FAA to decommission RCO network.
- Thread starter ahw01
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///AMG
Well-Known Member
bring back Flight Watch
That went away?
122.0 is blank. No one home.
///AMG
Well-Known Member
Now that i think of it, I dont hear them reference “flight watch or HIWAS for more information” anymore
Edit: apparently HIWAS is down too
Beep
Well-Known Member
That’s a real Cheap Trick.
Hiboglossi
The Most Depressing Person
Flight Watch ended in 2015, which I didn't find out until I tried to call them about a week after it was decommissioned. I had recently used it right before it ended, unaware it was about to be discontinued. Interestingly, I kept hearing "flight watch for more information" on ATISes for several years afterward, presumably inertia on the part of the controllers who record them.
///AMG
Well-Known Member
On the mil side, we have these “pilot to meteorologist” or METRO freqs we can call on the ground (or i guess airborne) on UHF. Still a paid civilian forecaster, who will answer on the other end of the radio. I’ve used them several times over the years, especially on an iffy night with a tight dew point spread and weird weather, trying to make the decision about whether to go fly (with the ultimate intention of landing back there/home). I dont care who you ask, having a professional weather human to talk to is always better than whatever reduced funding robot will take the reins to save a few dollars. Maybe they wont take this service away,……maybe…..
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
The forecast for NOAA isn’t great…
ClearedForOption
Displaced... again.
For me it's was a brand spankin' new 321 NEO, only 37 hrs of proving runs and the delivery flight - - - or whatever our books say that we have to do before it enters regular line-pilot dude service. It totally still had that new airplane smell and the flight deck didn't look like a dust and crumb museum of unhealthy eating choices:
(Pictured above... the cleanest MCDU you'll ever see outside of the factory.)
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
Not relevant for AK, they're not doing it up here. If it was it would just go back to the way it was in some of these places before there was an RCO or in places where you can't get center on the ground, or when the RCO is OTS.
It would make it basically impossible to legally fly IFR to a lot of places, it would go back to being the standard "wink wink nudge nudge" where people tell center, "yeah, we broke out, we'd like to cancel IFR but it looks pretty misty up ahead, if the weather deteriorates, we'll be following the ground track of the published missed and we'll call you back, good day."
Most base ops have PMSV service, and they are a very good resource, although they seem to be used more at training command and airlift command bases moreso than at tactical jet bases.
ClearedForOption
Displaced... again.
Yep.
Someone asked how you filed flight plans before foreflight or fltplan.com.
I said I did it on a dialup connection and filed it on DUATs or I picked up a phone and called 1800WXBRIEF and filed it with a person when the briefer was done with his weather briefing. I had a blank FAA Form 7233-1 in front of me and I just read off the blocks one by one to the briefer.
I got a blank look and head shake back.
I said I did it on a dialup connection and filed it on DUATs or I picked up a phone and called 1800WXBRIEF and filed it with a person when the briefer was done with his weather briefing. I had a blank FAA Form 7233-1 in front of me and I just read off the blocks one by one to the briefer.
I got a blank look and head shake back.
Wardogg
Meat Popsicle
I tried to get one to relay a message to an FBO once. Was denied. Rudely I might add.
I still remember being in the rain/snow having to call FSS from the pay phone outside the closed-for-the-night airport office of the tiny uncontrolled field where the last UPS rural truck in the evening had dropped off its outgoing packages to me, in order to both file my IFR flight plan off the card, as well get my clearance relayed from ARTCC through FSS, with a void time that allowed just enough time to run back out to the bird, make a quick walk around that nothing was open, get in and do start/taxi/takeoff and contact ARTCC before I missed my airborne “slot”. Those were the days….
Lawman
Well-Known Member
The first time I flew with somebody in GA that had a Bluetooth capable radio stack and he just called over the ICS he couldn’t understand how furiously angry that capability made me.
Then I explained to him the process of unhooking from everything, moving just far enough from a running helicopter to shout into a phone, running back to it, climbing in without kicking the controls and belting up to meet our departure time.
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ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
You mean I haven't touched a yoke in almost 5 years and I've flown newer airplanes than you? That's hilarious, also respectable.
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
Heck, DUAT on 1200 baud dialup was super deluxe mode.
1-800-WX-BRIEF had just become a thing right before I started flying. Before that, you had to call the individual FSS for your area, and if there was a wait, oh well, stand in line for 40 minutes. At least the new system would route your call where there was capacity.
You could kind of, ahem, self brief through a touch tone system (ITBS?) to get individual stations or the TWEBS for route forecasts. It was definitely metzo metzo on the tech side, but you have to remember, we were barely out of the “NERDS!” era of home computing.
You could get some weather products through Compuserve, but anything but the most basic was $.
DUATS rolled out in 88 or so. That was the new hotness to be sure.
So yea, a free service that had weather, flight planning and you could file a flight plan on-line? That was shat hot.
I never knew they made light bulbs in such low wattages, as the ones over the open phone booth outside rural FBOs.