FAA ADX study plan
FAA ADX · Give each week a clear focus.
8 weeks · About 7 hours per week
Flight Planning, Dispatch Release, and Performance
Compute aircraft weight and center of gravity from a load manifest, including shifts caused by fuel burn and passenger/cargo distribution.
Calculate takeoff and landing distances from airport analysis data while correcting for runway slope, wind, temperature, pressure altitude, and runway condition.
Determine legal fuel loads by applying reserve, alternate, holding, contingency, and any additional fuel requirements.
Decide when a destination alternate is required, when it may be omitted, and what weather criteria govern each case.
Your checkpoint
Complete a 25-question performance and fuel-planning quiz with a score of 80% or higher, plus written step-by-step solutions for 10 fuel-planning problems.
Flight Planning, Dispatch Release, and Performance & Regulations and Dispatcher Certification Requirements
Assemble a dispatch release and verify each required item is present and current.
Judge flight legality when equipment is inoperative by applying MEL, CDL, and configuration deviation guidance.
Recompute landing performance at the destination and alternate using forecast conditions.
Identify which operations specifications authorizations apply to a given route and aircraft type.
Your checkpoint
Build a complete mock dispatch release packet for a two-hour domestic flight (release, flight plan, fuel plan, alternates, weight and balance) and self-grade it against a 20-item checklist at 90% or better.
Meteorology and Weather Products
Decode METAR and TAF reports, including amendments, valid periods, and conditional groups, into plain-language flight implications.
Explain stability, lapse rates, and moisture effects and connect them to ceiling, visibility, and convective development.
Identify frontal systems, pressure patterns, and associated hazards along a proposed route.
Predict airframe icing, turbulence, and low-level wind shear from soundings, freezing-level data, and temperature profiles.
Your checkpoint
Score 80% or higher on a 30-question weather-decoding quiz, with every missed item rewritten as a corrected note card.
Meteorology and Weather Products & Regulations and Dispatcher Certification Requirements
Interpret SIGMETs, AIRMETs, G-AIRMETs, PIREPs, winds and temperatures aloft, and apply each to route and altitude selection.
Apply alternate minimums and destination weather criteria to specific forecast scenarios.
Compute ETE and fuel burn using winds aloft and recompute when the forecast changes.
Justify a weather-avoidance decision with specific products and regulatory references.
Your checkpoint
Produce a written go/no-go weather brief for one route that names at least three enroute hazards, cites the product used for each, and is scored against a provided rubric.
Regulations and Dispatcher Certification Requirements
Differentiate dispatcher certification eligibility, privileges, and shared responsibility with the pilot in command.
Apply duty, rest, and flight-time limitation rules to sample crew schedules and flag violations.
Apply MEL, deferred maintenance, and equipment-requirement rules to inoperative-item scenarios.
Contrast Part 121 and Part 135 operational requirements on release, alternates, and crew pairing.
Your checkpoint
Score 85% or higher on a 40-question regulations quiz and submit a one-page duty-and-rest decision flowchart.
Air Traffic Control, Navigation, and Airspace
Classify airspace classes and state the pilot, equipment, and clearance requirements for each.
Read IFR enroute charts, SIDs, and STARs and extract minimum crossing altitudes and required climb gradients.
Apply ATC separation standards, clearance phraseology, and reroute procedures to sample flight scenarios.
Determine navigation and surveillance equipment requirements for RNAV, RNP, ADS-B, and reduced separation operations.
Your checkpoint
Score 80% or higher on a 40-question ATC, navigation, and airspace quiz and complete five chart-reading exercises with written answers.
Aircraft Systems, Emergency Procedures, and Human Factors
Describe hydraulic, electrical, pressurization, fuel, and ice-protection systems well enough to state the dispatch impact of each failure.
Apply driftdown, escape-route, and diversion procedures to engine-out and decompression scenarios.
Identify human-factor threats including fatigue, complacency, and breakdowns in crew resource management, and match each to a mitigation.
Decide airworthiness and dispatchability for a set of system-failure scenarios with a supporting regulation or limitation for each.
Your checkpoint
Write a system-failure decision matrix covering six scenarios, each with a dispatch/no-dispatch decision and a cited basis.
Regulations and Dispatcher Certification Requirements & Flight Planning, Dispatch Release, and Performance & Meteorology and Weather Products & Air Traffic Control, Navigation, and Airspace & Aircraft Systems, Emergency Procedures, and Human Factors
Complete three full-length timed practice exams under test-day conditions.
Analyze every missed item and tag it to a domain and a root cause.
Re-drill the two weakest domains until repeat accuracy exceeds 90%.
Consolidate a single-page quick-reference sheet of formulas, minima, and rule citations.
Your checkpoint
Three practice exams scored at 85% or higher with an error log showing no more than five unresolved items.
Milestones
Week 2: Submit the mock dispatch release packet and score 90% or higher on its checklist, with no missing regulatory item.
Week 4: Score 80% or higher on a 50-question timed mixed quiz covering domains 1 through 3, with at least 200 logged practice questions completed.
Week 6: Score 80% or higher on a 60-question mixed set covering domains 1, 3, and 4, and hold a current weakest-domain list with no more than two entries.
Week 8: Score 85% or higher on each of three full-length timed practice exams and close the error log to five or fewer unresolved items.