1-800-WxBrief Question

bobmrg said:
For what it is worth, a 1800wxbrief specialist told me that because they ARE the FAA they have direct access to towers, centers, and radar facilities to fix any glitches in the system. He said that the great majority of the "missing flight plan" situations arise because the filer used a third-party to file online. Just sayin'.

Bob
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Lockheed Martin is the FAA? I agree about 3rd party services and filing flight plans, but 800wxbrief is not a 3rd party service.
 
Clip4 said:
Ever heard a picture is worth a thousand words? And can you record all those notams and other info you are being read? Enough said.
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I'm not so sure why you are getting so worked up over which weather briefing technique is better. I'm done with this discussion because I'm not going to argue about something so trivial just to pump up my own way of doing things. Believe me, I feel very prepared to fly by calling and then checking radars and satellite images. I'll keep doing what works for me and you keep doing what works for you. Sound good?
 
Me on Monday. I'd like a VFR briefing.
Weather briefer: Are you a student?
Me: Yes.
Weather Briefer: Let me put on my training hat (rather smug tone): You don't decide if you can fly VFR until AFTER you listen to the briefing.

Me one week later: I'd like a weather briefing.
Weather briefer (different one): Which one, IFR or VFR?

After getting PPL I Never called again. I watch the weather channel and use several apps on my phone.
 
jspilot said:
I'm not so sure why you are getting so worked up over which weather briefing technique is better. I'm done with this discussion because I'm not going to argue about something so trivial just to pump up my own way of doing things. Believe me, I feel very prepared to fly by calling and then checking radars and satellite images. I'll keep doing what works for me and you keep doing what works for you. Sound good?
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For probably 30+ years, the FAA changed very little in aviation. Today the FAA is embracing new technology and developing new online products to make preflight planning easier and safer for pilots. If you think doing it the way people did 30 years ago is the best, I not the guy who is going to change you.
 
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Clip4 said:
Lockheed Martin is the FAA? I agree about 3rd party services and filing flight plans, but 800wxbrief is not a 3rd party service.
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Call 1800wxbrief and ask the specialist who s/he worked for before the FAA contracted with Leidos to provide flight service. You will learn that they are all former FSS employees, occupying FAA-built buildings and communicating via FAA channels with various ATC entities. They were not hired off the street from a job fair.

Bob
 
bobmrg said:
Call 1800wxbrief and ask the specialist who s/he worked for before the FAA contracted with Leidos to provide flight service. You will learn that they are all former FSS employees, occupying FAA-built buildings and communicating via FAA channels with various ATC entities. They were not hired off the street from a job fair.

Bob
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No doubt a bunch are ex FAA employees, my ex neighbor moved to TX after the FAA contracted flight service out, but they are in hiring off the street today because people do retire. It is really easy to determine if you have an ex-FAA employee or an off the streeter during a briefing,
 
tinerj said:
Me on Monday. I'd like a VFR briefing.
Weather briefer: Are you a student?
Me: Yes.
Weather Briefer: Let me put on my training hat (rather smug tone): You don't decide if you can fly VFR until AFTER you listen to the briefing.

Me one week later: I'd like a weather briefing.
Weather briefer (different one): Which one, IFR or VFR?

After getting PPL I Never called again. I watch the weather channel and use several apps on my phone.
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Just yesterday a client was getting a weather briefing, identified himself as a student pilot and asked for a standard VFR briefing from SMX to SBP. The briefer answered all my client’s out of order questions and explained many things clearly. Both fields were VFR with fog in the middle and he suggested an alternate route (not direct) based on the satellite picture. It was time well spent for both of us.

I suspect this briefer knew more about weather than I ever will.

Not all briefers are good; when I get a bad one I just cut it short and call again to get another briefer.
 
bobmrg said:
Call 1800wxbrief and ask the specialist who s/he worked for before the FAA contracted with Leidos to provide flight service. You will learn that they are all former FSS employees, occupying FAA-built buildings and communicating via FAA channels with various ATC entities. They were not hired off the street from a job fair.

Bob
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I'd like to see the evidence of that. All of the FAA buildings around here are used for storage of equipment now and the briefers for the entire region are in an office building in AZ.

They've also posted numerous times for briefers on various tech job sites under both the LockMart and Leidos names.

The above may have been true back in the transition days but Leidos doesn't have anyone in any of the old baby-poop green walled 50's concrete blockhouses around here that I know of.
 
I typically file IFR, so I use foreflight 90% of the time. If the weather looks questionable at all, I will talk to a real person. If I were flying VFR, I'd probably call unless it was CAVU the entire way.
 
tinerj said:
Me on Monday. I'd like a VFR briefing.
Weather briefer: Are you a student?
Me: Yes.
Weather Briefer: Let me put on my training hat (rather smug tone): You don't decide if you can fly VFR until AFTER you listen to the briefing.

Me one week later: I'd like a weather briefing.
Weather briefer (different one): Which one, IFR or VFR?

After getting PPL I Never called again. I watch the weather channel and use several apps on my phone.
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It's a good thinf though, I had my students pull the weather up on fltplan, or foreflight if they used it, go over the weather and then call of a briefer, logic was anything they didn't understand he could cover, plus what he was telling them should just be a repeat of what they gathered from fltplan or the like.

Once you get some hours under your belt, the only reason I call is to cancel IFR on the ground outside of radio range, or if something was off with a metar or something.
 
I learned to fly 20 years ago and I was taught to use WXBRIEF and still do.

To the OP, if you consider yourself a weather nerd you'll find them a fantastic resource because any of them I have every spoken with is very knowledgeable about how weather forms.

I had one give me a rule of thumb once for predicting how long it would take for a layer to burn off. Never heard it from anyone else

I was also taught the technique outlined above where you begin the conversation by reading the first several blocks of the flight plan form. Otherwise they have to drag all of that it out of you and the other 299 people he is going to chat with.

He has to collect that data as part of his job. "why yes, N43z called at 9pm and I told him it would be stupid to go". Nuff said when you ignore him and don't make it. If you want to throw in the student card go ahead. He already knows because you didn't start by reading the form, or he thinks your rude.

He also has to collect it because he can taylor the briefing to dispense with things you don't care about.

Here in the PNW we do get a lot of VFR not recommended briefings, so not filing after you have talked is routine.

I often use their experience because I'm looking to go flying but it IS marginal VFR. I need to know what the trend is, what specific elements of weather I'm concerned with, etc.

Sometimes I can say "yeah you can stop now" and stop wasting his time. They appreciate that too.

I was also taught those three forms of briefing (Outlook, standard, and abbreviated) and you should already have record of a standard briefing. It should really be called an update briefing.

I also learned in my recent BFR that the FAA only acknowledges two sources of official weather and WXBRIEF is one of them. Skip using them for a web site and you have not "availed yourself if all information". I have not fact checked that but it was enough for me to shrug and keep on dialing.
 
aftCG said:
I also learned in my recent BFR that the FAA only acknowledges two sources of official weather and WXBRIEF is one of them. Skip using them for a web site and you have not "availed yourself if all information". I have not fact checked that but it was enough for me to shrug and keep on dialing.
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FAA also only acknowledges the FR and a BFR is a special thing your instructor must have offered that doesn't exist to the FAA. :)

There are other official weather sources besides WXBRIEF and whatever that instructor taught you was the "other" one. They need to go update their knowledge of the topic.
 
BFR was my terminology
denverpilot said:
FAA also only acknowledges the FR and a BFR is a special thing your instructor must have offered that doesn't exist to the FAA. :)

There are other official weather sources besides WXBRIEF and whatever that instructor taught you was the "other" one. They need to go update their knowledge of the topic.
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Thanks for pointing that out. Sorry, use of the term BFR was my own. I'm old.

I was informed of the, er, critical changes. Wait. I mean the new name. And the fact that VMC doesn't really mean VMC, it is some point above the stall horn. Can't have people actually flirting with actual minimum controllable airspeed. It might be scary.

Thank the Maker some .gov people got to argue over changing the name and get paid for it. I do feel safer now.
 
aftCG said:
BFR was my terminology


Thanks for pointing that out. Sorry, use of the term BFR was my own. I'm old.

I was informed of the, er, critical changes. Wait. I mean the new name. And the fact that VMC doesn't really mean VMC, it is some point above the stall horn. Can't have people actually flirting with actual minimum controllable airspeed. It might be scary.

Thank the Maker some .gov people got to argue over changing the name and get paid for it. I do feel safer now.
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LOL. You meant MCA, but yep. As Rod Machado now jokes, the ACS turned stalls into s hearing test. :)
 
aftCG said:
MCA yep. See. Pull my ticket!
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Nah. Not my job! :) Plus if the instructor made you fly at MCA you exceeded the new and unimproved FAA minimum standard! ;)

Imagine their dismay if he or she actually made you fly a -- gasp! -- stall!
 
FltPlan will give you a official legal brief if you're logged in

image.jpg
 
Damn if I can remember! I used it for a couple of years when I was instructing and it proved to be pretty accurate.
Then I went and did other crap for too long.

I'll ask a briefer next time I go flying
 
Hey guys, just wondering: I don't have internet on my ipad and I have an android phone. I use Foreflight for most planning. I haven't filed many plans - but one feature I like with 800WXBrief is the text you receive to open and close your flight plan. Do any of you use that feature? My understanding is that if you file through Foreflight you can't use that feature - they are not a partner of the site I guess. Anyway, for someone like me without internet connect ipad, I guess filing directly through 800WXBrief will still be best. Any thoughts?
 
steviedeviant said:
Hey guys, just wondering: I don't have internet on my ipad and I have an android phone. I use Foreflight for most planning. I haven't filed many plans - but one feature I like with 800WXBrief is the text you receive to open and close your flight plan. Do any of you use that feature? My understanding is that if you file through Foreflight you can't use that feature - they are not a partner of the site I guess. Anyway, for someone like me without internet connect ipad, I guess filing directly through 800WXBrief will still be best. Any thoughts?
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I believe if your cell number is on file in your Leidos user profile as well as the tail number is listed as being you also, it'll still send you text messages no matter how you initially file.

But my profile was so broken for a couple of years that I couldn't even update it without error and it took them nearly two years with an open ticket number to fix it (after I asked them four times to just delete it and I would start over, they finally did -- because some software update they did was breaking referential integrity on their database just loading my profile).

So I haven't tested it lately.

Meanwhile -- can you tether data from your phone to your iPad on your cell carrier? That's the easy way to make all the goodies in ForeFlight or other apps that need data at the airport, work if you have a non-cellular iPad or no data service on it. Or most FBOs seem to have free wifi these days, but not all.

Charges and fees per your carrier, of course, may vary, for tethering and data use.
 
denverpilot said:
I believe if your cell number is on file in your Leidos user profile as well as the tail number is listed as being you also, it'll still send you text messages no matter how you initially file.

But my profile was so broken for a couple of years that I couldn't even update it without error and it took them nearly two years with an open ticket number to fix it (after I asked them four times to just delete it and I would start over, they finally did -- because some software update they did was breaking referential integrity on their database just loading my profile).

So I haven't tested it lately.

Meanwhile -- can you tether data from your phone to your iPad on your cell carrier? That's the easy way to make all the goodies in ForeFlight or other apps that need data at the airport, work if you have a non-cellular iPad or no data service on it. Or most FBOs seem to have free wifi these days, but not all.

Charges and fees per your carrier, of course, may vary, for tethering and data use.
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I don't have hotspot on my phone plan. Basically i have a plan through my work and making changes is sometimes a pain. Regarding having my cell phone through Leidos, I see now that they have partnered with many of the EFBs and now will use the Easy Activate/Close Text/Email service whether you file directly through them or not. This must not be that old because it was just a few months ago I emailed Foreflight and they said it wouldn't work. I guess one way to find out is to file the flight plan and see what happens.

Thanks,
 
steviedeviant said:
I don't have hotspot on my phone plan. Basically i have a plan through my work and making changes is sometimes a pain. Regarding having my cell phone through Leidos, I see now that they have partnered with many of the EFBs and now will use the Easy Activate/Close Text/Email service whether you file directly through them or not. This must not be that old because it was just a few months ago I emailed Foreflight and they said it wouldn't work. I guess one way to find out is to file the flight plan and see what happens.

Thanks,
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Yup. I think it'll work. Just haven't had a chance to check it with my profile that finally works here.

I know when my profile was working, one text that'll always come through is the "Overdue VFR Flight Plan..." one. Hahaha. Oops. That was a while ago, but as I recall it has text that says reply with a "1" or something to cancel if you forgot. Which was handy...
 
I still use them......at least when I am allowed to (i.e. not on a flight originating from a military field). I am also somewhat in the Stone Age. I have no aviation apps, and I only fly with paper plates/charts. My 80 year old father uses foreflight, and I do not. Proof that I am as stubborn as he once was. I have found that they are generally pretty nice to talk with, and will go out of their way to provide as much detail as you want. I also asked a guy in an FBO recently if they have DUATS......he looked at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead.
 
35 AoA said:
I still use them......at least when I am allowed to (i.e. not on a flight originating from a military field). I am also somewhat in the Stone Age. I have no aviation apps, and I only fly with paper plates/charts. My 80 year old father uses foreflight, and I do not. Proof that I am as stubborn as he once was. I have found that they are generally pretty nice to talk with, and will go out of their way to provide as much detail as you want. I also asked a guy in an FBO recently if they have DUATS......he looked at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead.
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ROFLMAO... the DUATS thing...
 
35 AoA said:
......he looked at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead.
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Now that's a perfect military analogy. Things like that I miss being able to say.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Bman. said:
Thanks all for the responses. I will certainly give them a call just to see how it helps me understand the larger picture. Absolutely nothing lost.

Are the folks at 1-800Wx expecting ICAO format? I know that's been pushed back to later this fall. I can use either but I didn't know if the briefer was looking for ICAO format at this point.

Thanks-
Benjamin
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The nice thing about dealing with humans instead of computers is that you can use just about any syntax. The only information I usually volunteer is N number, origin, destination, and ETD if I have one. If they want more information, they'll prompt you.
 
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