From: lee@wang.com (Lee Story)
Subject: Re: FSS Briefers and Weather
Organization: Wang Laboratories, Inc.
Distribution: na
Date: 7 Apr 92 12:47:39
	<1992Apr3.183047.21611@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
	<1992Apr3.215538.19911@ncar.ucar.edu>


Here's a thread I can't resist.

(Kim Elmore) writes:
	   Ah!  We come to the crux of the matter: frankly, anyone who
   has a good background in weather, good enough to be called a
   "specialist", should be able to interpret a 500 mb chart.  Perhaps I
   wasn't clear, but I didn't expect him to necssarily give me a
   full-fledged discussion of the product.  Rather, I wanted a simple
   description of what was there. Something like "a trough extending from
   central South Dakota through western Kansas and into the Texas
   panhandle" or "a closed low off the southern California coast" would
   have been quite sufficient.  [... mild flame follows ...]

Though Kim Elmore has some good points, I think the whole business of
detailed verbal briefings misses the point.  Sure I appreciate expert
assistance, expecially in forecasting, and in noting the most
significant (potentially dangerous) features.  But most of all I WANT
THE CHARTS IN FRONT OF ME AS I PLAN A FLIGHT!!!! and the
close-to-worthless system with its cover-your-arse-with-the-FAA-and-NTSB
"official" phone briefings DOESN'T OFFER THEM ANY MORE.  Let me look
at the materials, and THEN often call for the educated opinion.  Then
and only then (as in DUATS) file electronically or verbally.

(If the DUATS sources offer hi-res fax copies of the pilot's selection
of segments by lat/longs of surface analysis and equal-pressure charts,
I'll apologize and rush to the store for a home fax machine.  But my
impression has been that DUATS offers nothing more than the CompuServe
aviation services has---ASCII weather plus flight plan relay, and maybe
a couple of crude surface maps.)

When I was in private pilot training, and then again while preparing
for the instrument and commercial ratings several years ago, I
dutifully read Aviation Weather, Aviation Weather Services, a couple
of meteorology handbooks, and an excellent book called (I think)
_Flying the Weather Map_ (Collins?)  which is based on practical
interpretation of constant-pressure charts.  This was just before the
AFSS steamroller, driven I suppose by Reaganaut supposed cost savings
(freeing our dollars to buy more ineffective smart weapons?),
flattened the FSS system.  Not surprisingly, the local sources of this
most useful weather information (Concord and Lebanon NH and Boston MA
FSSes) dried up, and the "automated" source didn't replace it.  One
could still fly IFR to Bridgeport or Bangor to decide whether it was
safe to fly IFR to Bridgeport or Bangor, of course.  Sequences and
area forcasts were available by phone, on CompuServe, and by IVRS (and
from Jepps for $$) of course, and it was possible to plot the location
of major features (cyclonic centers, major troughs, etc.)  from the
textual lists of airport and navaid designators (a HORRIBLE nuisance
in an unfamiliar part of the continent, especially if some of them are
beyond the range of the charts you carry).

There is NO excuse in this telecommunications age for not providing
weather maps to pilots, just as there is NO excuse for the overuse of
error-prone low-grade voice communications for clearances---either:

(1)
a low-speed data channel should mandated for all IFR flights (300bps
would be more than sufficient), and the guv should keep its eye out
for price gouging on certified equipment (largely just by (1)
providing a big market, and (2) making the procedural aspects of
certification simple and subsidized as necessary).  If I can buy a
good 9600bps modem for under $300, dual data receivers with minimal
acknowledgement capability (like your transponder) should go for
$1000-$2000.  Voice still seems the best bet for quick, short-term
clearance ("right 360 immediately") or radar approaches.

or (2)
at least the initial clearances (the ones that are ten lines
long and are delivered in hyperspeak and that if you're at all
concerned about your flight you have the controller read back eight
times now was that FOOEY VOR or PHOONEY intersection) should be
available be phone line and modem at every FBO in the business.

Does anyone know whether Mode E is supposed to be able to deliver
clearances to a scrollable in-aircraft alphanumeric display (better
because more reliable than a small printer)?

Speaking of radar approaches, how about getting some of those
college grads flipping burgers to talk airplanes down?  The PAR
approach has practically fallen out of civilian use, and it's the
safest, lowest-pilot-workload, most accurate approach you can fly.

Since I started flying in the early eighties I've seen bureaucracy
growth in the name of safety, airspace restriction in the name of
safety, filing requirements in the name of safety, and regulation
complexification in the name of safety.  What I haven't seen is
serious attempts to deliver just those services, instate just those
regulations, and control just that airspace that is espacially
important to ACTUALLY keeping flight acceptably safe.  And keeping the
government's fingers off everything else.  This is not to denigrate
the work of the operational people, the FSS specialists and the
controllers, whom I've found almost universally competent and pleasant
to deal with.

Especially concerning weather services:  anyone know where AOPA and
other orgs have been while this was happening?

Regards,
--

------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Lee Story (lee@wang.com) Wang Laboratories, Inc.
     (Boston and New Hampshire AMC, and Merrimack Valley Paddlers)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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