The flagship psychomotor format in on-site pilot selection puts three analog instruments in front of you at once: a direction indicator, an altimeter and an airspeed indicator, each with a green bug marking the commanded value. You hold all three on target while the axes fight you: the controls answer with deliberate inertia, holding altitude off target bleeds airspeed, and short bursts of turbulence are built to be impossible to counter. A voice stream of numbers and colour words runs in your headset the whole time, carrying its own response rule. The real systems run a long guided practice, up to three quarters of an hour, before a short scored phase; this exercise compresses that same structure into a guided walkthrough of each axis, then a scored phase of two and a half minutes.
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This measures divided attention and multi-axis control, the defining combination of the flagship on-site psychomotor tests: three analog gauges (heading, altitude, speed) held on green target bugs at the same time, with deliberately coupled physics, control inertia, turbulence bursts that cannot be countered, and a concurrent voice stream carrying its own response rule. What it really scores is the quality of your instrument scan under load: whether every gauge keeps getting attention while your ears track the stream, or whether one runaway needle captures you and the rest drift.
The measured skill is the scan, not smooth flying. Set a rhythm: heading, altitude, speed, voice, and keep it turning even when one needle is misbehaving. The classic failure mode is locking onto the worst gauge while the other two drift quietly out of band; two mediocre gauges beat one perfect one and two abandoned ones.
When a TURB burst knocks a needle away, do not fight it mid-gust: the burst is faster than the controls and chasing it just leaves you deflected the other way when it ends. Wait it out, then recover with one smooth correction. Recovery speed is the skill; the deviation itself costs everyone.
On site this format runs on a dedicated workstation: a joystick whose inertia you can feel, touchscreen plus and minus buttons for speed, and the voice task through a headset. The browser version keeps the structure honest (coupled axes, uncounterable gusts, a live voice rule) while the hardware feel stays out of reach; the scan and divided attention you build here transfer.
On a touchscreen, drag on the panel to fly and tap the buttons: the on-screen controls are the primary controls, not a fallback. With a mouse, small movements near the panel centre work best, with the speed and voice buttons on screen or on [ ] and J K. Avoid a laptop trackpad: candidates who sat the real assessments consistently recommend a mouse or a gamepad for continuous control.
Aptitude tests get you through selection. The EASA ATPL theory exams come next, and SkyStudy is built for that phase.
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