AFSS response time

The weekend after they closed the FSS at IPT my local airport, I called to
file a VFR to HMZ. I spent twenty minutes on hold with a recording
repeatedly saying " please hold your call is important to us", I thought if
that was true they would be on the line by now. Anyway I gave up, went to
the plane and after firing up in front of the hanger I called on the radio
and filed. With the relay radio at IPT that worked great, then on return
did the same thing once high enough to call Altoona FSS (also closed) on the
radio.

I thought about it and later called and filed an official complaint. In a
few days I had a call from the Lockheed manager out at Nashville. Nice guy,
but only really said they are on a learning and training curve and they will
improve very shortly and he was sorry for the inconvenience.

On top of that it appears now you need to call one toll free number to file
and then a different number to close. That seems to be not only odd, but I
don't remember seeing that advertised prior. My be my CRS

Ron Gardner

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 22:56:48 GMT, "
wrote in
. net:

Has anyone else noticed that the time you're on hold to talk to a briefer
is
getting longer and longer? I noticed this about a year ago when I still
lived in Florida and thought it was just a local problem. Now I live in
Virginia and they have the same problem here. It used to be you could get
a
human on the phone in a minute or so. Now it is taking about 5 to 10.

Is this how the FAA is trying to kill the FSS system? They have made no
bones about wanting to reduce the coast of the FSS system.




LOCKHEED MARTIN: AFSS PERFORMANCE IS IMPROVING
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196306)
Right up front, we'll say we've heard the same complaints about
Lockheed Martin's handling of the Flight Service Station contract as
everyone else: Long wait times, dropped calls, lost flight plans and
briefers lacking local knowledge of the areas they cover. Lockheed
Martin's Dan Courain, the company's VP of aviation services, says he
has gotten a similar earful and at AOPA Expo on Thursday, Courain told
AVweb that LockMart is doing something about. Specifically, it has
rewired the call waiting system to delay bumping of calls from their
origination area to other parts of the system, where briefers may be
umfamiliar with local landmarks, airspace and conditions.
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196306

Is this how the FAA is trying to kill the FSS system? They
have made no
bones about wanting to reduce the coast of the FSS system.


The FAA budget is tight. The FAA needs more money for social
programs rather than silly air traffic control and safety
stuff. Who cares about pilots and air safety anyway?

Let's all just Kumbaya!!!

https://employees.faa.gov/employee_s...ions_programs/

YougotitSam wrote:
Is this how the FAA is trying to kill the FSS system? They have made no
bones about wanting to reduce the coast of the FSS system.


The FAA budget is tight. The FAA needs more money for social programs
rather than silly air traffic control and safety stuff. Who cares about
pilots and air safety anyway?

Let's all just Kumbaya!!!

https://employees.faa.gov/employee_s...ions_programs/

"YougotitSam" wrote in message
...

Is this how the FAA is trying to kill the FSS system? They have made no
bones about wanting to reduce the coast of the FSS system.


The FAA budget is tight. The FAA needs more money for social programs
rather than silly air traffic control and safety stuff. Who cares about
pilots and air safety anyway?


FSS is costly and unnecessary. Killing it is a very good idea.

It may be expensive ($15 per pilot contact) but it is still seems necessary
for me personally.

My destinations in the airplane are to out of the way places (including 2P2
just north of you Steve).

I am getting all my WX information over a rotary dial phone, and in some
cases using a void time clearance to depart.
I don't have any form of weather downlink (yet) so I am relying on regular
radio contacts with an AFSS station to
derive a weather picture while aloft. With a tattered laminated copy of the
reporting stations, and a patient briefer
I can derive a very good picture of the current and forecast conditions.

Even when I am not flying in the stone age, in Door County, or rural
Indiana; I used to appreciate talking to a weather specialist to confirm my
appraisal of forecast already derived via DUATS. In the old days, you
could even ask to speak
with the staff meterologist. Now it may have been a hoot to have Todd
Spam-Can challenge the current models based
on his trusty E6B and the winds aloft; but I am convinced the exchanges
augmented my personal safety when operating on the practical limits.

With weather (or perhaps the incapacity to deal with it) being a frequent
component in fatal aviation accidents;
I don't understand the logic in effectively retiring one of our weather
tools.

Todd


"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
...

"YougotitSam" wrote in message
...

Is this how the FAA is trying to kill the FSS system? They have made no
bones about wanting to reduce the coast of the FSS system.


The FAA budget is tight. The FAA needs more money for social programs
rather than silly air traffic control and safety stuff. Who cares about
pilots and air safety anyway?


FSS is costly and unnecessary. Killing it is a very good idea.

In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

LOCKHEED MARTIN: AFSS PERFORMANCE IS IMPROVING
(

Given how lousy it was when the turnover occurred, no one should
get an "atta-boy" for improvements. (-{

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

On Sat, 06 Oct 2007 11:30:15 -0400, Bob Noel
wrote in
:

In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

LOCKHEED MARTIN: AFSS PERFORMANCE IS IMPROVING
(

Given how lousy it was when the turnover occurred, no one should
get an "atta-boy" for improvements. (-{

Agreed. Given LockMart's admission of the cause of their poor
performance being untested software and inadequate personnel training,
they must not have felt Flight Service was worthy of a professional
transition.

rant
The current regime's dogged determination to privatize virtually all
of federal government appears to be an attempt to remove government
regulation and accountability from the people, so that large
corporations can pillage the federal coffers. This privatization of
FSS is only the prelude to complete ATC privatization, IMO.

To see how effective privatization is in achieving those goals, one
only needs to look at Bush's illogical war in Iraq:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cJlJudDtVE
http://iraqforsale.org/ . Prisoner interrogation is out-sourced;
private contractors are not signatory to the Geneva Convention.
Blackwater security guards are exempt from local and federal laws
while operating in Iraq. Halliburton charges US tax payers $99.00 per
load to wash solders laundry, and solders are ordered not to do their
own. This article http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30834 is
two years old; there are over 50,000 Peruvian mercenaries now in Iraq.
If this war wasn't about corporate greed, Bush could have poured the
2-1/2 billion dollars a week it's costing us into jobs for the Iraqi
youth, or purchased all the weapons from the insurgents with plenty of
money to spare. When will the American people wake up to what the
Bush regime is doing in their name?

Ask the former Enron employees how responsible large corporations are
in meeting their retirement obligations. That's the sort of
accountability you can expect from privatization.
/rant