My school had a complete set of OpSpecs and GOM as part of the "fictitious airline" that we operated as part of the course, and the FAA Examiners used those during the exam. Is this not normal?
I had a lot of oral questions on these two documents. Here a some (paraphrased) examples of just a few OpSpecs questions:
DE: What OpSpec covers Operational Control?
Answer: 008
Several questions about C055... what is is? explain how it works? give me an example?
(the following exchange came up at some point before OpSpecs questions even started)
DE: You have a high-mins captain taking a flight to airport XXXX. What, if any, restrictions are in place?
Me: Well, actually, that airport is not listed in C070 our OpSpecs, so we won't be going there.
DE: flips through the binder... gives an impressed nod, and changes the question to use one of the listed airports.
Anyway... I had several OpSpecs-specific questions during my oral. After the exam, the DE actually told me that I appeared to know my OpSpecs "stuff", and about half the queued-up questions were skipped. I don't know if this is "normal", or if I just had an examiner who liked OpSpecs, but take it for what it's worth.
My advice: at least know what the important OpSpecs sections are and what they're about at a high level.
- A003 lists your company's aircraft
- A008 defines the company's Operational Control system
- B044 describes re-dispatch or re-release enroute
- C055!! lists how your company is allowed to derive alternate minimums
- C070 lists your company's authorized airports
- C078 lower-than-standard takeoff minimums
That's a quick list from the top of my head.