flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
I found it interesting to read the thread on bad service from FSS. I guess I've been spoiled.
In FOUR YEARS I have been put on hold by Green Bay exactly ONCE... And that was on a beautiful Saturday with zillions of flivvers out and about, and my call was still answered within two minutes.
I was fairly apathetic when I first heard about the Lockheed Martin takeover. Phil Boyer made it sound like this was not a battle we'd win. OK, we'll let this one go. I was a little unhappy when I heard Green Bay FSS would be closing.
Well, let me tell ya what. When I called WX-BRIEF on March 30th to get my briefing and file a flight plan to Ames for the Glide-A-Thon, and the phone announced "You have reached the Princeton automated flight service station" I got a lot unhappy.
In fact, since they hadn't said what state, the first Princeton I thought of was New Jersey. 
I was only a little less unhappy when I found it was Minnesota.
"Hi, I'd like to file a flight plan and get a standard briefing."
"OK, go ahead."
"Are you familiar with Wisconsin, or do you want me to give you the Identifiers?"
"No, that's OK, I'm familiar with Wisconsin."
"OK then. Flight plan type is IFR, aircraft is 3327Mike, Papa 28 Romeo, departing Morey at zero one zer..."
"Hold on a second. Departing WHERE???"
*sigh* "Departing Charlie Two Niner..."
I thought GRB AFSS had already closed, but I was happy to learn I'd have three more weeks with them. The reason that I'd gotten Princeton was that Lansing closed down for upgrades, and Green Bay was taking all their calls, so when Green Bay overflowed the calls were routed to Princeton, Fort Dodge, or Kankakee.
Finally, Green Bay's final weekend was upon us. Friday, I went flying. I called WX-BRIEF, wanting to get Green Bay of course. "Welcome to the Lockheed-Martin Cleveland Automated flight service station." Cleveland?!? WTF? *click* *dial* "Welcome to the Lockheed-Martin Cleveland Automated flight service station." **** Cleveland. I'm going flying. I checked Pilot My-Cast for TFR's and launched.
On Saturday, April 21st I called Green Bay directly and recorded it. "Hi, I'd like to get a standard briefing for a VFR flight departing Madison in about a half hour, direct to Clintonville and then direct to Green Bay at 5500. Tail number is 271G."
One good briefing later, and I packed the video and audio gear into the plane. Time to pay these guys one last visit and thank them for their excellent service, and document what a Flight Service Station looks like as I may never see the inside of another one, and all too many people have never seen one at all.
Thanks to some... uh... Idiots at Lockheed Martin (they freaked when Sport Aviation wanted an interview, requiring basically a company PR person as a moderator), I wasn't able to ask too much on camera about the transition. Basically, just got a full tour and then some. Of course, I thought it was cool that the Pilotcast guy got in and Sport Aviation didn't.
After the tour, we began just chatting casually. I had given a PIREP on the way up and asked who took it. Bill, having rotated to the Preflight-1 station, raised his hand. I asked what his future plans were. "This is my last night. I'm retiring."
Sally was sitting at the opposite end of the room, Preflight-12 or so, but she has a very distinctive voice, and I recognized her as the person who gave me a briefing a few weeks ago. It was her last night, too. She'd actually already retired, but came back for a few weeks to keep staffing levels sufficient while some of the other briefers moved to Prescott, AZ.
Things were starting to calm down. Not too many planes in the sky at 9 PM on a Saturday. Jim, sitting at In-Flight 4, turned his chair around and we chatted for a while. Like most of the people in the room, he'd been with GRB FSS since the 80's. Also like most of the people in the room, he decided he'd rather retire than move.
Pete, working the Flight Data position, was the youngest of the entire group. He's "only" been there for 12 years. In fact, when I mentioned the name of a guy who works for my company now that used to work at GRB FSS, Pete was the only person there who didn't know him - And Bob left the FSS in 1987. Pete, BTW, is going to be working at the Fort Worth hub.
It was an interesting vibe there. Bill, Sally, Dale, Pete, and Jim were working. It was nice to see the faces behind those voices I've heard so much. It was also kind of sad and surreal... Jim, Bill, and Sally were all on their final night as FSS briefers. All elected to retire rather than leave Green Bay. Dale and Pete are being transferred to Lockheed-Martin's Fort Worth hub, where they will never again be giving briefings for the area with which they're most familiar. (How LM figured out THAT particular piece of genius, I don't know.)
Sunday, I flew again. MSN-CLI-MSN. One last briefing from GRB. I talked to the briefer about the transition for a bit, and his was the saddest story yet. He'd purchased his dream home and land near Green Bay just before the talk of privatizing FSS started, and he was less than two years away from a full retirement. When I asked what he was doing next, he said "Heading for the unemployment line." He couldn't bear to leave his dream home behind, and he didn't qualify for retirement. I hope he works things out.
A storm was brewing, and it was close enough that I wanted an update on the way home. Another last call, this one to Green Bay Radio. Like the closing of the FSS, this was not good news: The storm would arrive close to the time I would. However, he advised that a retreat to the east would work well, as I expected from viewing radar before the flight. I decided to keep my eye out and head to RYV if things didn't work out. The briefer gave me the NOTAMs for RYV, and I thanked him.
As he'd predicted, the storm arrived when I was in sight of the field. I was talking with MSN Approach when I saw a big nasty mess beginning to cover Lake Mendota, and a couple of flashes of lightning within. It wasn't moving very fast, and I had the field in sight, but I was beginning to think that a diversion would be in my near future. There were some airliners and a Twin Cessna still on the other side of the big gray beast and still trying to slither around it, though.
"Attention all aircraft, winds now at Madison one niner zero at *garbled*seven." "Skylane 271G, are you IFR equipped and able?" "Affirmative, 71G. Could you repeat the winds please?"
"One niner zero at one niner, gusting FOUR SEVEN."
Now I don't have a hard-and-fast personal minimum on a lot of things because there are always multiple factors involved. So, I can't always tell ya where the line is... But that was WAY across it. "271G is diverting to Watertown." I walked to Culver's and grabbed a burger and a root beer float, then sat on the couch in Wisconsin Aviation to watch the fireworks. They never did come, the line ended up splitting and passing on either side of Watertown. The plane never even got wet. So, back in the saddle and back to MSN.
I wondered the whole way...Next time I need that info in-flight, will I be able to get a person on the radio? Will they know the area well enough to be able to discuss diversion options without having to look things up or speak in identifiers? Will they know how the weather acts in my particular area? I'm afraid we're losing something really big here. With all of the early/forced retirements from the people that know this area, we're losing a ton of valuable experience. On top of that, the biggest question in my mind was... Why on earth did all of the non-retiring briefers from Green Bay get transferred to Prescott, AZ and Fort Worth, TX rather than Lansing, MI where we'll be getting our briefings from once they're upgraded to FS21? That takes the rest of the experience with weather patterns in Wisconsin and flushes it right down the toilet. I am not looking forward to the future of FSS.
In FOUR YEARS I have been put on hold by Green Bay exactly ONCE... And that was on a beautiful Saturday with zillions of flivvers out and about, and my call was still answered within two minutes.
I was fairly apathetic when I first heard about the Lockheed Martin takeover. Phil Boyer made it sound like this was not a battle we'd win. OK, we'll let this one go. I was a little unhappy when I heard Green Bay FSS would be closing.
Well, let me tell ya what. When I called WX-BRIEF on March 30th to get my briefing and file a flight plan to Ames for the Glide-A-Thon, and the phone announced "You have reached the Princeton automated flight service station" I got a lot unhappy.
In fact, since they hadn't said what state, the first Princeton I thought of was New Jersey. I was only a little less unhappy when I found it was Minnesota."Hi, I'd like to file a flight plan and get a standard briefing."
"OK, go ahead."
"Are you familiar with Wisconsin, or do you want me to give you the Identifiers?"
"No, that's OK, I'm familiar with Wisconsin."
"OK then. Flight plan type is IFR, aircraft is 3327Mike, Papa 28 Romeo, departing Morey at zero one zer..."
"Hold on a second. Departing WHERE???"
*sigh* "Departing Charlie Two Niner..."
I thought GRB AFSS had already closed, but I was happy to learn I'd have three more weeks with them. The reason that I'd gotten Princeton was that Lansing closed down for upgrades, and Green Bay was taking all their calls, so when Green Bay overflowed the calls were routed to Princeton, Fort Dodge, or Kankakee.
Finally, Green Bay's final weekend was upon us. Friday, I went flying. I called WX-BRIEF, wanting to get Green Bay of course. "Welcome to the Lockheed-Martin Cleveland Automated flight service station." Cleveland?!? WTF? *click* *dial* "Welcome to the Lockheed-Martin Cleveland Automated flight service station."
**** Cleveland. I'm going flying. I checked Pilot My-Cast for TFR's and launched.On Saturday, April 21st I called Green Bay directly and recorded it. "Hi, I'd like to get a standard briefing for a VFR flight departing Madison in about a half hour, direct to Clintonville and then direct to Green Bay at 5500. Tail number is 271G."
One good briefing later, and I packed the video and audio gear into the plane. Time to pay these guys one last visit and thank them for their excellent service, and document what a Flight Service Station looks like as I may never see the inside of another one, and all too many people have never seen one at all.
Thanks to some... uh... Idiots at Lockheed Martin (they freaked when Sport Aviation wanted an interview, requiring basically a company PR person as a moderator), I wasn't able to ask too much on camera about the transition. Basically, just got a full tour and then some. Of course, I thought it was cool that the Pilotcast guy got in and Sport Aviation didn't.
After the tour, we began just chatting casually. I had given a PIREP on the way up and asked who took it. Bill, having rotated to the Preflight-1 station, raised his hand. I asked what his future plans were. "This is my last night. I'm retiring."
Sally was sitting at the opposite end of the room, Preflight-12 or so, but she has a very distinctive voice, and I recognized her as the person who gave me a briefing a few weeks ago. It was her last night, too. She'd actually already retired, but came back for a few weeks to keep staffing levels sufficient while some of the other briefers moved to Prescott, AZ.
Things were starting to calm down. Not too many planes in the sky at 9 PM on a Saturday. Jim, sitting at In-Flight 4, turned his chair around and we chatted for a while. Like most of the people in the room, he'd been with GRB FSS since the 80's. Also like most of the people in the room, he decided he'd rather retire than move.
Pete, working the Flight Data position, was the youngest of the entire group. He's "only" been there for 12 years. In fact, when I mentioned the name of a guy who works for my company now that used to work at GRB FSS, Pete was the only person there who didn't know him - And Bob left the FSS in 1987. Pete, BTW, is going to be working at the Fort Worth hub.
It was an interesting vibe there. Bill, Sally, Dale, Pete, and Jim were working. It was nice to see the faces behind those voices I've heard so much. It was also kind of sad and surreal... Jim, Bill, and Sally were all on their final night as FSS briefers. All elected to retire rather than leave Green Bay. Dale and Pete are being transferred to Lockheed-Martin's Fort Worth hub, where they will never again be giving briefings for the area with which they're most familiar. (How LM figured out THAT particular piece of genius, I don't know.)
Sunday, I flew again. MSN-CLI-MSN. One last briefing from GRB. I talked to the briefer about the transition for a bit, and his was the saddest story yet. He'd purchased his dream home and land near Green Bay just before the talk of privatizing FSS started, and he was less than two years away from a full retirement. When I asked what he was doing next, he said "Heading for the unemployment line." He couldn't bear to leave his dream home behind, and he didn't qualify for retirement. I hope he works things out.
A storm was brewing, and it was close enough that I wanted an update on the way home. Another last call, this one to Green Bay Radio. Like the closing of the FSS, this was not good news: The storm would arrive close to the time I would. However, he advised that a retreat to the east would work well, as I expected from viewing radar before the flight. I decided to keep my eye out and head to RYV if things didn't work out. The briefer gave me the NOTAMs for RYV, and I thanked him.
As he'd predicted, the storm arrived when I was in sight of the field. I was talking with MSN Approach when I saw a big nasty mess beginning to cover Lake Mendota, and a couple of flashes of lightning within. It wasn't moving very fast, and I had the field in sight, but I was beginning to think that a diversion would be in my near future. There were some airliners and a Twin Cessna still on the other side of the big gray beast and still trying to slither around it, though.
"Attention all aircraft, winds now at Madison one niner zero at *garbled*seven." "Skylane 271G, are you IFR equipped and able?" "Affirmative, 71G. Could you repeat the winds please?"
"One niner zero at one niner, gusting FOUR SEVEN."
Now I don't have a hard-and-fast personal minimum on a lot of things because there are always multiple factors involved. So, I can't always tell ya where the line is... But that was WAY across it. "271G is diverting to Watertown." I walked to Culver's and grabbed a burger and a root beer float, then sat on the couch in Wisconsin Aviation to watch the fireworks. They never did come, the line ended up splitting and passing on either side of Watertown. The plane never even got wet. So, back in the saddle and back to MSN.I wondered the whole way...Next time I need that info in-flight, will I be able to get a person on the radio? Will they know the area well enough to be able to discuss diversion options without having to look things up or speak in identifiers? Will they know how the weather acts in my particular area? I'm afraid we're losing something really big here. With all of the early/forced retirements from the people that know this area, we're losing a ton of valuable experience. On top of that, the biggest question in my mind was... Why on earth did all of the non-retiring briefers from Green Bay get transferred to Prescott, AZ and Fort Worth, TX rather than Lansing, MI where we'll be getting our briefings from once they're upgraded to FS21? That takes the rest of the experience with weather patterns in Wisconsin and flushes it right down the toilet. I am not looking forward to the future of FSS.
