HR Style Questions

What do you bring to the table/Why you over other applicants?

I am passionate about teaching—I used to be an educator and worked with students ages 12-19. I also tutored English online throughout college and had students as old as 50, I have experience with all ages.

Aside from that, I also have experience in curriculum development. I was team lead for French and made the curriculum for the entire district and standardized our teaching practices, so if there’s anything I can do for the school in that regard, I’d be more than happy to help.

Why did you leave teaching?

I got the flying bug—I went on vacation, did a flight in a seaplane that was just supposed to be a skyline tour but looking back, it was more of a discovery flight, came back, started flying on the weekends just to get my private, and within around 12 hours I knew I wanted to fly as a career.

Also—my dad went through flight school, so in some ways it’s in my genetics

What are you willing to do for the school?

I’d love to develop the curriculum or teach a ground school.

Beyond that, some schools like Coastal Skies also host Women in Aviation style meetings, which I’d be willing to do if that’s something you’re interested in.

Do you have any checkride failures? If so, explain.

Private short field landing—sometimes a student wants to make the most of their time and get as many landings in as possible, with very few go-arounds. This was my “default” and I should have gone around.

Checkride discontinuances? If so, explain.

Instrument—moved the same day (school scheduled me)

Commercial—wind, then trim button → swiss cheese model

How do you encourage a culture of safety?

Leading by example—using checklists, saying what I’m doing, including the student in the process

Explaining the reasoning—increases compliance

A student just isn’t getting it. What do you do?

Assure them that learning plateaus are totally normal and expected.

Break it down on the ground—make sure they understand it.

Have them ghost the controls.

Approach it from a different angle.

Allow time for them to experiment and see what works.

Also (depends on their goals) keep it fun! Could do a fun flight.

Why this school over all the other schools in the area?

Coastal — started training, women with wings

Flying T — impression is that they are very organized, gave me a great impression

TX flight — flew exact same tail numbers

Tidal — safety, planes are taken care of, familiar with glass cockpit

Anson—heard great things, aunt goes to church with lady and has only said great things about them

Why did you leave teaching?

Wanted to get my private after school and on the weekends originally, but it was so much fun and expensive that I really had to make a decision about what I wanted to do long-term. I love teaching and flying. You can be a pilot and also teach; you can’t live on a teacher’s salary and also fly

You see an instructor doing something unsafe. What do you do?

Depends on severity. If it’s something smaller* then I would address it with them privately first. If it is repeated or extremely unsafe,* I would tell the school

(*smaller—using one chick instead of two)

(*extremely unsafe—not preflighting at all)

Tell me about a time you used a safety focused mindset?

Tell me about how you handled an emergency?

Hypoxia emergency—so I was chosen to do this massive flight from Dallas to Tulare, California (north of bakersfield). It was a guy in his mid 80s who, as it turns out, was deaf, and needed a lot of help. So I prepared for this flight for a month and consulted people with more experience. He had also purchased this supplemental oxygen system for the flight and handed me the manual. He had never used it and expected me to know everything.

It’s our second leg taking off from Pecos to Casa Grande, and I have it set to begin at pressure altitude of 10,000ft. We have our pulse oximeters on, and I’ve integrated the oxygen system into the preflight. We’re already hooked up and ready to go. Around 7 or 8 thousand ft, I notice his pulse ox is dropping, so I switch it to pressure demand. We’re climbing and his pulse ox is still dropping, so I start troubleshooting, also flying the plane (single axis autopilot), checking my oxygen, etc.etc. and I look at him and he’s been breathing through his mouth the entire time.

That answers the question of how I would react in an emergency. I was calm, running a mental checklist starting with the machine, and then thinking outside box within a set timeframe before declaring.

Tell me about a conflict resolution moment you had in the plane?

Flying to Pecos Muni with an older gentleman who, as it turns out, was very hard of hearing. It was his plane. He wouldn’t stop talking in the traffic pattern, and I couldn’t hear any of the calls the other planes were making, so I ended up just taking us out of the pattern until he would agree to stop talking.

On a different flight, a few months, he later got a pilot deviation for not talking to ATC and landing without clearance because he just couldn’t hear.

tell me about a problem with an instructor that you resolved

In private, I really couldn’t figure out landings and there wasn’t a personality mismatch as much as there was an experience mismatch. He didn’t know what is was like to be short, and it took way too long to realize that my sight picture was incorrect. It took flying with a really short girl to notice that

I have 30 applicants that we personally trained, they are used to our procedures, our aircraft, and our scheduling system why would we be better off hiring you?

I bring three years of teaching experience to the table, as well as a background in curriculum development. I’ve trained in a very regulated, fast-paced 141 environment, but then I’ve also planned and flown trips across multiple states on my own and rented aircraft on the side.

Without naming them, what advice would you give to your worst CFI in order to make them better?

Minimize phone usage, give specific feedback in the moment, and remember major points to type up later

Who was your best CFI and why?

Commercial and CFII were both incredible, they were punctual, sincere, professional, and they took their job seriously. They gave feedback quickly, so I always felt like I was making progress, and they were quick to adapt their lessons or their teaching style. For example, I am not an oral learner at all. My private CFI would just tell me not to write anything in the plane, while my commercial instructor would either teach it on the ground so I could write it down or put it in the notes.

Best CFIs tailored instruction, worst played on phone or just followed syllabus

What was your most memorable flight

California trip. It was the first real trip I had done outside of the school, I prepared for it for a month, and it was definitely the most gratifying

What would you do about a student you were incompatible with?

I taught three years and had around 150 students each year, so I have experience working with a range of students and adapting my teaching style. If it were just a major issue that we couldn’t overcome, I would want to talk to them about it first, get to the root cause, and potentially bring in a different perspective or see if we could get them backseating other flights

What are your strengths and weaknesses? 3 of each

Fast learner, very intrinsically motivated (if I’m doing something, it’s because I want to do it, so it’s easy to stay driven), set very high standards for myself

weaknesses: not an auditory learner, so I take a lot of notes (flashcards private-CFII), perfectionist,

Which of the hazardous attitudes is yours and why?

IMAIR (impulsivity, macho, anti-authority, invulnerability, resignation) — macho. I’m very much an "if there’s a will, there’s a way” kind of person, which can be great in some situations, but I’ve had to learn to tone it down in aviation

have you had an incident, accident, or violation, have you had any motor vehicle accidents or received a ticket, have you been arrested, are you currently under investigation for any reason

4 questions for the school

1. What’s a typical weekly schedule like?

2. What is the student-instructor ratio like?

3. Do you have any programs or opportunities outside of flying (study nights, ground schools, tutoring)?

4. Coming from a background in curriculum development, what does your curriculum look like?

5. (Optional) Do you have weather minimums?

What is your end goal?

I’d love to go to the airlines. Applied to several cadet programs, waiting to hear back from PSA.

Why airlines? I have a lot of good memories of flying Southwest, Jetblue, United, American, AirFrance, AirCanada, Lufthansa, and I’ve always enjoyed it. I would also like to bid for a schedule long-term and ideally have job stability, relative to the 135 world. In hard times, transportation fees are usually the first expenses that are cut

What are the primary instructor responsibilities?

Ensuring safety, evaluating performance, tailoring flight instruction to meet the student’s needs,

How do you establish positive effect during learning

Clear objectives and goals, tailored teaching, feedback on what they are doing correctly, encouragement, safe atmosphere where students feel supported

How do you stay up to date with advancements in aviation? how do you ensure you are safe?

I follow BoldMethod and subscribe to Sporty’s IFR masterclasses. I also attended weekly meetings on safety reports in Dallas, and am signed up to attend WINGS conferences in the Houston area

Can you provide an example of a particularly challenging student you taught?

Yes—I taught students on the spectrum and was called into a group meeting with the other teachers about a student who was having meltdowns in all her other classes—yelling, throwing things, slamming doors, and I truly believe the reason it didn’t happen in my class is because I was very attentive and quick to respond and tailor my lessons.

Same with a new student that switched into my class. She told me she wasn’t going to talk to students she didn’t know, so I decided I would be her speaking partner until she felt comfortable

What struggles did you encounter during your flight training and how did you overcome it?

A lot of pauses in my training that were not up to me, so I sought out other opportunities—ex. weekly GA Miller Aviation group, attended flight club meetings, rented aircraft

What would you do if a discovery flight student locked up on the controls?

Unfold a giant map in their face, and if that doesn’t work, use force along weak points (inner elbow, pinky fingers)

Tell me about a time you made a mistake during your flight training?

As a student pilot, my instructor told me I could do whatever I wanted, so I flew my name into the sky just outside the Bravo. In hindsight, it was not a good idea, and I’m very glad that nothing went wrong.

Tell me about a time beyond private that you made a mistake.

Decided to do a 4 hour block in commercial after driving for 5 hours that morning, not sleeping, not eating. I oversped the flaps by 1-2 knots, but that was eye-opening for me, because prior to that, I had never oversped the flaps.

tell me about a time when you showed exceptional leadership abilities

forcing us to refill the oxygen in California