Dispatch Oral/Practical Exam questions!

F

flyremnant

Well-Known Member
I just passed my written exam. WOOT!!
so glad I got that out of the way.

Now, I need to prepare for the oral and practical exam for the dispatchers certificate.
How and what should I study? any recommendations? any must know questions?
and what is the test like? any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
 
The best people to discuss that would be are the people at your school. I am assuming you are attending some kind of dispatcher course? If not, try and see if whoever is doing your practical exam can give you some information.
 
There is a good book out now by ASA called Aircraft Dispatcher Oral Exam Guide. But honestly, from my oral, I was hammered on regulations, aircraft systems and tons of scenario based questions the most. And then a little bit of everything else. So I would know the regs like the back of your hand! :)
 
Yes Congrats on passing the written ADX!

As mentioned above, your next step should be finding a school to go to. In order to take the oral, you need to have a certain amount of class room hours. Although there is a rule that says if you are a meteorologist (and a few other professions) you can forgo those hours and take the test. However, if you took the head meteorologist of news 7 and had him take the ADX oral he wouldn't survive 10 minutes before failing lol. There are so many regulations and rules that you don't really want to self study. So make sure you find a GOOD school (there are only a couple out there).
 
Any regulations and weather discussed at all in your coursework should be "internalized". The rest of the material can be "learned" to the appropriate level. The reason I say regs and weather should be "internalized" is because a practical and/or checkride oral will often present an applicant with scenarios, and you're going to need to exercise your command ability and make the correct decision. Just as it would be on the job, attention to detail and decision-making are critical. If you want to know what's crticially important, look for the times when your instructor does things like winks, does a chicken dance in front of the class, or throws out helpful phrases like "this is critically important to know".

Best of luck. I wish more people would go for the DX certificate. It is a very rewarding certificate to have.
 
Thanks everybody!!
I took my practical and passed!!!!
I was able to breeze by the flight plan but on some of the questions it was very tough!
Anyways, I'm relieved that I am able to get that our of the way and now waiting for the certificate to arrive!
 
There are numerous members on here that have attended Sheffield. Myself and Aeroscout were in the same class. A search of Sheffield will yield numerous threads and other fellow Sheffield grads
 
I was also a Sheffield grad.. Cant speak for the other schools, but what I can tell you is that you need to go down to FLL focused on learning. It's a lot of material in a short period of time.. Study and try to stay ahead. Don't go to class unprepared because you are quizzed orally everyday. Good LUCK
 
my oral was basically all REGS. the guy doing my oral knew the regs inside and out! anytime i got a answer wrong he would tell me what the reg was and as he's explaining it, im reading reading the reg in the FAR and he was saying word for word!

i believe they also look at the subjects you got wrong on your written, i believe they start from that subjects and go from there.
 
How long is usually the oral exam? Also, the questions asked, are they or can they be learned beforehand?
 
Andy99 said:
How long is usually the oral exam? Also, the questions asked, are they or can they be learned beforehand?
Click to expand...

My oral was about 3 hours. But my examiner liked to talk - and I let him! I figured the more he talked, the less I would have to. My questions were mostly regs and several situational questions. You'll be prepared for it as long as you study your butt off! Good luck :)
 
Keola said:
my oral was basically all REGS. the guy doing my oral knew the regs inside and out! anytime i got a answer wrong he would tell me what the reg was and as he's explaining it, im reading reading the reg in the FAR and he was saying word for word!

i believe they also look at the subjects you got wrong on your written, i believe they start from that subjects and go from there.
Click to expand...

Keola - remind me who your examiner was?
 
womanpilot73 said:
Keola - remind me who your examiner was?
Click to expand...
The name on my temp license says david burnham. But i had two examiners, so im not sure which one of them signed the license.

Andy99 said:
How long is usually the oral exam? Also, the questions asked, are they or can they be learned beforehand?
Click to expand...
My oral was close to 5 hours long. The first thing my examiner did was look over my ADX scores. He said his job is basically to look over the ADX scores to find the weak subjects. Once he finds your weak subject he'll start his questions from that subjects and go from there. Normally the quicker you caan reply with a correct answer, the less they ask you about that certain subject. But as soon as you show signs of weakness in a subject.. He'll dig deeper!
Its really hard to say how a oral will be, because when it comes down to it.. Every examiner is different and every examiner will ask different questions.. My classmate that took the oral the same time as me got hit hard with ETOPS, where as i didnt even get a single question about ETOPS. Mine was 90% regs...and we had the exact same examiner..

if you do give a wrong answer..dont think the world is over. Most examiners will teach you or explain the correct answer. Pay attention to what the examiner says and take in the info he gives you..he might be looking at how well you can learn vs how well u know or dont know the info..
 
Keola said:
The name on my temp license says david burnham. But i had two examiners, so im not sure which one of them signed the license.

My oral was close to 5 hours long. The first thing my examiner did was look over my ADX scores. He said his job is basically to look over the ADX scores to find the weak subjects. Once he finds your weak subject he'll start his questions from that subjects and go from there. Normally the quicker you caan reply with a correct answer, the less they ask you about that certain subject. But as soon as you show signs of weakness in a subject.. He'll dig deeper!
Its really hard to say how a oral will be, because when it comes down to it.. Every examiner is different and every examiner will ask different questions.. My classmate that took the oral the same time as me got hit hard with ETOPS, where as i didnt even get a single question about ETOPS. Mine was 90% regs...and we had the exact same examiner..

if you do give a wrong answer..dont think the world is over. Most examiners will teach you or explain the correct answer. Pay attention to what the examiner says and take in the info he gives you..he might be looking at how well you can learn vs how well u know or dont know the info..
Click to expand...

My examiner actually told me he is "supposed" to go over missed questions on the ADX but he never did. I think he felt it was more important to see how I could reason through scenario based questions.

I never got asked a single question on ETOPS. I find that strange that an examiner would hit someone "hard" on ETOPS when we don't really spend much time on it in class and most people are going to work for a regional. Odd...

The big thing we were taught was if the examiner likes to talk and tell stories, by all means LET him/her. Let them eat up the time! Also, answer ONLY what they ask. Don't start digging deeper because they'll dig deeper and watch you hang yourself. Keep your answers brief!

They are there to test you, but also there to teach you. I learned a ton during my oral. As Keola said, don't worry if you don't know an answer or miss something...they will likely walk you through it. They don't want you to fail.
 
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