Don't fly weather briefing

Yes they did that Thursday and all we had was a little stuff along the coast
of NC. He advised against VFR flight several times

Kevin



"Danny Deger" wrote in message
...
Has anyone else noticed a tendency for FSS briefers to give you a "stay on
the ground" weather briefing for isolated thunderstorms? 90% of the time
on a summer day in Texas there are some storms. Usually easy to see and
avoid. But I have in the past had a controller that obviously didn't want
me to fly. The worst case was a VFR flight between Houston and Austin
with a single cell between the two cities. All the controller would tell
me about was how bad the weather in the cell was. He refused to provide
me with any weather information outside of the cell. I ended by hanging
up and calling back. The next briefer told me about the very good weather
outside of the single cell and I had a good flight. This is only the
worst of my experiences with briefers and thunderstorms.

Anyone else had a similar issue with a briefer not doing his job because
he/she thought you shouldn't fly that day.

Danny Deger

"Kevin& Donna Sanders, M.D." wrote in message
...
Yes they did that Thursday and all we had was a little stuff along the
coast of NC. He advised against VFR flight several times


Thanks for the input. What is with these guys? Someone needs to tell them
it is NOT hard to stay out of isolated thunderstorms. I will abmit more
than once I have told them I was IFR just to get a decent briefing out of
them. For some reason the briefers seem to think if IFR thunderstorms are
OK.

Danny Deger

On Sun, 13 May 2007 20:39:45 -0500, "Danny Deger"
wrote in
:

What is with these guys?

It's a CYA thing. They want to get on the tape as advising you
against VFR flight (probably company policy, although it was done
before the LocMart FSS privatization) in the event of a mishap.

Kevin& Donna Sanders, M.D. wrote:
Yes they did that Thursday and all we had was a little stuff along the coast
of NC. He advised against VFR flight several times

Kevin



As part of my checkride for the private ticket, I had to get a briefing as if I was flying
XC to this little airfield in Florida. The weather down there was bad (heavy rain, 1/2 mi
visibility) and the briefer kept saying "you can't fly down there." It took me three or
four minutes to get it through his head that I wasn't _actually_ going to fly there, I
only needed to get the briefing as part of showing the examiner I knew how to plan such
things.

I wonder what they would have said about our flying Sunday afternoon? We went to a little
fly-in at a private strip about 10 min away. Coming back, we had to stop for gas, and
there were various little scattered popcorn showers all around the area. We dodged around
a couple of them coming home.

On Sun, 13 May 2007 22:22:06 -0400, Bob Martin
wrote in :

the briefer kept saying "you can't fly down there."

The way I see it, it is the FSS briefer's role to provide information
and deal with flight plans. The briefer is not a Dispatcher, so it
would seem that the sort of admonish you received is inappropriate.

If they want to start having input about what you can and can't do,
then they can share in the responsibility of the airman's flight
planning for those flights for which they do not tell airmen what they
can't do, otherwise the should limit such statements to professional
opinions or suggestions, after all briefer's have no authority to
approve or deny aircraft operations.

Is that an unreasonable point of view?

Recently, Larry Dighera posted:

On Sun, 13 May 2007 22:22:06 -0400, Bob Martin
wrote in :

the briefer kept saying "you can't fly down there."

The way I see it, it is the FSS briefer's role to provide information
and deal with flight plans. The briefer is not a Dispatcher, so it
would seem that the sort of admonish you received is inappropriate.

If they want to start having input about what you can and can't do,
then they can share in the responsibility of the airman's flight
planning for those flights for which they do not tell airmen what they
can't do, otherwise the should limit such statements to professional
opinions or suggestions, after all briefer's have no authority to
approve or deny aircraft operations.

Is that an unreasonable point of view?

I think that is quite reasonable as a standard for professional practice.

However, I don't quite understand what one would have such a discussion in
the first place. When I call WXBrief, I ask only about the conditions that
are of interest to me. I do not disclose any other information regarding
my intentions. Though I have never been asked for the details of the
flight unless I was filing a flight plan, if I was asked and as a result
was given that kind of response, I would tell the briefer that I didn't
ask his/her opinion, and that I just want the weather information. If s/he
chose not to provide that information, I'd ask for his/her supervisor and
carry on from there.

Neil