Flight Service through a VOR

[RyanB]

Might be a stupid question, but have wondered when you call up flight service and you call through say 122.00 and receive them over a VOR, are there people that actually sit in vor stations? Where actually are these flight service "controllers"

 

[ja_user]

They just transmitting/listening through remote antenna's. They still sit wherever they sit...

 

[asgcpa]

And they're lonely as the Maytag repair men in those commercials. All they want to do is talk.

 

[NoHeat]

Sam answered your question seriously.

With that out of the way, I'd like to be sure to note that in years past, there were some specially equipped contractors who worked in the VOR stations:

 

[Approach_controller]

Lockheed Martin (they were awarded the FSS contract around 2002) has locations in Washington DC, Dallas, TX and Prescott, AZ. I may be missing one, but its a far cry from when every semi major metro area had their own FSS station. Outside of Alaska they are all contractors manning remote positions in one of those hubs.

Not that anyone here cares, but outside of Alaska and real FAA FSS, they aren't controllers. They're largely understaffed. I've had to go so far as to hear a severe icing PIREP, get no response on the dial line and later call WXBRIEF on my personal cell phone on break. That's a hoot believe me. Try telling them N12345 B767 encountered severe mixed on the phone without getting hung up on.

 

[Doggtyred]

When I was a kid in the early 80's I remember there being flight service stations in many many SE Texas airports that weren't even big enough for towers - Beaumont.. Galveston.. Of course Hobby had one - these were the days you just walked into the FSS and briefed in person and looked at the charts yourself.

By the time I started flying in 1999 ish, they were all closed and consolidated out of Conroe. Now there are maybe what.. 3? nationwide, operating everything by remote. The local knowledge is gone.. Long gone..

 

[flyingron]

Ashburn, VA, Fort Worth, TX, and Prescott, AZ are the main hubs. Satellite ones in Miami, FL and Raleigh, NC.

FSS specialists personal have *NEVER* been controllers. Even back in the day when there wasn't 800WXBRIEF and there were little FSS's scattered all over the place and you had a hodge podge of numbers to call. Actually, back in those days, they didn't even pretend to be controllers. It wasn't until the AFSS's that some idiot got the idea of sticking them in dimly lit windowless rooms like radar controllers rather than giving them a window to see what the actual weather was.

But even before the FSS consolidation (first in the FAA run AFSSs, then to LM), there was never anybody at the VOR. It's always been remoted. I've not been to the LM hubs, but the old AFSS's have a dozen or so radios in each briefer position that light up when they receive something and the briefer can pick where he transmits.

 

[poadeleted20]

BTW, it's transmit on 122.1 and listen on the VOR. The other FSS freq's are all talk/listen on the same freq, and 122.0 is the Flight Watch frequency (also talk/listen), not standard FSS.

 

[kgruber]

I'm getting too old. What was it called when a FSS person could give you direction to the field based on the direction of your radio calls?

 

[Greg Bockelman]

DF Steer

 

[kgruber]

Yes, "DF steer."

That was about as close to a "controller" FSS ever got.

 

[poadeleted20]

The last FSS with DF steer capability was somewhere up in Alaska, but I think even that one is now gone.

 

[AggieMike88]

I've visited the station near KAFW.

VERY interesting tour. I highly advise all pilots to take the tour.

 

[Pilawt]

Sometimes the look in the briefer's eye meant more to your go/no-go decision than anything on the teletyped sequence reports or thermofaxed prog charts.

Marysville CA, 1978:

BTW, it's transmit on 122.1 and listen on the VOR. The other FSS freq's are all talk/listen on the same freq, and 122.0 is the Flight Watch frequency (also talk/listen), not standard FSS.

Years ago, when most G.A. radios had only a handful of transmitting crystals, and receivers with analog tuning, pilots would transmit to FSSs on 122.1 and to towers on 122.5, and then tune the receiver to the appropriate frequency for that facility.

The mnemonic was, "One for the run and five for the hive."

The Narco Superhomer came with three transmitting crystals standard. You could splurge and pay extra to add up to nine more.

 

[roncachamp]

Might be a stupid question, but have wondered when you call up flight service and you call through say 122.00 and receive them over a VOR, are there people that actually sit in vor stations?"

No.

Where actually are these flight service "controllers"

Most of them are in Prescott AZ, Fort Worth TX, and Ashburn VA.

 

[AggieMike88]

Might be a stupid question, but have wondered when you call up flight service and you call through say 122.00 and receive them over a VOR, are there people that actually sit in vor stations? Where actually are these flight service "controllers"

Reminds me of the Flying Wild Alaska episode where Ariel asks her instructor, "Doesn't that guy get bored repeating the weather over and over?"

 

[Palmpilot]

...I've had to go so far as to hear a severe icing PIREP, get no response on the dial line and later call WXBRIEF on my personal cell phone on break. That's a hoot believe me. Try telling them N12345 B767 encountered severe mixed on the phone without getting hung up on.

Wow...

 

[flyingron]

The last FSS with DF steer capability was somewhere up in Alaska, but I think even that one is now gone.

DF Steers indeed died a long time ago. When I stopped into the Leesburg AFSS over a decade ago, they had only one receiver left and that was out in your neck of the woods somewhere (Salisbury). They didn't use it.

What they did in the case of lost pilots is:

1. Get them a squawk code from the probable ATC facility and see if they pop up on radar.

2. They have a "shooting board" essentially a chart with a plexi top to it. They'll talk a pilot through giving them VOR radials until they have located him.

I've actually heard this in progress over the air one time, but before the girl got identified positively, she saw an airport and decided she'd land there and ask.

 

[Approach_controller]

Just a subtle point. Prior to the Lockheed Martin takeover, Flight Service Specialists were job code 2152 in the Federal Government, the same as ATC. It was just another distinction in the ranks ie Tower, Approach of Center. My initial FAA training was with a SEA Tower controller who was sent to RADAR class who was FSS previously and before FSS was a tower controller.

Pilawt's picture/post hits home for me. When I was working on my commercial at BNA, the FSS Station was on the field just before the takeover. My instructor and I took a tour and the specialist, it was clear he knew extremely well his territory and weather. I'd take a dime store glance and brief from him as gospel.

He was also about 6 months shy of retirement eligibility which didn't carry over. There was a push to lay off the experienced ones in FSS after they trained their replacements. I still think about that guy from time to time.

 

[Flyhound]

When you do contact FSS through a remote, remember to tell them which VOR you are receiving from so they transmit accordingly. That is one more inconvenience that comes with the wholesale consolidation of facilities.

Automation and consolidation have been responsible for loss of more jobs than the offshore outsourcing that usually gets all the credit. I have fond memories of visiting the FSS on the field when I was doing my flight training way back in the 70s. Some of the people that worked there took an avid interest in discussing your planned flight and the weather you could expect along the way. They had a lot less data available back then, but they compensated with significant local knowledge and experience.

We've both lost, and gained something with the changes over the years. The vastly improved data and long-range satellite imagery probably mean the information available now is better, but the loss of experienced folks with local knowledge and experience is a big negative.