\i took it in 2000 so it's not new. It's not complicated. That's the best one to get on the market today. CSWIP also offers it but it's basically the same.

i think you have to have some hands on experiance to obtain this.

Joe, here is something I posted on the forum in 2005 after I took the exam.  I did pass and have recently recerted.  Good Luck!

Hello All: Just completed the RI course and exam held in Orlando FL. Class number 3. Anyone who reviews film for whatever purpose will gain a lot of value out of this. Not everyone looks at film just to evaluate discontinuities. The course covered 4 inspection codes for discontinuity evaluation (AWS D1.1, DI.2, API 1104, and ASME VIII, Div I) and every specification known to mankind relating to RT. For the certification exam D1.2 was not included. There was an end of course exam involved that must be passed to get the training certificate.

Lots of emphasis on film quality before we dived into evaluation of discontinuities.

The word is not out to everyone as to how the certification exam is structured. Turns out it is much like the CWI exam. Three 2-hour sessions. A closed book fundamental/general with 70 questions, an open book code specific (three codes) with 60 questions, and a practical exam where you have to answer questions by interpreting 8 films to three codes.

To pass the fundamental/general it helps to have previous experience or training in RT. It will increase your chances of passing this portion. It will be awhile before I find out if I passed or not, but there were some things on the exam that were not covered in class and I had to recall those subjects from previous training. Hope the memory served me well.

The major downer of the course is that they had prepared a student handout containing sections of codes and specifications that we used all week for training, the end of course exam, and certification exam. But because of copyright hocus-pocus we had to return the handouts back to AWS. I felt that the cost of the course and exam could absorb that expense.

I don’t know if any contracts down the road will require a RI certificate, but there is no denying that is was a kick-butt class that challenged us all and we learned a lot. A valuable forty hours of documented training for the record book. I got my monies worth.

Regards, Donnie Mann