How flight service works
| Flight service specialists--like these in contractor Lockheed Martin's Washington hub--are trained and certified to help pilots interpret weather information. The system now employs one database nationwide, enabling any specialist to help any pilot anywhere in the country. |
No matter how much you know about meteorology, you often will need expert advice before deciding whether to take off. Even when you have a good idea of how the weather works, know the symbols on weather maps, and can decode the abbreviations in reports, you still may have questions about what the forecast means--especially if you're flying in an unfamiliar part of the country.
At one time, it was common for pilots to visit an FAA flight service station at the airport for an in-person weather briefing. Today you're most likely to obtain the information for a preflight weather briefing on a computer screen from the Direct User Access Terminal system (DUATS) or maybe the Web.
Fortunately, flight service stations are still in business, providing information by telephone and radio. If you're on the ground, call 800-WX-BRIEF (992-7433). In the air, call Flight Watch on 122.0 MHz (for weather updates) or one of the other frequencies listed on aeronautical charts for additional information.
As in the old walk-in days, today's FSS specialists "don't just read the weather; they convey it to pilots in terms they can understand," says Ron R. Petro, the Automated Flight Service System (AFSS) program director for Lockheed Martin Flight Services, which has been providing flight services for the FAA since October 2005. He says today's briefers know "pilots are not comfortable with interpreting weather information."
Flight service specialists are trained and certified to help pilots interpret weather information, including how the weather and airspace regulations affect pilots in different parts of the country. The "automated" in AFSS refers to the system that makes weather, notices to airmen (notams), and other information available to the specialists.
Lockheed Martin describes it as Virtual Flight Service. Instead of 58 FAA-operated facilities with a equal number of computer systems and databases, the system has one database nationwide, enabling any specialist to provide services for any pilot anywhere in the country, from any seat in any of the current 20 flight service facilities.
This does not mean that if you call the AFSS number from Maine or Minnesota during the winter that you might talk with a briefer in Miami who has never seen snow, much less know what you're talking about when you ask for any SNOTAMS. (Snow notices to airmen include information such as icy runways.) Instead, the automated system will send you to a specialist trained to give briefings for the part of the country you're flying in, even though the specialist might be working elsewhere.
The system's caller ID uses the area code of the telephone you're calling from to route you to a specialist in that part of the country. If you're using a cell phone with your home area code in California, you'll be transferred to a specialist certified for the Rockies if you call and say you want a briefing for a flight from Salt Lake City to Denver.
Local knowledge can be important. Petro offers an example: A pilot planning a flight across the mountains in the Pacific Northwest talks to a specialist in Seattle, who might say something like, "The reports say it's VFR all of the way, but when I look at the Webcams in the passes, I can't see a thing." A DUAT briefing for a flight from Seattle to Yakima won't include images from Washington State Department of Transportation Webcams along highways through the mountain passes. An FSS specialist with local knowledge will use them to help fill in data gaps between weather stations.
The National Weather Service (NWS) certifies FSS specialists to give preflight weather briefings for particular parts of the United States based on a written test that includes localized weather phenomena in the region, airport identifiers, and the terrain. In addition, the NWS makes random calls for briefings to check the specialists' work.
When you call for a briefing, give the briefer the following:
- VFR or IFR flight
- Aircraft identification or pilot's name
- Aircraft type
- Departure point
- Estimated time of departure
- Altitude
- Route of flight
- Destination
- Estimated time en route
Unless you tell the briefer otherwise, you'll receive a standard briefing when you call flight service. It includes:
- Current or forecast conditions which may adversely affect a planned flight
- A statement if VFR flight is not recommended
- A brief description of weather systems affecting the flight
- Current conditions along the proposed route
- En route forecast
- Destination forecast
- Winds aloft forecast
- Notams
- Information on known ATC delays for IFR flights
You can, and in most cases probably should, ask the briefer for information on military training activity and published notams. Use the airport identifiers--not city or airport names--when giving the briefer your departure and destination points. The identifiers are unique; city and airport names aren't. Don't preface the identifier with the letter "K" when you're flying in the continental United States.
If you're a student pilot, identify yourself as one when you call for a briefing, says Kevin George, external operations manager for Lockheed Martin Flight Service. "We have always accommodated students by slowing down the briefing, and still do. We understand they may have questions, and we may be more apt at the end of the briefing to ask if they have any questions. We are watching the weather all of the time. We get trends and data. We know if it's improving or deteriorating. A student may not get that looking at weather reports."
He adds that a briefer can also help with information such as whether the winds will be more favorable at 5,000 feet than the 3,000 feet you planned to fly.
If your flight is delayed after you receive a standard briefing and you need an update, or if you have the information you need from DUATS or another source, you can ask for an abbreviated briefing. If you do this, you need to tell the briefer what kind of information you already have and what you want.
To learn how to get the most from your Flight Service briefing, take the AOPA Air Safety Foundation's Pilot's Guide to Flight Service online course.
Once in the air, you can talk with flight service via radio on the 122.0 MHz Flight Watch frequency or the other FSS frequencies listed on sectional charts (see "Frequent Frequencies," p. 30).
One thing you are urged to do over the radio is to file pilot reports describing the weather conditions at your location. If you're uncomfortable with pireps, take the ASF's free SkySpotter online course. These reports, including those of good weather, help fill gaps in the weather data collection system--and can be a big help to the next pilot who calls for a briefing.
Jack Williams is coordinator of public outreach for the American Meteorological Society. An instrument-rated private pilot, he is the author of The USA Today Weather Book and The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Arctic and Antarctic, and co-author with Bob Sheets of Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth.
Want to know more?
More information about flight service stations is online.
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