What the test is
The formatA red dot drifting continuously across the display and a crosshair fixed at its centre; the job is to keep the two aligned. The joystick handles the vertical axis: push away to bring the dot down, pull back to bring it up. Foot pedals handle the lateral axis, worked with forward ankle pressure like rudder pedals rather than pressing down: right pedal when the dot drifts left. The dot never holds position between corrections, so it is already moving while you respond to the last drift.
Format description from the published CBAT TMI test guides
(rafcbat.wordpress.com) and the Air Defence Academy test guides
(airdefenceacademy.com/testguides).
Skill area: Hand-eye control.
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 Single account✕ Outdated?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
The stations aren’t identical. Sticks and pedals vary in dead zone, sensitivity and wear, and people regularly describe the pedals as sticky with low sensitivity.
It comes down to the settings profile loaded on each station and how much use it’s had. You’re not imagining it, and you’re not supposed to just put up with it.
✓ Well establishedHardware
If your station feels unreasonable or unusable, say so at the start. Staff keep spares. Spend a minute getting the pedals positioned properly before you begin, too.
Reported by someone who did exactly that. It’s a normal request, not a complaint, and a minute on setup is a lot cheaper than a whole exercise fought against bad ergonomics.
✓ Well establishedWhat to do
Take your shoes off before you use the pedals.
Straightforward advice from someone who passed, and it fits everything else people say about the pedals being stiff and unresponsive. You are trying to feel small amounts of ankle pressure through them, and a shoe sole is exactly the wrong thing in the way.
✓ Well establishedDo this
One candidate felt the sensitivity shifting mid-exercise and couldn’t tell whether it was a deliberate mechanic or a fault.
Never resolved. If it happens to you, keep flying it. Don’t try to diagnose it mid-run.
! Single accountUnresolved
There is a practice version on this site. It runs on a joystick, a mouse, the keyboard or a touch pad, and rudder pedals can take the sideways axis like the real thing.
It is my own version rather than the real subtest. What it trains is the thing the test is actually about: your input sets how fast the dot moves rather than where it goes, so you are always holding a correction rather than dragging the dot back and letting go.
! Single accountPreparation
Practise it on SkyWatch
Our SMA game is the drifting dot: keep it on the crosshair as it wanders.
It runs on a joystick, a mouse, the keyboard or a touch pad, and if you have rudder pedals you can put the sideways movement on your feet like the real thing.
1,100+
practice runs played
on SkyWatch
93%
of players who practised 10+ times
improved on their first runs
Every SkyWatch game is our own CBAT-style practice version, built from what candidates report. None of them is the real test.