Impertinent to Call a Weather Briefer for a Fictional Flight?

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Randall45

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Randall
My instructor suggested that I call and get a weather briefing for a cross country I had no real plans of flying. While this sounds like a good idea, I haven't done it because I feel like I'd be wasting the briefers time, or more importantly taking away time from another pilot who is actually going to heed the results of the brief. Your opinions?
 
You're paying for it whether it gets used or not. LM doesn't get reimbursed on a per call basis. Make up a flight, get a briefing and go over it after your time has passed to see how accurate it was.
 
With all the electronic options these days, I'd bet that they're just not so busy that you need to worry about wasting their time or pre-emptying another pilot who is actually flying.
 
My instructor had me do the same thing, it's good practice.
 
Randall45 said:
My instructor suggested that I call and get a weather briefing for a cross country I had no real plans of flying. While this sounds like a good idea, I haven't done it because I feel like I'd be wasting the briefers time, or more importantly taking away time from another pilot who is actually going to heed the results of the brief. Your opinions?
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It's training, right? I assume you aren't going to do it a lot, right?

Alternatively, do the briefing online instead (maybe?)
 
Only way you get good at this is by doing it. Go ahead, and don't give it a second thought.
 
Oh I'm sure theres people out there that have called briefers in the middle of a snowstorm just to see what they'd say. ;)

In honesty, I thought the same thing until I started teaching. If you want to feel better, tell them it's for training and you want to learn. I know a number of people that don't call flight service because they've never learned or did it once in training and that was it.
 
not me, but I know a guy who has a friend who knows another guy who might have called wxbrief to check the weather before a round of golf. it wasn't me, it this other guy. really. I think he did feel a little bad about it though.
 
Back before I was a pilot and worked for a large general contractor in Springfield, MO, we used to call WxBrief all the time when we had big concrete pours and the weather looked iffy. Those boys could give us far more accurate forecasts on when exactly when the rain would be rolling in than any of the local TV/radio stations could.

We were straight up with them, would tell them that we were pouring concrete and needed dry skies until 3pm (or whenever) and they'd give us their best guesstimate.

Worked well.

They knew us by name. ;)
 
Be a good steward of government services and do yourself a favor and set up a DUAT/s account. You will get experiance reading the forecasts, the web versions cost the tax payer about $1, the telephone briefing costs >$15. All a briefer is doing is reading the same information you can get yourself online and you don't have to take a single note because you can print the entire briefing if youbwant from the web.
 
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Mehhh... I like talking to humans. The guys on the other end of 1-800-WxBrief seem to be better at reading those things than myself. As a student, I recommend he call. I always call them on the drive to the airport. Probably be a little nervous and unsure of yourself at first, they're just people, after a while it's like calling home. I also like using ForeFlight for the particulars.

You can also call NOAA, they'll give a blurb about not being offical, but if you're about to launch into the Montana mountains, the guys sitting on the field at MSO might have a little better insight on the local weather than a briefer in Florida.

Speaking of concrete, the local guys at NOAA on the field at MSO told me that people call and "order" weather. Like the controlled burn folks, say what they need, and the NOAA folks will call them when they see it.
 
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bartmc said:
Mehhh... I like talking to humans. The guys on the other end of 1-800-WxBrief seem to be better at reading those things than myself. As a student, I recommend he call. I always call them on the drive to the airport. Probably be a little nervous and unsure of yourself at first, they're just people, after a while it's like calling home. I also like using ForeFlight for the particulars.

You can also call NOAA, they'll give a blurb about not being offical, but if you're about to launch into the Montana mountains, the guys sitting on the field at MSO might have a little better insight on the local weather than a briefer in Florida.

Speaking of concrete, the local guys at NOAA on the field at MSO told me that people call and "order" weather. Like the controlled burn folks, say what they need, and the NOAA folks will call them when they see it.
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All true, but his briefings are for practice. He can read the charts, all the transcribed stuff and use the flight planner to compare his flight planning to a computer that is using real winds aloft. Some experiance with Duats can be a great training aid for the written knowledge test. Even if he calls and gets stuff on the web, he can follow the briefing and compare what the briefer interpets to what he reads.
 
I've never been placed on hold for a briefer, so I have a hard time seeing who you would displace.

Tell the briefer exactly what you're doing, and you'll get cheerful help. He may figure out you're a student pretty quickly even if you don't tell.

Having said that, I think you'll get more out of it if you get briefed for what you're actually doing for your next lesson, even if it's just out to the practice area at 3500 for airwork.
 
Ahh but by using the telephone briefing, you are technically keeping a briefer employed. :)
 
eman1200 said:
not me, but I know a guy who has a friend who knows another guy who might have called wxbrief to check the weather before a round of golf. it wasn't me, it this other guy. really. I think he did feel a little bad about it though.
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so.. did it work out for your game? :dunno: eh.. I mean that other guy that was known by that guys friend :rolleyes:

OP, I wouldn't worry about it. First time I called the guy wouldnt stop talking to me. I messed up and told him I was a student and wanted to learn how to use the service. He thought he was a professor at some weather college and felt the need to explain everything. I mean E-V-E-R-Y-thing.. While I did appreciate it, most of what he said at that time went in one ear and out the other. I was lost in his highly detailed explanations. Might be best to not say your a student. :D
 
I say do it.

After my visit to the FSS location in Fort Worth, I realized we don't use them enough.

The thing I will add is to sign up for LockMart's online service (it's free to sign up for and use) so that you can see the same imagery the briefer is seeing and can get more out of the one on one interaction.
 
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The one thing I get from a briefer that I don't get from DUATS is colorful opinion. I was a little iffy about launching last week due to a line of storms to the south of my route and a very small line of precip in my route of flight. The briefer explained what I would experience along my route of flight and discussed options with me. After that discussion, I felt a lot better about my trip. I launched and observed precisely what the briefer said I would. It was a wonderful experience.

I think we should use our online tools, and I certainly use everything I can get my hands on, but until I become a qualified meteorologist I think that there are some things a briefer can simply do better than I can.
 
The thing I get from a briefer for a day VFR flight is limiting to relevant information. A DUATS briefing is full of irrelevant garbage like SIGMETs 2000 miles from my planned course, unlighted towers in daytime, changes to IFR airways and procedures, taxiways restricted to under 12,500 lb when I'm 2600, and on and on and on.
 
ChrisK said:
The one thing I get from a briefer that I don't get from DUATS is colorful opinion. I was a little iffy about launching last week due to a line of storms to the south of my route and a very small line of precip in my route of flight. The briefer explained what I would experience along my route of flight and discussed options with me. After that discussion, I felt a lot better about my trip. I launched and observed precisely what the briefer said I would. It was a wonderful experience.

I think we should use our online tools, and I certainly use everything I can get my hands on, but until I become a qualified meteorologist I think that there are some things a briefer can simply do better than I can.
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I agree. It is nice to have a second opinion to confirm your interpretation, or show you why it is wrong. I had a similar experience yesterday, was not 100% confident in my decision to fly(felt some of my decision was get-there-it is), spoke to the briefer, filed a plan to avoid the storms, and ended up going direct by ATC, and still avoided them. The flight was a pleasure, got some good IFR, and learned a lot. Not too often you can get free education like that.
 
Thanks. I'm glad you guys look at it as glass half full rather than empty. Keeping them employed and busy! It is great practice, so I'm glad it's universally sanctioned.

Every comment here is a great one. But I'll try and refrain from getting their brief for...golf games. :nono: ;)
 
timwinters said:
Back before I was a pilot and worked for a large general contractor in Springfield, MO, we used to call WxBrief all the time when we had big concrete pours and the weather looked iffy. Those boys could give us far more accurate forecasts on when exactly when the rain would be rolling in than any of the local TV/radio stations could.

We were straight up with them, would tell them that we were pouring concrete and needed dry skies until 3pm (or whenever) and they'd give us their best guesstimate.

Worked well.

They knew us by name. ;)
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That's awesome, think I might try that before I wash the car next time :nono:
Of course I'm in SoCal so I could just look out the friggin window:goofy:

To the OP my school has me do it all the time for practice, and just be up front why I'm calling, training flight, ground school prep etc. What ever it is they seem happy to help:yes:
 
Call them. It is old school and common to call for practice.
 
My instructor had me call, I told the briefer I was a student pilot, and this was for training. He gave me some tips on how to make the call faster. Leave out the "kilo" at the begining of the airport identifiers, they were very nice, they seemed very happy to help training. Call for an inflight briefing on 122.000, its good practice too.
 
Tell them you are a student pilot and they will talk slower.
 
Randall45 said:
My instructor suggested that I call and get a weather briefing for a cross country I had no real plans of flying. While this sounds like a good idea, I haven't done it because I feel like I'd be wasting the briefers time, or more importantly taking away time from another pilot who is actually going to heed the results of the brief. Your opinions?
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I use DUATS for my fictional flights. :)
 
In my case (profound hearing loss) I prefer being able to read the report.
 
MAKG1 said:
The thing I get from a briefer for a day VFR flight is limiting to relevant information. A DUATS briefing is full of irrelevant garbage like SIGMETs 2000 miles from my planned course, unlighted towers in daytime, changes to IFR airways and procedures, taxiways restricted to under 12,500 lb when I'm 2600, and on and on and on.
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Agree. One thing I do NOT rely on them for is interpretation of weather information, i.e. opinion. Anything similar to "looks like good VFR, patchy MVFR but forecast to improve" is noise as far as I'm concerned. Once in the early days of LockMart I departed for a XC into conditions "forecast to improve" according to the briefer and wound up in IMC a few miles from my destination. I had several other bum briefer interpretations with less drastic consequences during that time, but still, I learned not to trust their opinions. They may well have improved since then, but they are likely sitting in a room somewhere 700 miles away and have no special insight on local trends. Only 2-3 years ago I had a briefer tell me that "high pressure is firmly in control, which means that you can expect good VFR conditions". :rolleyes: (obviously someone with NO experience in lake-influenced weather)

Best is to learn enough about weather to be at least weather chart-literate yourself. Use official forecasts as a guide, but read the NWS Forecast Discussions to gauge forecaster confidence and to get an idea of alternate scenarios that might or might not happen. Learn about as many wx products as possible.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Perhaps no golf briefings... but maybe the backyard BBQ?

Here is a link to a thread describing my visit to the Fort Worth FSS center: http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60951
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Interesting!

Great. I practiced getting a brief and screwed up the airport code...gave one that didn't exist :mad2:. But everything else was a success. It's extremely convenient! The briefer just rattles off everything I need in regard to weather in a 2 minute call!
 
I'll be honest, I don't love the idea of calling FSS and getting a briefing for "practice". For one, I don't think it has the same meaning to you as when you are actually considering flying in it. I'll also add, somewhat selfishly, that there are still occasions where there are holds for briefers. Some of us are required to call flight service every time we want to fly. That said, just as we practice landings and approaches, getting weather information takes experience to master.

Rather than call for practice, perhaps you could team up with another pilot who is actually going somewhere, but who might otherwise only use DUATS, and call for his/her briefing. After you get your briefing, you make your go/no-go recommendation and compare it with the other pilot who got their briefing via DUATS. It gives you a good opportunity to compare the two methods while learning how an experienced pilot makes his/her decisions.
 
I'd have no problem doing a practice briefing and would treat it as real.

On the other hand I find reading the graphical charts and the duats briefing is far better for you. The trickiest bit is notams and tfrs. But these days it's all graphical on foreflight.
 
Randall45 said:
Interesting!

Great. I practiced getting a brief and screwed up the airport code...gave one that didn't exist :mad2:. But everything else was a success. It's extremely convenient! The briefer just rattles off everything I need in regard to weather in a 2 minute call!
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Double-check.

Sometimes when you give the wrong airport code, it DOES exist. Compare a flight from KMPI to o22 vs. o24. Neither is a particuarly long flight, but the constraints are totally different. A 172 at gross can make o22 at any time of year, given adequate weather. o24, maybe in winter (but I'd want it 200 lb lighter).

For the o22 flight in summer late afternoon, you WILL get told about thunderstorms over the high Sierra. Is that a factor? What about o24?

One briefer suggested filling out a flight plan form before the briefing, when I was a student. IMO, that's overkill, but it does put all the information you need to give in one place, and in the proper order.
 
MAKG1 said:
Double-check.

Sometimes when you give the wrong airport code, it DOES exist. Compare a flight from KMPI to o22 vs. o24. Neither is a particuarly long flight, but the constraints are totally different. A 172 at gross can make o22 at any time of year, given adequate weather. o24, maybe in winter (but I'd want it 200 lb lighter).

For the o22 flight in summer late afternoon, you WILL get told about thunderstorms over the high Sierra. Is that a factor? What about o24?

One briefer suggested filling out a flight plan form before the briefing, when I was a student. IMO, that's overkill, but it does put all the information you need to give in one place, and in the proper order.
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I usually just glance at the flight plan format on my kneeboard and read off the sequence in order, and stop when I get to the destination airport.
 
It's not like calling for a briefing during a blizzard for a cross country student flight in a 172...

Is the statute of limitation up for that one yet???

:D
 
I've always wanted to call FSS up for a briefing from Oakland to Hong Kong just to see what they would say.
 
Randall, take the briefing you received and look to see how accurate the weather they gave you turns out to be during your fictional flight.
 
Since you aren't planning to fly it, calling for an outlook or abbreviated (skipping Notams/TFR's) would probably fill in all the info you need(ed) anyway.
 
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