Flying Smart

Flight Watch

No matter how sunny the forecast, a simple fact of flying is that weather changes constantly. When you're on the ground, you can alter your plans to suit the conditions. But once aloft, what if the ceilings are lower than forecast and the sky seems to be growing darker by the minute?

You can call a weather briefer for a real-time look at what the weather is doing along your route and at your destination. Armed with this info, you're in a better position to decide whether to press on, do a one-eighty, or divert.

The FAA's En route Flight Advisory Service, better known as Flight Watch, provides routine weather information, pilot reports, and current reports on the location of thunderstorms and other hazardous weather as observed on weather radar. Flight Watch uses a universal frequency (122.0 MHz). When you make your initial call, use the name of the controlling flight service station if you know it. If you don't, "Flight Watch" and your aircraft's identification and approximate position will do. (You must tell them where you are because you may be within radio range of more than one facility.) Use the nearest VOR as an easy locator: "Flight Watch, Skyhawk One-Two-Three-Four-Five, Yardley VOR, over."

The Flight Watch briefer will give you weather updates and any other info available. (He won't give you a full route briefing or file a flight plan for you, so don't ask.) He or she may ask you to give a pilot report, or pirep. (Don't know how? It's easy. Go to www.aopa.org/asf/skyspotter and take the AOPA Air Safety Foundation online course.)

Flight Watch operates 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily for aircraft flying at or above 5,000 feet and below 18,000 feet. At lower altitudes, you might have difficulty reaching a briefer on 122.0. If that's the case you can get an in-flight briefing from the nearest FSS. High flyers can consult the inside back cover of the Airport/Facility Directory for a map of locations and discrete frequencies of high-altitude Flight Watch facilities.