Aircrew Selection/ACS (Merged)

[AliTheAce]

Good Day,

I never got the opportunity to properly thank all of the individuals whom have posted any form of advice in this thread.
I passed ACS back in June-2017 and it was as nerve-wrecking as everyone had mentioned it would be. However, with that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the testing portion and it was my downtime that caused me to overthink the what-ifs.

As an applicant, I was treated with the utmost respect and was offered sage advice by many of the members on the base. All were friendly and willing to speak about their experiences, in their respective trades, and provide answers to any questions I had regarding my selected trade.

The two nights I spent on base for ACS I vividly remember not being able to sleep for the life of me. I probably got 3-4hrs of fully interrupted sleep the first night and 2-3hrs the following night.

Overall, there was a group of ~17 applicants during my ACS, IIRC. We were all as nervous as the next but my mentality and preparation had prepared me for the best and the worst. I studied to my hearts content and remembered to breath as the testing was being conducted ;D
After the testing had concluded, being the ~9th person to finish, I walked to the briefing room and took a seat. One by one the applicants were being called... all prior to myself had come back with no success, for PLT, and my mind was bouncing from one place to the next not knowing what to think.

Then came my turn...
After being seated in the small room I was notified that I had made ACSO/AEC but there was a question and an excruciatingly long pause prior to receiving the answer for how I had done for PLT. 30 seconds passed, what felt like an entirety, and this was when my heart began to beat out of my chest and the muscles in my face were fully flexed. I made the cut. I couldn't stop smiling for the life of me and was dumbfounded when asked if I had any questions. I go back and try to be as humble but two of the applicants from my slot, after noticing my gleaming smile, come up to me to ask, or more so tell, "You got PLT, didn't you?" to which I give a nod and still was unable to compile any conceivable words 

Out of my ACS I was the only one to have qualified for PLT.

TL;DR
Barely slept, passed for ACSO/AEC/PLT, was the only one in the slot to meet PLT standard, enjoyed the experience and am looking forward to what the future brings.

Amazing, thank you for sharing your experience!

Wish you best of luck with training!


Anything else not mentioned in the thread that you feel like would help?

Like someone I talked to earlier showed me the practice CLAN test where you have to stop the diamonds on the correct color band. He said that do not memorize the letters n the corners, but rather stare at them so they are burned into your vision. Did you feel like that helped?

 

[Rip10793]

Amazing, thank you for sharing your experience!

Wish you best of luck with training!


Anything else not mentioned in the thread that you feel like would help? I can not for the life of me remember where I heard or saw this but something that unduly helped me was this phrase, focus and lose focus or focus but lose focus. Initially I did not understand the phrase but, slowly but surely, it began to make sense. Try this, pick up a pen/pencil and focus on it. After you've done so, continue to focus on the pencil, but begin to focus on your surroundings as well. You will not maintain the same level of concentrated focus that you would have had you continued to solely stare at the pen/pencil but you should be able to widen your visual scope, allowing you to see more. It helped me but may not work for everyone, we are all unique.

Like someone I talked to earlier showed me the practice CLAN test where you have to stop the diamonds on the correct color band. He said that do not memorize the letters n the corners, but rather stare at them so they are burned into your vision. Did you feel like that helped?Personally I just did the CLAN practice test, and felt my brain was able to organize the shapes accordingly as I needed it too. The staring, in theory, could work but you can probably attest to that much better then I could. If the method works for you, use it. If not, try and find a substitute.

One aspect in life I used to struggle with was trying to succeed using methods or techniques that did not work for me. I would keep working away at the tedious or repetitive tasks until I reached an acceptable standard but lately I have been looking outside of the box and finding alternative ways to reach the success that I was looking for. This is not applicable to all situations but it never hurts to look around, or innovate.

Additionally, it has been said many a times before but I do not believe it can be said enough, prepare to the best of your abilities. You do not want to walk out of ACS thinking you left anything on the table, it will only lead to regret.

 

[Roger123]

After being seated in the small room I was notified that I had made ACSO/AEC but there was a question and an excruciatingly long pause prior to receiving the answer for how I had done for PLT. 30 seconds passed, what felt like an entirety, and this was when my heart began to beat out of my chest and the muscles in my face were fully flexed.

I swear that pause by the selection officer is intentional. It happened to me and my mind began going over what am I going to do next in life. And that stupid-face feeling after being notified you passed, can only count on one hand the number of times I felt that way.

 

[dcpilot]

Hi all! I just have one quick question, I just can't remember how long is our ACS score good for? I remember someone saying 2 years.. or maybe I'm wrong. Does anyone know?

 

[nearp]

Hi all! I just have one quick question, I just can't remember how long is our ACS score good for? I remember someone saying 2 years.. or maybe I'm wrong. Does anyone know?

I asked the Aircrew Selection Officer this question when I was in Trenton and they said the score is good for 5 years. I've heard recruiting staff say 2 years but I'm more inclined to go with the aircrew selection's answer of 5yrs as they're the one's who administer and assign the ACS scores.

 

[k1te]

Hi, just wondering if this is normal. I recently got rescheduled for the ACS. This is already my fourth time getting rescheduled from Sept to Dec, then to Jan then to Feb and now I am getting rescheduled to April...

 

[Pilot-Wannabe]

Not sure if this helps but I recently got rescheduled as well. I was supposed to go at the end of Jan, now I'm being told between April and June.

Are you DEO?  I was told is they're mostly processing ROTP\CEOTP right now.

 

[Roger123]

I was also rescheduled multiple times around this time last year. First it was toward the end of January. Then rescheduled toward the end of February. Then asked for March and April dates to be submitted. Then after submitting dates for said dates, I got an email saying I had been loaded on the last week of February. I know it aint fun being given the run around, but use this time to the best of your ability to prepare for the coming tests. By the way, I am a DEO applicant, so it adds credence to ROTP candidates being given preference. In my case, it could have been that someone dropped out and I was given the spot. My course was loaded to capacity ( 20 candidates I believe, mostly ROTP).

 

[FSTG]

"Priority" to ROTP applicants would be assigned just because the actual proportion of DEO to ROTP is too high right? They do have predetermined amount of spots for each type of applicants?

 

[Deleted member 102242]

They do have a predetermined amount. It's something like 73 DEO and 25/30 ROTP for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018/2019. You can check it out on one of the recruiting pages.

 

[ridsteram]

You need to get used to breaking these into easier numbers. So when you look at 450km at a speed of 420km/h you instantly know that you are travelling for more then one hour. You now have 30km left out of 420 to see what fraction of an hour you travel additionally.

Personally the way I tackle this is a quick 30 x 10 (easy peasy) is 300, then its easy to remember that 30 x 4 would be 120 to get 420.. which means that extra 30 km is 1/14 of 1 hour. This is where it would get a little trickier because 14 is not a perfect fraction of an hour; however, we know that 4 mins x 15 and 5 mins x 12 is an hour so I would estimate 1h 4 mins.

 

[SupersonicMax]

30 km at 7 km per minute (420 km/h divided by 60 minutes/h.  That's 4 and 2/7th minutes or 4 minutes and approx 18 seconds.  With the full hours included, that's 1h04m18s

Break he speed down in units per minute.  That's what you'll do when you fly.

 

[AliTheAce]

Got it, thanks. Haven't really worked with fractions in that way so I think practice is the best way to get faster at it.

On another note, I hit my best ever score on speeddistancetime.info by getting 10/10 in 8.6 seconds. That might have been a fluke but hopefully I can continue to be more consistent

 

[AliTheAce]

Well I guess I'm stumped again, haha. Can't wrap my brain around this exactly. So let's say you're travelling at 360 km/h and need to cover 318 km, and I need to find the time. What would I do? Convert 360 km/h to km/min? That would result in 6 km/minute.

Or, for example, 328 km to cover at a speed of 480 km/h.That would be 8 km/minute.

I'm stumped on what to do after I convert them.

 

[BurmaShave]

So, 360 less 318 is 42, which is 7 minutes. 53 minutes. 328 is 40 8s, and another 8. 41 minutes.

Combine multiplying, dividing, adding, and subtracting to break down a speed into minutes and back up into hours. Be fluent doing arithmetic with the factors of 60 (1,2,3,4,6,10,15,20,30,60).

I will echo what other folks have said, though: relax. It's easy to cross the line from good preparation to needless worry, which is a dreadfully unproductive thing for a trainee pilot to do. 8.6 seconds per is plenty fast for SDT stuff (though, my record is 4.2 per ).

 

[Roger123]

Well I guess I'm stumped again, haha. Can't wrap my brain around this exactly. So let's say you're travelling at 360 km/h and need to cover 318 km, and I need to find the time. What would I do? Convert 360 km/h to km/min? That would result in 6 km/minute.

Or, for example, 328 km to cover at a speed of 480 km/h.That would be 8 km/minute.

I'm stumped on what to do after I convert them.

Convert the speeds in km/h to km/minute. Divide the speed by 60 ( because there are 60 min/h)
360 km/h / 60 min/h = 6 km/h * h/min = 6 km/min. When you have speed in km/min and use it find time, the answer becomes in minutes it takes to cover said distance. Distance 318 km, so 318 km/ 6 km/min = 53 minutes.

For the second question, you already got the speed at 8km/min. Again, when you use this in the TSD formula, you get the answer in minutes. 328 km / 8 km/min = 41 minutes. ( the km cancel and your answer is in minutes: km  / km/min = km * min/km = min).

 

[AliTheAce]

Convert the speeds in km/h to km/minute. Divide the speed by 60 ( because there are 60 min/h)
360 km/h / 60 min/h = 6 km/h * h/min = 6 km/min. When you have speed in km/min and use it find time, the answer becomes in minutes it takes to cover said distance. Distance 318 km, so 318 km/ 6 km/min = 53 minutes.

For the second question, you already got the speed at 8km/min. Again, when you use this in the TSD formula, you get the answer in minutes. 328 km / 8 km/min = 41 minutes. ( the km cancel and your answer is in minutes: km  / km/min = km * min/km = min).

Oh wow, didn't know it was that intuitive! Thank you.

 

[5kc11]

Hello,

I'm currently in the recruitment process, completed my interview and basic medical evaluation. Been waiting for a date for Air Crew Selection, but it keeps getting deferred. Its been a year now, with no word. I've called the recruitment center and its been the same line over and over. I'll receive an email 2 weeks prior to my test date.

Can anyone provide me with a timeline as to how long it took them to get a test date for Air Crew Selection?
Just to be specific, I'm a DEO applying for ACSO trade.

any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

[Deleted member 102242]

Hi,

I did my ACS in May of last year, Merit listed since August. It's a waiting game, so relax and live your life like the military is never going to happen, because it might not. If it's any consolation, my understanding is that the whole 'system' for officers is really really backlogged and there are some major holds ATM.

Cheers and stay motivated!

 

[Jazz]

Hello everyone!

Not sure if this is the right place to ask..

Has anyone heard back about DEO ACS selections for the new fiscal year?  I was nominated for three dates in April (specifically told since there was no slots left in the current FY, I would have to wait for the new one), but I have yet to hear back.  And one of the proposed dates is this weekend!

I have emailed and went to the recruiting office in person a many times, but I just keep getting the same "there is no new information at this time" response. 

I'm just curious if any current DEO applicants waiting for ACS have been booked yet!  Any information is much appreciated!