More stories of long FSS hold times and another issue

This past week I spoke with a CFII out of Michigan who lamented that his and
his students hold times awaiting a live FSS briefer had significantly
increased to between 30 minutes to one hour. Coincidentally both AOPA and
Avweb had articles this week discussing the frustration of long hold times
many are experiencing.

For those rather myopic pilots whose knee-jerk response is to say to use a
computer for all briefings and flight plan filings, consider this: Those of
us who volunteer for Lifeguard flights now have a real concern about being
able to file an IFR flight plan and receive a briefing over the phone, if
away from home/office when the call for the flight comes in.

For example, I am on the call list for a heart transplant patient who only
has a two hour window to arrive into his transplant city's airport. I live
and base my aircraft in the city where the patient will be departing. With 30
minutes allotted to drive to the airport and prepare the aircraft for flight
and another 1 hr and 15 minutes to perform the flight, this leaves very
little extra time.

Logically if the call comes in while I am away from a computer (restaurant,
shopping, etc), it makes the most sense to file over the phone and receive a
briefing while driving to the airport, given that this time is built into the
narrow window needed. If these hold times are not reduced, this time savings
step will not be an option.

Additionally, in my case there is a real possibility that a computer will not
be available at the airport since both my class C airport's FBOs lock up for
the night between midnight and 5:00 am. I guess filing with clearance
delivery and receiving a flight briefing from FSS when in the air will be the
fallback here.

In addition to filling out Lockheed Martin's survey and complaint form, I
have also emailed AOPA with my concerns about the above scenario. These
problems with FSS cannot continue.

--
Peter

Just within the past week I have had the "system" lose two flight plans that
were entered by the computer. When I called on the land line, there was no
answer for over 20 minutes.

According to some of the FS briefers, their computer has also been losing
some flight plans as well.

So far the privatization has been a great success.

"Viperdoc" wrote in message
...
Just within the past week I have had the "system" lose two flight plans
that were entered by the computer. When I called on the land line, there
was no answer for over 20 minutes.

According to some of the FS briefers, their computer has also been losing
some flight plans as well.

So far the privatization has been a great success.


That never happened under the old system?

The old FSS: brought to you by the same folks that brought you the Postal
(Dis)service, Amtrak, INS, and 5,000 other agencies! :~)

Below is an email which I received from a local pilot. I attended a
Wisconsin DOT Aviation Safety meeting several weeks ago and many attending
pilots had similar complaints. The Wisconsin DOT rep told that most calls
from Wisconsin are currently being handled by the Princeton FSS while
Lansing and Kankakee under go "modernization". Once Lansing and Kankakee
are fully operational our calls will be routed those directions.

So it seems to me that there are several problems converging at once causing
most bottlenecks and cluster*ucks. Closing FSS's while
refurbishing/upgrading/modernizing/bsing other FSS's and also
relocating/retraining current or hiring/training briefers sounds like a
pretty good recipe for disaster. Not only is it frustrating for the pilots,
but it must be frustrating for the briefers as well. Great for moral and
quality of service. Not.

Jim

Please forward this to any other concerned parties you may know...

Most of us have been experiencing problems with flight service since Green
Bay AFSS closed its doors. Some of the problems are serious in nature and
are becoming more frequent in occurrence. Issues range from long hold
times, poor audio quality, and briefers being unfamiliar with our area to
hold times exceeding 30 minutes and briefers lacking knowledge of aviation
in general. Having experienced most of these problems myself and hearing
about all of them from fellow pilots in the past 5 days, I've investigated
further.

I have spent a lot of time on the phone with AOPA today. It seems that we
are not the only ones having these problems (go figure). Lockheed has
convened a "crisis" meeting and will hopefully have a plan of action. That
being said, we've all heard it before--It is imperative that someone that
can do something about these safety of flight issues hear about them.

AOPA appears to be our best ally at this point. They continue to compile a
database of specific instances and will continue to present them to Lockheed
Martin and government officials. The goal being to hold Lockheed to the
standards set forth in their (LM) contract with FAA.

So here is what we (this means you) need to do: When you experience
problems with flight service, and you can expect to at this point, please
use about five minutes of your time to call AOPA and let them know about it.
They will want your N-number, approximate time you called/contacted Flight
Service, and the specific issues you experienced. 1-800-USA-AOPA is their
number; push 1 at the menu. I have never had to hold for more than about 1
minute with AOPA, including today. Hopefully your experiences are no
different--because telling someone about these issues is the only way to get
them fixed.

Please! Take the time to tell AOPA about the problems we are having with
Flight Service. We need to keep the current "crisis" situation from
becoming the norm and ultimately losing this valuable and necessary
resource.

I've had similar experiences myself this past weekend. Ridiculous
hold times to get a clearance... finally took off in marginal VFR
and got the clearance at pattern altitude. On return I tried forever
to get through just to cancel IFR... finally gave up.

There should at least be a separate number to call for clearances
and for cancellations. Up until a few weeks ago we had an RCO to
flight service but that seems to be dead now. I use DUATS to
weather brief and file and that's always been great but at an
uncontrolled field you still need a way to get a clearance and
cancel when the weather is bad.

I guess they are going to tell us that if we want better service
we need to pay user fees. How aboutif all the other people that
receive government services (food stamps, welfare, SSI, housing,
fee medical care, etc. etc. start paying user fees?

Matt Barrow wrote:


That never happened under the old system?

Actually, no. I always have had very good service
under the old system, to be perfectly honest.

"kontiki" wrote in message
...

There should at least be a separate number to call for clearances
and for cancellations. Up until a few weeks ago we had an RCO to
flight service but that seems to be dead now. I use DUATS to
weather brief and file and that's always been great but at an
uncontrolled field you still need a way to get a clearance and
cancel when the weather is bad.

Hmm... How hard would it be for them to configure 1800WXBRIEF to:
"Useing the touch tone phone enter your N number followed by the # sign."
Press 1 now to cancel all flight plans on file for the N number that you
have entered (verify with are you sure you want to cancel all flight plans
currently on file for "insert electronic voice".) Press 1 for yes, 2 for
no, 3 to go back to the main menu.
Press 2 to speak to a briefer

This may not work for multiple flight plans, but for the majority of people
it may work.

Of course, Press 1 would end up being something in Spanish...

Heck, I could even enter my N number and a series of 1's in my cell phone's
memory to have it "auto cancel" with a push of only a couple buttons.

Naah... this is something that just makes too much sense... it'll never
happen.

Jim

Press 1 now to cancel all flight plans on file for the N number that you
have entered

Great. Now a fellow club member can cancel my flight plan when he
cancels his? At least it gives FSS an excuse for lost flight plans.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jim Burns wrote:

Hmm... How hard would it be for them to configure 1800WXBRIEF to:
"Useing the touch tone phone enter your N number followed by the # sign."
Press 1 now to cancel all flight plans on file for the N number that you
have entered (verify with are you sure you want to cancel all flight plans
currently on file for "insert electronic voice".) Press 1 for yes, 2 for
no, 3 to go back to the main menu.
Press 2 to speak to a briefer

Sheesh... more menus... how about just a separate number.

Another idea would be to add a cancellation function to DUATS.

Or 1-800-IFR-CANCEL