We still need FSS

Some have posted here that we no longer need FSS and all the bungling
associated with the Loc-KMart transition. I disagree.

While DUAT/DUATS, AWOS/ASOS and aviationweather.gov provide excellent
graphics, text and aural reports, we still need trained, live briefers
to interpret the local conditions.

It is the experienced trained, live briefers that have left that we
desperately need to be replaced.

For example, when I left OSH Saturday morning, I could see the
beginnings of an undercast as I flew south towards Chicago. There were
some buildups along the lakeshore, but that is normal for the Kenosha
area. VFR over the top going around Chicago's west and south sides, the
undercast was solid. Continuing eastward across Indiana, there were some
gaps in the central part of the state closing again west of FWA. Over
FWA the tops were starting to pop around mid-day.

I was cruising along at 7500 MSL, the OAT was 60-degrees F.

This was an inversion, but the computer access did not tell me that. Not
even the two FSS briefers I spoke with during the two-and-a-half hour
flight told me about it. One of the briefers I spoke with was a trainee.
I knew it from a flight a year ago when I requested enroute weather from
another FSS briefer over Tennessee. Similiar conditions prevailed on
that day and the briefed provided an very thorough briefing of the
conditions and what to expect.

The consolidation has truely deteriorated the quality of the briefings
we now receive, but I look forward to the improvements to come. The fact
that we get shuffled around to far off place when we place a telephone
call is not good, but the air-to-ground calls should be answered by
briefers who will quickly learn their new local patterns.