I'm now a certified FAA Flight Dispatcher (ADX)

This morning I passed my final test and am now a certified FAA Flight Dispatcher.

I had my one-on-one test today with an FAA examiner. The test took about 5 hours. I was somewhat nervous about “the unknown”… what would he ask, would I know it….

This final test was open books, all 40+ pounds of them, so, having lived with these things glued to my eyes the past 6 weeks, the Q&A actually went smoother than I thought it would. I know what I know and I know what I need to know more about, so I guess that’s a lot like life itself. Part of the exam was constructing a flight plan from Denver to Las Vegas on our Boeing 737-800. They could have thrown a few curves into the game at this point but, having done these type of flight plans (manually...no computer program allowed) for the past several days, I knew the why, where, and what to watch out for, so it went ok. I "landed" in Vegas with fuel to spare !!

Mission accomplished.

Several months ago I was laid off from my position as the Manager of the Dispatch office for an aviation management company in Pittsburgh. As I career hunted, I found that most of the top of the line places wanted their Flight Ops people to have this FAA rating, even though it’s not required in the non-airline world that I work in. Companies are looking for their Dispatchers to have the ADX rating to enhance their Safety programs, now being able to report that their Dispatchers are as trained as an Airline Transport Pilot's (ATP) and know how all the pieces of the puzzle of a flight work together.

I learned a lot.

I’m glad I chose the school that I went to, as Jeppesen is a globally recognized power in the aviation industry. I met a lot of good people there too.

I can now sign my name “Daniel Flynn ADX”

Cool too is my son & daughter-in-law making me a congratulatory dinner of spaghetti and meatballs (my fav!!)

Thank you everyone who supported me thru this school. I appreciate all of the notes of support, the prayers, the good wishes etc.

More later …. time to not study for a while...