24 January, 2005

November 3rd, 2004. Phase 1, day 1

I arrived at the Royal Danish Air Force Academy at about 0745 on a grey Wednesday morning. It wasn’t cold, but I was shaking slightly. I was rather nervous, and to make matters worse, I wasn’t feeling very well either. I had just been ill for a week, and was starting to feel better, but stressing myself with the tests wasn’t making things any easier for me.

I met up with the other applicants, 8 of them, and already then I could feel the tension. This was what I had been working for all of my life; this was the moment of truth! We were shown to our quarters, and I was hoping that these 2 days weren’t going to be the only 2 days that I would spend at this place.

First thing was to get us all weighed and carefully measured. I was within all of the limits. We were then taken to a room where we had to fill out some papers. After a short briefing about what was going to be expected during those 2 days, we went off with filling the papers. The first one was 100 questions about our personality, which one had to answer quickly, and the answer had to be yes, no, or I don’t know. These questions would later be used by the psychologist, to find out whether you have the right profile to be a fighter-pilot. Most questions were repeated but formulated in another way, so that one would get caught if he tried to lie.

When we were done we had to fill out some more papers about our lives. Here we had to answer personal questions which would later be used by the Psychologist. Then I had to use my general and aviation knowledge to answer some more question, and here it was important to have a good aviation knowledge and also good ti know what’s happening in the world around you.

I felt like I had done well answering the questions, so this was a good start for my self confidence, which was going to be utterly needed during these 2 days. Then it was time for the lunch break and then on to the computer room.

In the computer room we had tests lasting 50 minutes at a time, with a 10 minute break after every session. The tests we got were logic tests, advanced progressive tests, English synonyms, Spelling and text understanding. In the end we even got to use the joystick to fly a kind of ILS approach which I found rather difficult, since the controls were VERY sluggish and the needles kept moving all over the place. I had a bad head-ache and I felt that I wasn’t on top, I actually had a hard time concentrating, but anyway I did my best.

We were done for the day, except for one small detail. We were given a pen and some papers, and we were asked to write a self-biography which had to be delivered the next day. The self biography would also be used later (in phase 2) during the psychologist interview. I couldn’t get my self together to write because of the head-ache, so I decided to take a nap before writing. It helped!

November 4th, 2004. Phase 1, day 2

I woke up to the annoying sound of my alarm clock, and so did everyone else in the room. I was feeling better, much better indeed, the head-ache was gone and I felt that my mind was thinking clearer. We had breakfast and a chat and then headed off towards the computer room once again. As we talked, I think that all of us wondered about who of us would go through the tests and who would fail. One thing was certain; Most of us were going to fail.

So we got to the computer room and started off at 0740. Our first test was to fly an aircraft through some imaginary squares in the air. The aircraft had asymmetric roll and pitch controls, but was rather easy to handle. We got 3 tries and scored between 0-10 points, where 10 points was of course the best score. I got 3x 10, so I couldn’t complain much about my performance in that test. We had some mathematic tests, mostly equations of different kinds, simple problems, fractions, percentages and decimals, among other things. I remember having 14 minutes left after having answered all the questions, so I had time to spare, so I used it to review all of the questions. Then we had the Danish test, like the English one, synonyms, spelling and comprehension (text understanding). I did ok, but was worried about the comprehension, since I only managed to answer 11 out of the 18 questions before running out of time! This would haunt and worry me during the rest of the day, but I tried to not think about it too much, and concentrate on the rest of the tests instead. We got some more logic tests, IQ tests, technical understanding tests, space orientation, mathematical problems, physics and problem solving of all kinds. Then we go the real killer: The simultaneous capacity test, which tests your brain in how many things you can handle at one time under pressure. No wonder this is one of the tests that most people fail in...

Then we got some more tests. Among others, the short-term memory tests where you see a 5 digit number for a few seconds, and then you have to remember it and type it. Then 6-digits, 7-digits and so on, up to 12 digits! Here it’s very important that you have a good remembering technique, or else you have no chance of remembering the numbers. Also many people fail this one... After this, we had our lunch break. We were all very tired and we could eat a bloody elephant and go home to sleep, but no! On with another 3 hours of tests at the computer. We got more intelligence tests, logic tests, capacity tests; it’s unbelievable how many kind of tests they can come up with! Don’t these people have a life?!? Anyway then we got some REAL mathematical problems where you really had to use all of your brain capacity and mathematical skills...and then some! We had to work them out without a calculator of course, and we had about 1 minute per task. Phew! Anyway, we did some tests at guessing angles and headings and some in reading tables and finding weird figures in pictures containing other figures. We ended the tests with another mathematical test; however, this time we had 60 seconds to answer 45 simple tasks; that’s less than 1½ seconds per question! I managed 42 of them, so I was very happy indeed! And that was basically it! All that was left now was to go to the office and get the results. We went and sat down in the waiting room, all very nervous. This was the moment of truth! Most of us would, unfortunately, get bad news, and we were all very aware of it. So we were called in, one by one, and guess who had to go in first: Yep, me! We had to go in, according to our tests-number, and mine being 01, there was no other way around it. I simply had the short straw. So I went in, closed the door and sat down. I was almost certain that I had failed in the Danish comprehension. “Stephen, what can I say? You did very well,” he said. “So I passed? I’m through?” I asked. “Yes, your results are very good and we’d like to see you again in phase 2 of the tests.” “Thank you!” I said with rather shiny eye lids. I walked out and back into the waiting room where the others were anxiously waiting to hear. “YES!” I said, while squeezing my fists together. I sat down and waited until all the others got their results. 3 of us had passed, and we were happy indeed! On to phase 2!

January 17th, 2005. Phase 2, day 1.

The time had come for the second part of the tests, the final tests. I met up on a Monday morning, and the weather wasn’t much different than what it had been during phase 1. Rather foggy and cold. I met up with a group of 4 others and we were all rather nervous. This was the psychological day of the admission tests. We started off with a group exercise, where we had to solve a problem together, cooperate and agree and get to a conclusion together. While working on the task, we were being monitored by 4 psychologists. All went fine here, even though none of us really knew what they were expecting from us. After the task, we were called in, one by one, to be interviewed by the psychologist. The interview lasted about 1 hour, and everything was discussed. We talked about childhood, interest in aviation, family-life, friends, free time, everything! At the end of the interview, we got to try out the famous ‘tapping-test’ where you are tested in multiple-capacity and in how you react when you screw up under pressure. And that was basically it! Off to a free day, and we sould have to show up again on Wednesday for the running test and the commision’s decision.

January 19th, 2005. Phase 2, day 2.

The moment of truth had come! We strted off with the physical tests, which consisted of a 2000m run, which we had to complete in 12 minutes, and sit-ups and back-ups. Anyone who isn’t in bad shape, should be able to complete the tests. Now we were 12 in the group, and soon we had to go in to the commision to get the order to go on, or order to go home. We were all very nervous. We had all passed phase 1, where about 80% fail... but we knew that about 50% of the remaining ones would also fail. I got called in to the commision, which was lead by an instructor from the Air Force Flying School. Also present were the leader of the tests, the head psychologist from the Tactical Flying Command and a Navy officer. I sat down on the chair and listened to the instructor pilot: “Stephen, I’m going to make it short, because there’s not much to say. Your results are exceptional, and we’d like to see you at the flyig school. I don’t doubt for 1 second that you’ll make it through the course, and if you do it as good as you did with the tests, then it’s the F16 that awaits you on the other side.” “So I’m in?!?” I asked. “Yes, of course you’re in! Your results are among the best 10% of those who make it through the needle’s eye, so you should be very happy indeed,” he said. And I was too! I almost felt like crying, but managed to keep it in somehow. I said thanks and shook hands and went back to the waiting room with the others. 6 of us made it through the commision, and 6 failed.

January 20th, 2005. Phase 2, day 3.

Now there were 6 of us left, and today was to be spent at the doctor to get examined. We were driven to Skalstrup air-base and got examined by several specialists, dentist, doctors and had to fill in some papers. It was a long day. Unfortunately for one of us, he was told that he wouldn’t be able to fly the F16, because of an earlier operation. The doctors feared that he wouldn’t be able to tolerate the high amount of g’s.

January 21st, 2005. Phase2, day 4.

Today was another “docotor” day. This time it was at the Aviation-medical departement of the state hospital. Here we had to go through a Military Class 1 medical, which is a requirement for all military pilots. We were driven early in the morning and dropped off for the ‘fun.’ One of the examinations was to establish whether we suffer or have tendencies of dveloping epilepsy. We had 26 needles placed into our head and were subjected to a flashing light at different frequencies. It wasn’t fun AT ALL, however we were all having a blast. We had come a long way, and nothing could spoil our fun. But we were wrong. One of us got shattered, when he was told that he was slightly colour blind, and that was enough to send him home. Our good mood was soon replaced by a rather sad one. We all went through X-rays, eye specialist, ear-specialist and all the other usual stuff. At the hospital, I got a phone call with the message that I was going to start the course on Monday the 31st! That was a short warning, but apparently there was 1 available place in the team of recruits from last year which was starting in 10 days time. I got offered the position and said a big YES :o) See you at the flying school! Remember to visit my diary on www.jetfighters.dk.

Rough statistics:

About 400 people apply every year as “Pilot in the Air Force.” About 20% make it through phase 1. About 50% of the remaing make it through phase 2. So all in all, about 10% or 40 people make it through the tests, that’s why they call them “the needle’s eye.”

Out of those, over half of them won’t make it through flying-school. So in the end, about 20 of them will become pilots. The best third of those 20 will get to fly the F16. On a good year, 8 out of those 400 will make it to the F16.

V1.2, written by Stephen, January 2005.

Written by Stephen Galea, www.jetfighters.dk