Weather Briefing Method

Finally, a place for sport pilot instructors and/or wannabees to talk about instructing.

Moderator: drseti

Weather Briefing: Do you use phone, internet or app?

Phone
5
19%
Internet
7
26%
Application (ForeFlight etc.)
15
56%
 
Total votes: 27

User avatar
Jim Hardin
Posts: 274
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 1:33 pm

Re: Weather Briefing Method

Post by Jim Hardin »

designrs wrote:ForeFlight downloads current TFR data every 15 minutes from the FAA servers. This data is then displayed in ForeFlight Mobile when connected to the internet.

Info about halfway down this page:
http://www.foreflight.com/support/faqs/ ... ht-mobile/
Please keep in mind that this does not excuse you from a violation if you encounter a 'popup TFR'.

A friend was violated while IFR and in contact with ATC and utilizing an inflight update service. In his case the displayed boundary's and location were off enough to put him in it. Of course no warning from ATC, only a call to inform him he had violated the TFR and a report has been filed.

FAA's response was that only the TEXT description from them counts :roll:

At least his company paid the fines for both pilots.
User avatar
foresterpoole
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 12:28 pm
Location: Alexandria, LA

Re: Weather Briefing Method

Post by foresterpoole »

So I'll share a students perspective. I had a long solo X- country planned and I used the online service to file the flight plan. No issues since I'm pretty tech savvy, I also use their open/close by text option and updates via text for TFRs, weather etc. Got a full brief and printed out the info and headed to the plane. Before I made it I got a text about a weather alert. Mind you it's blue skies and METERs showed less than 5kts wind. So I called, the gentleman was very nice and explained the warning was for moderate turbulence at flight level 30-45. Mind you I filed for 2500', he laughed and said the automated service just sends those out because it was issued in the area. He asked if I needed anything else, looked and made sure I was OK the rest of the way and that was it.

I opened my flight plan when I taxied to the hold short line put the parking break on and before run-up. I flew the trip but it was slower than expected because I had some traffic in the pattern at one of my stops. I closed the flight plan after I parked the plane and secured it, in hindsight, I should have closed it when I hit the ground. About 10 minutes later the phone rings and it's flight services checking to see if I'm OK because I was considered overdue. Literally, as I'm taking to the briefer my plan closed and everything was fine, the time tag she said was 10 minutes prior. Their computers have a good 5-10 minute lag, or it took that long for my close request to reach them from my phone.

Moral of this very long story, I'm going to use both, the folks are very nice and the computer version is very through.
Ed
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