Wx Watch: DUATS Renewal

Time flies. It's been eight years since the Federal Aviation Administration authorized the establishment of the Direct User Access Terminal System, a program better known by its acronym — DUATS. Today, DUATS has survived its growing pains, and some 340,000 pilots have obtained access codes that allow them to tap into the wealth of preflight information that this free service provides.

For those who may not have kept up with current events, DUATS is a means of obtaining FAA-legal preflight weather briefings and other essential information via personal computer. Pilots simply ask for a password, dial up one of the two DUATS providers via modem, then select a briefing or other service from the displayed menus. The DUATS providers are DTC (call 800/243-3828 for full information on their services, or to obtain an access code) and GTE DUATS (800/767-9989).

Though many pilots still seem to get by just fine without involving themselves in a DUATS experience, the fact is that DUATS' popularity continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Yes, there's been criticism of the reams of paper generated by printing out a full DUATS briefing — though there's no regulatory requirement to actually print out an entire unedited briefing. Most users edit out any unwanted information (things like the obligatory warnings not to fly to Haiti and Cuba), then make their printouts. However, this avalanche of information is the result of federal mandate. The FAA demands completeness if an electronic briefing is to be legal, so trees must be felled in order to pass along every conceivable grain of information that could impact the safety of flight.

On the other hand, it's this level of thoroughness that gives a DUATS briefing such a high potential value. Moreover, DUATS providers build a lot of extra value into their products. For example, plain-English translations of coded METARs and TAFs are offered as part of the standard roster of services. So are automated flight planning features, which let pilots enter personalized airplane performance profiles, store that data, and apply them when filing flight plans. Of course, the actual filing of flight plans is a DUATS feature that remains one of the most popular, right up there with weather briefings.

A move earlier this year expanded access to DUATS to include compatibility with Windows 95 software. GTE DUATS, for example, will give its subscribers a free Cirrus software package, the Windows-based version of their Golden Eagle software. Cirrus was developed for GTE by MentorPlus, a prime flight planning software manufacturer in its own right — and one that was recently purchased by Jeppesen-Sanderson. Cirrus has some of the features found in MentorPlus' FliteStar flight planning software and gives pilots a Windows gateway to DUATS that allows access to both weather graphics and graphic-based flight planning. At Oshkosh, GTE introduced the Cirrus software on CD-ROM; the final version will be made available on or about October 1, when the government renews the DUATS contracts.

In the meantime, many users will be glad to know that the oldest, most basic DOS-based software and earliest 1,200-baud modems will still hook pilots up to either of the DUATS providers.

The new DUATS contract will give pilots a few new features. For flight from the United States to foreign destinations, pilots will be able to file flight plans in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) format. DVFR (Defense VFR) flight plans can also be filed electronically, which should be good news to those of us who fly in southern Florida, where this type of flight plan is required as part of the effort to control drug-smuggling operations.

Another new capability will be cancellation of plain-vanilla VFR flight plans via DUATS. In the past, such plans had to be canceled through a flight service station over the telephone or radio.

In the briefing arena, a new product will be the "forecast weather briefing." This type of briefing is intended for pilots with departure times more than six hours away. The forecast briefing will not include METARS; only TAFs and other forecast- oriented weather and notam information will be provided. This will help to keep down the barrage of information typical of a DUATS briefing and to keep it more relevant. In the past, a pilot who planned to take off in 6 hours or later had to wade through scads of soon-to-be-obsolete surface reports.

Changes in weather graphics are other new developments. The decision isn't final yet, but rumor has it that the FAA will provide certain weather charts to DUATS users for free — as long as they have modem baud rates of 14,400 bps or higher.

Weather graphics have always been available through DUATS, but as an optional service these products carry a cost. Typically, the cost runs up to $2 per chart. (GTE DUATS now offers up-to-the-minute color Nexrad imagery for $2 per map.)

More graphics, Windows compatibility, higher-powered flight planning, and more weather services — these are the reasons why DUATS will no doubt continue to grow in popularity. For a program that was struggling in its infancy not so long ago, there are no signs of a drop-off in demand. GTE reports a growth rate of 25 percent a year for the past five years, and 100 new (i.e. the user never had a DUATS contact before) log- ons per day. DTC boasts 6,000 to 7,000 total user transactions per day. With user loads like this and the comparative economy of a DUATS briefing, it's hard to believe that the FAA won't extend DUATS again in 2001, when the contract once more comes up for renewal.

The government's incurred cost of a DUATS briefing is about $1 per contact. Conventional wisdom holds that a flight service briefing costs the government about $10. Now those are numbers that would impress even the steeliest budget-cutting bureaucrat.