considerably harder than what I was expecting it to be. Gut check. Oh well. Let's go with it.
6 months later, I got booked for Aircrew Selection at CFB Trenton. I'm from the Greater Toronto Area. I drove there. Full heartedly ugly cried in the car from happiness on the 401 E, before I even got there. I was just grateful for even being given the chance to pursue my dream. It was becoming realer and realer. Cool.
Sunday:
Arrived Sunday at xx:yy. The accommodation is called Yukon Lodge (65 Yukon St). You can Google it. It's basically a perfectly clean hotel. No wi-fi. There is an Ethernet drop in all rooms. Bring your own Ethernet cable. I tested the speed: 5 Mb/s down and Spotify is blocked...
You get three (3) meals per day at the Galley next door. I never went. I just went to McD's and Tim's and Canex to buy food. By the way, the base is fully navigable by Google Maps. It's like a university campus. You can drive into it and nobody will care as long as you don't look out of place. Yukon lodge front desk told me to show up at CFASC at xx:yy. Okay. Couldn't sleep. Got maybe 4.5 hours of broken sleep.
Monday:
Black bags under my eyes. Bad sleep. xx:yy, we all (14 to 16-ish of us, I didn't count) show up and sit in the lounge as can be seen in the pictures of CFASC on the CF website and such. Lots of B.C. boys. Cool. Some cadets with glider experience. Only 1 girl, unfortunately... CFASC staff were very friendly. Anyway, we get briefed, they broke it down aka "good luck eh bud. These tests have successfully reduced the failure rate in Phase I of Pilot training. For a reason. They're hard." Okay. 4 hours of computerized testing. Jesus. Designed to discourage and overwhelm. Listen to my advice: Behave like a computer. If there's too much going on, don't react with any human emotion. Do whatever and/or however much you can do. Don't worry about anything that you let slip up 500 milliseconds ago. Just move on. It's nearly impossible to perform great on all the tests. Honest. In aviation, they say when something bad is happening, the first thing you do is "FLY THE PLANE." Adapt that mentality to the tests. That's what they're looking for. They want to know that you have the ability to not lock up mentally and freeze and stare at the screen with an elevated heart rate. If you fail any given objective, just MOVE ON and perform AS HARD AS YOU CAN for the next objective. I felt like I was being KILLED for a SIGNIFICANT chunk of the tests. Make sure you can do reasonably difficult math in your head. Learn all of the mental arithmetic tricks. When I walked out for my first break, the other guys asked me how I was doing and I just said "I refuse to comment. I'll know tomorrow." We had lunch. We got a bus to the control tower. It was SICK. We exchanged questions and comments for a full 20-25 mins. AECs were so friendly and down to earth. They scrambled some Hornets for our entertainment. Just kidding. I wish. They were very very very relaxed in there. That's the attitude you need to pass Aircrew Selection, btw. They had one of the SAR birds circle the tower a few times for us. It was SICK. They let us out on the cat walk outside while the bird was circling the tower. It was SICK, did I mention? I think I did. After that, the bus took us back to Yukon Lodge. The rest of the day is free. Relax, eat, go to bed early. Saw an actual SAR tech in an orange flight suit. Couldn't stop staring. Btw, they sell literally everything in the universe at Canex. Drove to Jiffy Lube to change my car's oil and got a haircut to take my mind off of things. Went to Wal Mart to buy some fruits and food. Got a full 9 hours that night. I was relaxed.
Tuesday:
Wake up, check out of Yukon Lodge, show up at xx:yy and head straight to the testing room. Another 4 hours. I think I found the second day a little bit easier than the first. I don't know. Doesn't matter. We returned to the candidate lounge. They started calling us in one by one to a selection person's office. We were told simply whether or not we passed, and for which trades. They gave us a piece of paper with the result. Result is valid for 5 years. If you fail, you need to wait 12 months before re-testing. You get a maximum of 3 attempts in your life. They will tell you which domains you demonstrated strength in. If you ask, they will also tell you which domains were the worst. Pilots need to pass all domains and achieve a certain overall score. ACSOs and AECs need to achieve a certain overall score ONLY. That means, if ACSO and AEC candidates utterly get murdered in one domain, but perform great in another, you can still consider yourself safe. You're going after an overall score. Each test is weighed differently for all three trades. Therefore, it's possible to pass for AEC, but not ACSO or Pilot, for example. Myself and 3 or 4 others passed for Pilot. I don't have an exact count. Some of the guys made a B line straight to the front door as soon as they were given their results. We assumed they failed. After all candidates were briefed, the successful Pilot candidates were taken to a room with anthropometric measuring equipment. That took all of 2 minutes. They measured some dimensions of my thighs and knees and spine to determine which airframes I can safely fit in. I fit in all airframes.
Staff asked me what I wanted to fly, I said "it doesn't matter, it's an honour and a privilege to even be here right now." Flight suit guy responded with "good answer." lol. I thanked the CFASC staff for running the joint. It was good. I said bye and walked to my car and drove back home.
Aftermath:
Contacted CFRC. They said it typically takes 2 to 3 weeks after passing CFASC for the first medical and interview to be booked. Followed by a Phase II medical for aircrew candidates. After that, I can expect an offer. A year of waiting in the Competition/Merit list is typical. It's fine. I have a job right now. I told my supervisor EVERYTHING and he is highly supportive. Man wears a Tavares jersey every Friday. lol. I'm grateful.
TL;DR: The tests are discouraging and overwhelming. It's up to you to act appropriately about past failures by disregarding them and focusing on the current objective that matters at that point in time.
I've read many posts like this on forums, but I never thought I'd be in a position to write one myself. I'm grateful.
