Worst test ever!

Now that it's dark when I go home. I get to have a nightly reminder of the worst test I have ever taken. You ask "Why would a picture of lights be a reminder of a bad test?" Well, I will tell you. I worked in aviation for over 23 years ( total of 3 airlines) and at my last job I decided that I needed to become a certified 121 dispatcher. The airlines I was working for was going 121. (Don't worry about what that is. It's just FAA stuff) I enrolled in a special school that was certified to teach and give the 121 test. I went and learned all kinds of stuff and after 4 months it was time to take THE Test.

One of the books that we used was the A.T.C. book (Airplane Transport Category ) One of the test would be out of that book. There was about 1000 questions ( I think ) but we would only be asked 100 of the questions and we would not know what questions would be on the test. Not all of them had to do with 121 Dispatch but we had to know a lot of the stuff that pilots had to know as we would be dispatching pilots to go fly. The test would also be given by a FAA examiner.

At that time there was only 2 FAA examiners in the state to give the test. As luck would have it my test giver also worked for the airline that was the arch enemy of the airline that I worked for! ( Maybe a conflict of interest on the his part? You be the judge!) When I mean arch enemy, I'm serious! They told my company that they were going to "fly wing tip to wing tip" with us and put us out of business. ( They filed chapter 11 or something like that a few years later!) Part of the test would be that I would have to do a flight plan by hand. Now I was told that the flight plan would be from point A to point B. Not so bad. Well! I got a flight plan from hell! I had to do a flight plan from Seattle to Cold Bay Alaska with a stop in Anchorage, and when I was half way done with my flight plan, my examiner comes in to say " You just lost your number 2 engine and you have to do a emergency stop in Juneau!" So I had to pull out all my drift down charts and plot the fuel flow and all kind of stuff. After I did all that and left Juneau to go to Anchorage ( this is all on paper) and I'm back in the air he comes in and say " Anchorage weather is below mims and you have to divert!" So I get all my charts out again and I went onto Cold Bay. Let me tell you, there is no deodorant made to stop that kind of sweat! My shirt was soaked! But I passed that part of the test. I talked to others later on and nobody had that kind of test! I had the only engine failure and the only weather diversion!

But you are still asking " Why do lights remind you of that day?!" Because on the written exam from the A.T.C. book, the very first question had something to do with recognizing the thresh hold landing of a runway. The answer was D. A preponderance of lights. Only the FAA would use that word to describe a bunch of lights! So when I see all those lights at night, I think of that word "preponderance"