Aviation Speak

ATIS-Automatic Terminal Information Service

ATIS is non-control information that is continually broadcast at some airports, generally busy ones. ATIS was created to help improve controller effectiveness and relieve congestion on communications frequencies by alleviating the need for controllers to repeatedly provide essential but routine information.

If you are departing from an airport with an ATIS, you'll want to listen to the broadcast before you contact ground control. (You'll want to listen before contacting approach or tower control if you are arriving.) Typically, the ATIS message will begin with a letter code and the time that it was last updated. This information will be followed by weather, temperature, wind, and altimeter information. The ATIS will also tell you which runway is in use and instruct you to advise the controller that you have listened to the ATIS. The ATIS may also include notams affecting the airport.

A standard ATIS broadcast might go like this, "Los Angeles informa-tion Alfa. One-three-zero-zero Zulu. Weather: ceiling 2,000 overcast, visibility three in haze. Temperature seven-one. Dew point five-seven. Wind two-five-zero at five. Altimeter two-niner-niner-seven. Runway two-five left in use. Advise you have Alfa."

After listening to the broadcast and updating your altimeter setting, you will be expected to tell the controller that you "have information Alfa." That way the controller knows that he or she does not need to repeat the information and that you have the most recent update.

FSS-Flight Service Station

Whether you're a student or a certificated pilot, chances are that you've already come into contact with, or at least heard of, FSS. Flight service stations are air traffic facilities that provide a variety of services to pilots, starting with the preflight weather briefing.

When you make a telephone call to 800/WX-BRIEF, you are actually talking to a weather briefer at a flight service station in your area.

In addition to providing preflight weather briefings, FSS personnel provide en route communications, assist lost aircraft or those experiencing emergencies, relay air traffic control clearances and other information, originate notices to airmen (notams), broadcast aviation weather, receive and process flight plans, and monitor navaids such as VORs. Selected FSS locations are also home to flight watch, officially called en route flight advisory service, which provides en route weather to pilots. Some flight service stations also take weather observations, accept pilot reports, issue airport advisories, and notify Customs and Immigration officials of transborder flights.

REIL-Runway End Identifier Lights

Runway end identifier lights are designed to help pilots spot the approach end of a runway at night, in poor visibility conditions, in an area with a great deal of other lighting, or anywhere that the runway is exceptionally difficult to identify. REIL are two synchronized, flashing lights located one on each side of the runway threshold. They may be visible from only one direction, or they may be omnidirectional. REIL can generally be seen for several miles, even in marginal visibility.