Here's my letter to you...

Many years ago, just like you, it was my dream to become a pilot. I did everything that a young person with a passion for aviation does. I joined the Air Cadets, I went plane spotting, I flew model aircraft and I begged to go flying with anyone that had a licence. And of course I always asked to go and visit the flight deck when I went on holiday!

Then TOP GUN came out and of course, I wanted to become a fighter pilot! So, I applied to the RAF. Three times. And I was UNSUCCESSFUL with all three attempts.

Undeterred, I pulled apart my performance in those assessments and armed with new knowledge and more competence, I applied to the Royal Navy and was successful with my assessment. For the next 10 years I got to fly some of the coolest aircraft in the world and to fly from an Aircraft Carrier in a fighter jet!

Then it was time to leave the military and soon after, I had my first airline assessment.

And I FAILED IT!

I couldn’t believe it. How could this be? I was an experienced pilot. I’d proven myself competent to fly and I’d had the opportunity to develop competence in all of the competencies that the airline was looking for.

So, why did I fail? In my case, it was a lack of EFFECTIVE preparation. And you know what? That failure has cost me an estimated £1 million in lost income and pension contributions!

Ultimately, I realised that I had the formula wrong. I didn’t know how I was being assessed and as a result, I didn’t understand how to effectively prepare for airline assessments. The answer lay in the way that airlines were training their line pilots - and it was called Evidence Based Training.

This was a light bulb moment for me. If airlines were TRAINING their pilots through this Evidence Based Training, then it surely followed that this would be the way in which they would ASSESS candidates during a selection process.

And you know what else I realised? 99% of candidates were either underprepared, or ineffectively prepared for their assessments. Their preparation relied heavily on “knowing what questions were going to be asked” or “knowing exactly what the group exercise scenario was going to be”. They’d spend hours trawling through online forums, asking friends that had been through the process, or purchasing “inside knowledge” on a specific airline selection process.

And the outcome of this type of preparation? I estimate that around 75-85% of qualified pilots still FAIL a major airline selection process. And for cadetship schemes, that failure rate is even higher - around 95% will FAIL!

And so, Flight Deck Wingman and Flight School Wingman were born. As was our training mantra ‘Techniques Not Tip Offs”!

I will train you in the ‘Techniques’ to be successful with ANY assessment process. I won’t use ‘Tip Offs’ on the specifics of any airline selection process, because that’s a very dangerous and ineffective way to prepare!

Instead, I will personally make sure that you enter ANY assessment with the confidence and understanding not just of how you’re being assessed, but more importantly, how to excel.

I’ve personally worked with more than 4000 pilots and 95% of them to date have successful with the stages that we prepare them for.

So, finally, a personal plea from me…

Please don’t let a lack of preparation, or more importantly a lack of EFFECTIVE preparation be the reason you fail. A small investment in your preparation now could make the difference between success and failure. Oh, and a whole bunch of lost career earnings!

Andrew