Mandatory weather briefings for controllers

I guess I'm missing which pot you're trying to stir.
 
AggieMike88 said:
I guess I'm missing which pot you're trying to stir.
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mscard88 said:
More job demands I think Nate saying.
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Wasn't really.

Just trying to imagine what world exists where controllers have suddenly become so completely oblivious to the weather on their drive to work that FAA seems to want them to listen to a Center weather briefing every shift now and check it off on some paperwork box, since we all know that'll probably happen with a mandate like this one in the regs now.

Note the order change still said a regular weather brief when taking over at any station was still required and that was always in place, so...

What morons somewhere were so clueless about weather it got the attention of a paper pusher somewhere to make a rule change mandating listening to a wide area weather briefing?

These things almost always start with some ultra stupidity somewhere and then the "lowest common denominator" effect of having a "rule book" kicks in...
 
Maybe it's a powerplay to make themselves feel better after losing control of drone regulation.
Ever hear the old story about the boy kicking the cat?
 
We used to do a crew weather brief in the Marines. It didn't matter much to each specialist because most of your stuff is covered in the position relief brief. It's important for supervisors because the forecasted weather will effect things like ground stops, position manning, flow control etc.

I like the last sentence there where she says the pilot's equipment alone cannot provide a full weather picture. Yeah if were 20 years ago I'd agree. Nowadays, planes are getting darn near close to that. A CWSU brief from say 4 hrs ago isn't going to mean much for a realtime "weather picture" either.

I think they're trying to solve a problem here that doesn't exist.
 
This reminds me of a story someone posted to the ATC Reddit a few days ago. The topic was "Most ridiculous thing you've ever been told on the job."

"Supervisor sent everyone that wasn't plugged in to a hazardous weather briefing and left everyone else plugged in for almost two hours while we were working with thunderstorms in our sectors. Checking the weather briefing box was apparently more important that making sure the area was appropriately staffed to work with weather."
 
More ridiculousness from a guy in a cubicle that washed out of an ATC facility somewhere. I'm sure that pre-recorded CWSU briefing of data that is hours old and just a meteorologist best guess that hovers in the 30% accurate level to begin with will save lots of lives.

Meanwhile in the real world the relieving controller is getting the following from the guy that's been working it the last 1-2 hours: Actual real-time Wx sequence, pireps, sigmets, turbulence, windshear, icing, rvr's, tops, bottoms, etc. Each and every time they plug in.
 
Everyone seems to assume all controllers are local....

A controller can report to a facility in Sacramento and handle traffic from San Francisco to Reno, with a big mountain range in between.

Or report to Fremont and handle traffic 1000 miles offshore from Hawaii.

And the requirement is for CENTER briefings, not local. Those seem to be driven by PIREPs fairly often. And you cannot see an entire center's airspace out the window.
 
MAKG1 said:
Everyone seems to assume all controllers are local.... A controller can report to a facility in Sacramento and handle traffic from San Francisco to Reno, with a big mountain range in between. Or report to Fremont and handle traffic 1000 miles offshore from Hawaii.

And the requirement is for CENTER briefings, not local.
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You are talking about NORCAL TRACON and Oakland Center ARTCC. And the system doesn't work very well for low flying aircraft since the mountains block radar.

Most of the local air traffic in N. Nevada is not in contact with them at all.
 
MAKG1 said:
Everyone seems to assume all controllers are local....

A controller can report to a facility in Sacramento and handle traffic from San Francisco to Reno, with a big mountain range in between.

Or report to Fremont and handle traffic 1000 miles offshore from Hawaii.

And the requirement is for CENTER briefings, not local. Those seem to be driven by PIREPs fairly often. And you cannot see an entire center's airspace out the window.
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Not sure who the "everyone" is you're referencing. Almost half the posters on this thread before you are either active controllers or were controllers. Every pilot who has talked to a controller realizes they aren't within 5 miles of the controller usually.

You mention the "requirement is for CENTER briefings, not local". That is semi-true I suppose. The requirement is for the Center Weather to do the briefing but it does include all terminal facilities. This comes directly from what Nate posted, "and all associated terminal air traffic control facilities".

As I said before, in my opinion, it's useless to get a previously recorded wx briefing from a meteorologist that has a sub 50% accuracy when already every controller (terminal and enroute) is required to get a real time weather briefing from the controller being relieved.
 
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It didn't go into specifics on the content of that CWSU briefing but I'd imagine it will be an area forecast for that particular center area. So if you work at SAV, you'll listen to some outlook that covers ZJX. That's great all but that isn't realtime and by the time you get on to position, maybe 2 hrs later, most of any detail is flushed from memory. Even then, how are you going to describe to an aircraft any meaningful way what you heard in a CWSU that's already old?

Preventing weather accidents is about issuing the PERTINENT weather like RC posted above. The position brief and then what you observe on radar and the never ending spew that comes out the "FIDO" is what matters. If you've issued your CWAs, AIRMETs, SIGMETs, precip areas (radar), ATIS /ASOS/ AWOS confirm, PIREPs, WX dissemination, etc., then that should be enough. Problems arise when those items aren't issued in a timely manner or the pilot disregards / misunderstands them. No CWSU briefing will fix those scenarios.
 
MAKG1 said:
Everyone seems to assume all controllers are local....

A controller can report to a facility in Sacramento and handle traffic from San Francisco to Reno, with a big mountain range in between.

Or report to Fremont and handle traffic 1000 miles offshore from Hawaii.

And the requirement is for CENTER briefings, not local. Those seem to be driven by PIREPs fairly often. And you cannot see an entire center's airspace out the window.
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I don't think anyone here is that dumb.

We have to look at a weather map across our route of flight.

Controllers always had to get a weather brief from whoever they relieved.

And FAA is BEGGING for PIREPS these days. They're not getting them in the quantity they used to via FSS frequencies when pilots didn't have on board data/weather and the system didn't adjust well to entering them through the traffic side of the system, probably rightly so.

Saw a post in a CFI forum the other day of a CFI asking how best to explain to a new student the difference between "Radio" and "Approach / Departure" and when to talk to each. I pointed out that the student probably would "get it" if they'd ever called 1-800-WX-BRIEF ever and the CFI explained that those same people answer "Radio".

The issue was why they'd feel the need to create a checkbox for a big picture weather look prior to the on console briefing. Most people in any sort of pro aviation job can look at the national frontal map and have enough of a big picture for the next few hours to know generally what's going to suck and what isn't and where.

Pilots and controllers are required to by law. I found it interesting that FAA decided to make controllers do it by a second law. The rule was already there.
 
denverpilot said:
I found it interesting that FAA decided to make controllers do it by a second law. The rule was already there.
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LOL. This is the government we're talking about. This is the standard MOA.
 
arkvet said:
LOL. This is the government we're talking about. This is the standard MOA.
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True true. I just wondered if any of our controller brethren had the inside scoop on what happened to make that a rule.

Sounds like they're as unimpressed reading it as I was. Ha.
 
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