AOPA now funded by Lockheed Martin ad revenue

Hi Hog (AKA Nick)-

Why don't you send that to the new president and see what his response (if any) is regarding changes?
 
Sorry Lockheed-Martin has been such a bad thing for all of you. I'm getting much better service than I ever did from the FAA. For example, I used to have long waits every weekend we had good weather, but now I never wait more than 20 seconds. The only down side I've found is that the briefers are no longer versed in local weather patterns, but I am, so its not so bad. I feel sorry for the local student pilots, but they'll figure this stuff out in time. Over all, its been a really positive change for me.
 
steingar said:
Sorry Lockheed-Martin has been such a bad thing for all of you. I'm getting much better service than I ever did from the FAA. For example, I used to have long waits every weekend we had good weather, but now I never wait more than 20 seconds. The only down side I've found is that the briefers are no longer versed in local weather patterns, but I am, so its not so bad.
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What happens when you go on a cross country out of your area? :dunno:

It would have been better if the FAA simply did a few things to help - For example, maybe on really nice days if you wait more than 2 minutes you get the option of switching to an FSS somewhere else. And maybe at night some FSS's could close and have one open in each region, so that you're not paying a bunch of people to just sit there. That way, we could have gotten the advantages LockMart provides, without someone making a profit off us and without giving up that local knowledge.
 
Nice commentary/rant/column Ken. Lock Mart has steadily declined in FSS quality since they took over.
 
tonycondon said:
oh i always love it when people start complaining about the AOPA jet. its so silly. what do you expect? The organization is a Nationwide entity and in order to do the things the members expect, such as stump in washington and give pilot town meetings in timbuktu. And then the members get mad when they buy a fast airplane to do that. You expect Phil to show up in your town in an Ercoupe or something?
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Well put. I don't understand people's problem with private jets, either.

Most seem to be missing the fact that it's actually a lot cheaper for high paid employees to fly private. You can work on a private plane. It's a lot more difficult on a commercial flight. Plus you have to go to the airport, wait, check in, wait, land, wait, etc.

Out company has an office in Denver that a lot of us visit quite regularly. Say those people cost $2500/day (just a random figure). Now you have 6 of those taking an entire day to travel commercial. Doesn't seem cost-effective it to me.

-Felix
 
flyingcheesehead said:
What happens when you go on a cross country out of your area?
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Honestly, I have had far fewer issues than I ever did with the FAA on cross country flights to Wisconsin, Vermont, Atlanta, Savannah, and Ft. Lauderdale, not to mention all the more piddly ones I seem to make all the time. The only issue I had for awhile was that Flightwatch would not respond to radio calls, but that's now been resolved. Truly, I am a happy customer.
 
steingar said:
Honestly, I have had far fewer issues than I ever did with the FAA on cross country flights to Wisconsin, Vermont, Atlanta, Savannah, and Ft. Lauderdale, not to mention all the more piddly ones I seem to make all the time. The only issue I had for awhile was that Flightwatch would not respond to radio calls, but that's now been resolved. Truly, I am a happy customer.
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Issues like what? What I'm getting at is that you don't get that local knowledge any more, which is much more important on flights out of your area.

The good briefings are still given by the old FAA briefers. The other ones, well... Excuse me sir, I'm going on a flight that'll be shorter than this briefing, and I can (and did) read the TAF's for myself, thankyouverymuch.
 
Flight Service has actually been quite responsive over the last few months I've used them. On the day I took my II ride, I was quite concerned with the various presidential TFRs popping up between Crawford, Waco and San Antonio. It's any body's guess when another would happen. The Crawford was due to expand at some point. After filing IFR for the II ride, FSS called me back a half hour later to inform me there was a change on the Crawford TFR expanding sooner than originally scheduled. I figure I got my money's worth on that one even if the expanded TFR did not affect my flight.

What CFI wants to bust a TFR on their II ride with a DPE on board?

Yes, LM had issues for about a year but they are coming around quite nicely. It may be a loss with the local briefers who better know your area but they are improving in ways that may have never happened had it been left to the FAA.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Issues like what? What I'm getting at is that you don't get that local knowledge any more, which is much more important on flights out of your area.

The good briefings are still given by the old FAA briefers. The other ones, well... Excuse me sir, I'm going on a flight that'll be shorter than this briefing, and I can (and did) read the TAF's for myself, thankyouverymuch.
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I can't argue with you, but I now know the local weather pretty well, so it hasn't been a big issue. The bigger issue to me was before the takeover I would have to wait for 20 minutes any weekend the weather was good because of all the pilots who wanted to go flying. It took longer in the East and I couldn't raise them in the South at all. What good is all this local knowledge if you can't get ahold of it?
 
I have to admit, I am fairly happy with LM AFSS. I have students regularly do phone briefings and I call them when I need to.

Kent if you want a shorter briefing instead of asking for a standard brief ask for an abbreviated brief and tell them what you want to know.

As far as the loss of local knowlege, yeah I miss that but most of the time the biggest impact is I have spell airport id's. The briefers aren't forecasters and it is always hard for me to tell whether their guess about what's going to happen is better than nothing. It usually was and now they don't seem to guess.

Joe
 
I have had almost universally excellent service since they got over their initial foibles.
 
I wasn't back into flying when they were having trouble. I've got no complaints at all about the service I've gotten from them since this past June.
 
steingar said:
I can't argue with you, but I now know the local weather pretty well, so it hasn't been a big issue.
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Okay, but what about the new pilot who doesn't understand the weather, or the transient pilot that doesn't understand the local weather? I can tell you that I made it home from Gaston's a few years ago simply because of a good briefing. I was very reluctant to depart after looking at weather sources myself, but the briefer basically said "It'll be fine, go fly" and he was right. Now, I'd have either had to stay another day or two, or buy a $2400 GPS with datalink to make the trip. :(

The bigger issue to me was before the takeover I would have to wait for 20 minutes any weekend the weather was good because of all the pilots who wanted to go flying. It took longer in the East and I couldn't raise them in the South at all. What good is all this local knowledge if you can't get ahold of it?
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True, but the FAA could have fixed this. Lockheed Martin doesn't have the only advanced phone system in the world, the FAA could have done the same thing without the things we've lost to the LockMart transition.

Areeda said:
I have to admit, I am fairly happy with LM AFSS. I have students regularly do phone briefings
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Well Joe, I'd be happy if I didn't have to talk to them too. ;) :rofl:

Kent if you want a shorter briefing instead of asking for a standard brief ask for an abbreviated brief and tell them what you want to know.
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A standard briefing from a good briefer gives me things that I didn't even know I wanted to know. That's why I ask for a standard briefing in the first place. I can't tell whether I got a good briefer or a rookie until after I've asked for the standard briefing.

LM has certainly gotten a lot better, but I still don't believe for a minute that moving to LM was a good thing. :no:
 
SCCutler said:
I have had almost universally excellent service since they got over their initial foibles.
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I have gotten some better briefings than in the past but as recently as last month I still got a briefer without a clue.

I had a flight to Fort Wayne, IN from NW of Chicago. The briefer started giving me the overview which included a bad WX system near Minneapolis and was heading south. Well that is fine to get the big picture but he kept going on and on about how it was going to get into Iowa and could affect my route of flight. That is when I mentioned to him the I would not being going anywhere near Iowa on my route of flight and againt said I am flying to Indiana. But he did not get it and kept going on about the WX way out west and when I prompted him about what was happening in Gary, IN or South Bend he said that he would have to go look up the info. I asked why he did not do that since I had given him my route of flight twice. He had no answer. I just hung up and called again hoping to get one of the old FAA guys who could at least read a map.
 
I have to admit I have had this sort of issue, but was able to straighten it out fairly easily. I would love to have had the old system with quicker response, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards. And even with all the consolidation and gadgetry I've read that the US spends over $300/pilot/year on this service. If I can get it to be legal, I'm happy, since that wasn't always the case.
 
Hoy thread resurrection Batman.

LM service has gotten better. It could hardly have gotten worse. That wasn't the point. The point is that LM and AOPA should not be collaborating on how the FSS system works. LM should be given clear standards to meet, and suffer the consequences when that doens't happen. AOPA should act as an independent watch-dog of those services. The two together is a bad combination. This thread has degenerated into 'did I get a good briefing', which is a completely separate, but also important subject.
 
>Is it safe to go back yet?

to what?
 
Is this to what you're referring?

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2008/081231fuller said:
Craig Fuller has taken the controls as president of AOPA—only the fourth president in the association’s nearly 70-year history. Fuller became president following an orderly three-month transition leading up to outgoing president Phil Boyer’s retirement on Dec. 31, 2008.
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It was never not safe to be a AOPA member. There's far too much information and knowledge to be gleaned if one really wants to benefit from membership than to make its management the reason not to join.
 
Yeah, I just rejoined after the first big red board forum meltdown; back to AOPA but probably not back the the forums.
 
Whatever AOPA is as far as the average GA pilot is concerned is an advocate in DC. Only AOPA and NBAA are actively trying to oppose the shutting off of your rights to fly across the borders of our country. When you look at the new APIS program that is being rammed down the GA pilots throat.

For that alone its worth the $29 for AOPA. NBAA will cost a couple of hundred a year to be a member of.
 
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