Privatizing Flight Service Stations - AOPA

I'd be curious the percentage of pilots that use FSS for briefings as
opposed to getting the wx off the web(duats). I fly about 300 hours a year
and very rarely call FSS.


There was a thread on this recently (but it might have been in
rec.aviation.ifr)

I typically check the maps on the web (DUATS via Cirrus, and Accuweather
radar), and then call FSS. What the FSS does that I find difficult is filter
out all the irrelevant stuff. If I get a printout from DUATS, I'll get reams
and reams of data from every station whose uncle has a cousin in the same
country as my flight. Most of these will be similar, a few will be different
in key places, and I don't want to miss those. So, unaided, I'd need to pore
through all of them, gleaning very little additional useful information. The
FSS can do this for me, and it is not just shifting my work to them because
they have done it a hundred times for a hundred different pilots that morning.
They already have a good idea what's in those reports, I do not (having just
gotten them for the first time). So, I much prefer that FSS pick out the
relevant stations and tell me what's in them.

Jose




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