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Spatial Integration Test SIT

Barely documented anywhere, but there’s one technique that makes a huge difference.

What the test is

The formatEight or nine tabs, each showing one isolated layer of the same landscape: farm position, truck, troops, trees, aircraft flight paths with their speed and altitude charts, helicopter paths with theirs. No tab shows the full picture, and the whole sequence runs for one minute, so the time per tab is not equal. Afterwards you get a 3D rendered video of the scene and about 50 seconds of true/false questions on it, with no replay. Format description from the published CBAT TMI test guides (rafcbat.wordpress.com) and the Air Defence Academy test guides (airdefenceacademy.com/testguides).

Skill area: Spatial reasoning.

What candidates say

These points come from people who have sat the test, gathered from forums, community chats and candidates who wrote to us afterwards. Nothing here is quoted or attributed. Each point is graded by how many separate accounts back it up.

✓ Well established! Single account✕ Outdated? From the published guides
You study displays showing where things sit on a grid, then get a two or three second clip of an environment and have to say whether one specific detail in it was correct.
Something like "are the farms in this image correct?" As it goes on it adds more for you to learn, including aircraft, helicopters and their flight paths.
! Single accountFormat
Only the detail being asked about has to be right. Everything else in the image can be wrong and it doesn’t matter.
This could be the difference between passing and failing, and it comes from one account, so confirm it during your reading time. Use fixed terrain like hills as reference points, find the thing they’ve asked about, and ignore the rest of the frame.
! Single accountCritical technique
Some tabs show the map rotated, with the compass rotated to match, so you have to turn it in your head to line it up with the other layers.
Reported by more than one candidate. Check the compass on every tab before you study it. A layer learned the wrong way round is worse than one not learned at all.
✓ Well establishedRotated maps
A tab fades out if you stay on it too long, and there is a short fade every time you switch.
That makes flicking back and forth slow, so plan one steady pass through the tabs instead of hopping between them.
✓ Well establishedFading tabs
Later scenes add jets and a helicopter. Their tabs show the route and how speed and height change along it, and the questions can ask about any of the three.
Several accounts agree it isn’t just the route that gets tested. Learn the shape of each change: climbing or descending, speeding up or slowing down.
✓ Well establishedAircraft
At least one candidate missed a role by a fraction in this domain after skimming the SIT instructions.
It is one of the least familiar formats on the day, so use every second of the briefing and the practice.
! Single accountRead the briefing
Some candidates say the scene is shown once. Others say it was shown twice, with the question already on screen.
Either way, read the question first if you get the chance and look for that one detail.
! Single accountAccounts differ

Practise it on SkyWatch

Our SIT game shows the landscape one layer at a time and then asks whether a detail in the scene is right.

There is an Easier board to learn the format on before you take on the full version.

300+
practice runs played
on SkyWatch
Practise SIT free

Every SkyWatch game is our own CBAT-style practice version, built from what candidates report. None of them is the real test.

Related tests

Read more

This page is one part of the complete CBAT guide, which also covers how the day runs, the pass marks and the domain minimums. Or see every CBAT test on one page.