Verbal weather briefings in the USA, and DUATS

AdamFrisch wrote:

There is no record when you check online.

If you use DUATS, there is a record, and always has been (when I lived in the US, I mostly used DUATS rather than phoning, I phoned only if I didn’t have easy access to a computer online). ForeFlight apparently uses DUATS and this will also be recorded.

It’s mostly because people believe that only the phone briefing gets recorded that people still do get the phone briefing as a CYA, but it’s not necessary and hasn’t been for at least 2 decades.

A DUATS briefing also counts as an official briefing too and has every bit as much standing as calling WX-BRIEF by voice.

achimha wrote:

Do they have pilot certificates?

A few of them do, because my local FSS is still in Prescott, Az, and we quite often get into reminiscences about flight training and even briefers who have my tail number in their logbook! I guess you could also interpret this in terms of the lines being fairly quiet though.

I never bought into these arguments that it would be good to leave a trace of a briefing in case something “happens”.
Let’s take icing. If you launch and get into trouble with ice, chances are very high there was something in the forecasts that hinted towards ice. But ice is a delicate subject. Let’s take marginal VFR conditions instead. If you get into trouble due to deteriorating VFR weather, then – let’s face it – chances are very high the forecasts actuallytold a story about it. Forecasts always tend to be more on the pessimistic side.

So, leaving that “trace” is really no good. Actually, it might even turn out to be a bad thing. If there is no trace, the judges might find that “there was no evidence of a weather briefing”, which leaves a lot room. But when the judge is in front of you, and he shows you that you actually got the weather briefing that warned about the bad weather, he might say “AND YOU EVEN KNEW ABOUT IT!”

I use the phone briefing for longer trips and find it useful. While of course it’s easy to get all the info from the internet (and I certainly do!), briefers also get PIREPs and – sometimes – have local knowledge. At least here on the West Coast there seems to still be a quite a lot of local knowledge around. Certainly helpful if you try to thread your way across the mountains in not-so-great wx. They also have all the relevant NOTAMs and sometimes info about TFRs or mil events that are not on your direct route, but within a radius of possible diversion. Lastly – I spend way too much time at my computer anyway, quite happy to talk to a human!

Bosco, you are supposed to inform yourself of every aspect pertaining to the safety of your flight, so if you have not gotten a briefing, they will certainly ding you with 91.13. 100%.

AF – I think he is claiming plausibe deniability.

I really liked using the Brief #. It was great before they removed the local FSS sites. They had great local knowledge. A lot of them were pilots as well. The Lockheed service is very good and the guys are very helpful.Still better than just computer info. It takes me an hour or so to get info on local European airports and do a flight plan and thats using RR and Autorouter for cloud info. What I really miss here is PIReps. Also info on bases and tops.