Some months back, while reviewing a paper from the FAA outlining the future air traffic system, an AOPA staff member came into my office noting the conspicuous absence of one key area: There was no reference to flight service stations. Since this was just a draft document, was it just an oversight, or was the agency planning to to eliminate this vital service to pilots? How were pilots to get preflight and in-flight weather briefings? What about filing and closing VFR and IFR flight plans? How about notams and the host of other services provided by these valuable facilities? One can only speculate that the potential elimination of FSSs is present. The reasons fall under two important categories: technology and politics.
Changes in technology over the last decade have been dramatic. First, in the area of the facilities themselves, we have experienced the consolidation plan to build 61 highly automated FSSs. In most cases these windowless buildings have been located at airport sites far removed from GA parking ramps, thereby discouraging in-person briefings. Along with the consolidation, however, came a host of other advances in communication that some would say obviate the need for the FSS system. First to come to mind is the hard-fought battle to establish and, in recent years, retain computer briefings by the Direct User Access Terminal System (DUATS).
Other private companies using computers and fax machines provide many valuable weather services. State aviation agencies and local FBOs are funding weather workstations, such as Pan Am's WeatherMation, that add another argument for those who would see an end to the FSS system. Worse yet, the FAA must hear pilot conversations like one I was a part of at a type-specific aircraft club banquet several years ago. When the subject came up about preflight weather briefings, the Beech Bonanza owner stated, "Since getting cable, all I now use is The Weather Channel." I hope this was a gross and bold overstatement, for the sake of both the pilot and his passengers. According to NTSB statistics, weather and pilot error are the major broad causes of aviation accidents in this country. How can the FAA not consider weather dissemination a mainline function with this record?
All of the non-traditional sources of weather information lack one critical factor: interpretation, by a specialist trained in aviation weather. There are 2,700 flight service specialists, a group trimmed almost 50 percent through the consolidation process. Unfortunately, these specialists often take a second seat to those in more visible positions, like tower or tracon and center controllers. This results in the FAA's assigning a lower priority for FSS equipment modernization.
Most GA pilots often fly only VFR and to smaller airports. The telephone briefing from an FSS specialist is the major payback they get from the federal taxes paid into the aviation trust fund each time they buy fuel or rent an airplane.
Back to my Bonanza dinner partner who used The Weather Channel. We all do; it's a terrific source of both short- and long-range weather information. But if I canceled a flight every time they showed a big green, orange, or red blob over my flight path, I would never get the air transportation benefit that should come from being a pilot. Despite all the television radar pictures, fax weather maps, and DUATS briefings, when the weather is really questionable, I still pick up the phone and talk to a specialist.
Perhaps we pilots are somewhat responsible for this sort of FAA thinking. Have we overemphasized the role these new technologies play in pilot briefings? As one highly computer literate pilot, I would personally have to answer yes. We have also placed an outsized emphasis on DUATS because of the FAA's lack of funding in recent years and our need to sell Congress on the present and long-term value of developing this alternative. I'm also guilty of griping when my telephone call to the AFSS only 20 miles from home or work is transferred to a facility more than 100 miles away as part of the call-routing program.
Let's not forget the other category that creates an environment conducive to thinking we could do without flight service stations: politics. Over the last decade your organization has been quite successful in demonstrating to Congress the value of this service. But, we are now looking at drastic cuts in the overall FAA budget and less congressional support for local federal agency facilities in home districts. AOPA, on your behalf, will face the realities of this environment in the coming months, as we have done with FAA reform, and will attempt to address the fiscal problems without eliminating a critical safety service to pilots. One of the proposals is to consolidate AFSSs down to 20, placing them at en route centers. This must be looked at on a facility-by-facility basis, to determine just where it makes both operational and economic sense, to ensure that we are not misled by false promises of savings.
Equally important are unique areas like Alaska, which deserve special attention. Here, the AFSS consolidation program — which was to reduce 28 older stations to only three facilities — didn't make sense. AOPA, state pilot groups, and the Alaska congressional delegation fought to keep 14 facilities. Unlike pilots in the lower 48, airmen in Alaska regard these valuable walk-in services and common traffic advisories as critical at certain times of the year.
Mainly because of the airlines, there is strong recognition in our current 104th Congress that weather programs are a key function. And though there are attempts to slice the FAA's overall budget, the House is demonstrating its concern over weather accidents by providing more dollars for weather funding than requested by the FAA. But that doesn't automatically add money to the FSS program, nor does it solve the longer-range budget issues.
The draft plan I mentioned at the beginning of this column is being amended by FAA management, to include recognition of the FSS. You, as a pilot and user of the valuable flight service functions, might consider ending your next contact — whether by telephone or radio — with "Thanks for talking with me, and GA pilots are behind you 100 percent."
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