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PILAPT test

PILAPT is a dedicated pilot aptitude battery published by Symbiotics and reported in use at British Airways, easyJet and several other European carriers. Unlike general psychometric suites, it was built for one job — and it measures spare capacity above everything else.

  1. PublisherSymbiotics
  2. Reported atBritish Airways, easyJet
  3. Core measureHand-eye tracking + capacity
  4. Numerical workLayered on a control task
  5. Practice presetAirline assessment
▶ Practise this format Worked examples
ON THIS PAGEREADY
01Tracking first, arithmetic second
02What that means for practice
03What you cannot prepare
▶ Open the trainer
01

Tracking first, arithmetic second

The battery is heavy on hand-eye tracking, and the numerical items are commonly reported as running while a control task continues. That structure means your numerical score is really a measure of how cheap your arithmetic is, not whether you know how to do it.

It is the closest thing in pilot selection to the actual cockpit demand. Calculations in flight happen while flying, listening and monitoring, and a candidate whose arithmetic needs silence is being assessed accurately.

02

What that means for practice

Stop practising arithmetic as arithmetic. Practise it as recall. Times tables to 20 × 20, squares to 25, cubes to 12, the percentage blocks and the common fraction conversions — until none of them require a step.

Then split your attention deliberately. A spoken question with a running clock uses the same working-memory channel a tracking task uses: you must hold numbers while something else pulls at you. That is a usable proxy for the real thing, and it is available for free.

03

What you cannot prepare

The tracking itself rewards practice only up to a point, and no amount of arithmetic drilling improves it. Spend your preparation where the return is real — on making the numerical component free — and accept the tracking score you have.

Selection systems are re-tendered, and reports place easyJet variously on PILAPT, the wider Symbiotics platform and Aon cut-e. Prepare for the shared numerical core rather than one interface.

FAQ

Questions

Who publishes PILAPT?
Symbiotics. It is a dedicated pilot aptitude battery rather than a general psychometric suite, reported at British Airways, easyJet and several other European carriers.
Can you practise for PILAPT?
The tracking component responds to practice only modestly. The numerical component responds strongly — making arithmetic automatic frees the attention the rest of the battery competes for.
Is PILAPT the same as cut-e?
No. PILAPT comes from Symbiotics and is pilot-specific; cut-e is an Aon product used across many industries. Some airlines have been reported with both across different years.
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Related pages

PageSection
British Airways pilot assessment: PILAPT and the numbersAirline assessments
easyJet pilot assessment: the numerical stageAirline assessments
Aon cut-e numerical testTest publishers