DX Refresher Topics

Bustedcropdusta

Bustedcropdusta

Barry Seal’s Nephew
Happy New Year JC Dispatchers! I come seeking input for a Dispatch Refresher class that I'm putting together for Internal hires at my airline that have their cert, but are working in various other departments. I have a few classes already scheduled and planned out like Weather, Charts, ATC/NAV and Systems, but I figured I'd seek input as well. If you had the opportunity to attend this, (or teach it), what are some topics you'd want to see covered? While the goal is to help people get hired in DX at my airline, I'm also throwing out the disclaimer that this is not associated with my airline or their training department. So, the material and content have been sourced from other avenues.
 
SideStickEnergy said:
Ops specs, MELs, NOTAMs, and fuel/alternate planning are some of the biggest issues I see when we hire. Especially people with no or little experience.
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Thank you for your response. What parts of the Ops Specs are you seeing issues with specifically? The other 3 are also great topics to throw into the curriculum.
 
1 NAV/ 2 NAV Rule. Takeoff ALT additions in Ops Spec if your company adds to the Regulation. Destination ALT that there is no restrictions how far like Takeoff ALT does. Derived ALT Mins. Knowing what each WX Front does and its effects. QRH and how it applys. MEL/CDL/NEF. How to Factor Landing Distance. FAA OIS Page. Fuel Planning and where to apply what fuel and how much for the occasion. ATC published Reroutes. High Mins Capt. M1 & M2
 
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AviatorB38M said:
1 NAV/ 2 NAV Rule. Takeoff ALT additions in Ops Spec if your company adds to the Regulation. Destination ALT that there is no restrictions how far like Takeoff ALT does. Derived ALT Mins. Knowing what each WX Front does and its effects. QRH and how it applys. MEL/CDL/NEF. How to Factor Landing Distance. FAA OIS Page. Fuel Planning and where to apply what fuel and how much for the occasion. ATC published Reroutes. High Mins Capt. M1 & M2
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All great recommendations. Thank you!
 
Dispatch schools are generally pretty good at teaching students what legality is, even if the specifics at your company might be different. Due to lack of time, though, they're usually not able to drill in that safety can be separate from legality. As an overarching theme of what to teach, that would be where I'd start. Encourage students not to min-fuel, encourage them to look at weather information aside from just the TAF. Encourage them to ask why we should go, instead of why we shouldn't. Stuff like that. They should grasp all the legality stuff about OpsSpecs, company exemptions, etc. fairly well, but understanding that legality is a separate concept from safety can be more difficult and needs to be a focus point.
 
Biggest thing I see missed is applying NOTAMs to the OpSpecs. Pretty easy to understand ILS OTS may change the alt mins or legal to go, but very often things like AWOS OTS, RCLL OTS or ARFF downgrades get missed in relation to the more obscure restrictions in other parts of the opSpec.
 
Just make sure they take note of the winds when deriving alt mins. Seen a few new guys a few years ago try to pick an alternate that had winds exceeding limits for the other end of the runway when trying to do NAV 2. They just went straight to the plates and didn't look at the winds.
 
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