EAA Triple Five Flier Volume 40 Number 11 | Page 6

NOTAMs are an area that most pilots really skim over. They will look at ones related to their
destination airport and maybe (hopefully) check for TFRs. Many do not look for NAVAID or
Communication outages enroute, or for Airspace incursions like parachutes, drones and rockets. There are thousands of NOTAMs in the system and it is tedious to sort through them all,
which is what Flight Service is trained to do as quickly as is humanly possible.
I’ve been briefing pilots for 25 years. As a flight service specialist I understand the weather
patterns in my home region intimately. I know that a low pressure east of a mountain pass will
squirt winds out through that pass that can catch a low flying aircraft in odd ways. I know that
widespread low ceilings in eastern New Mexico or West Texas during the monsoon days of
summer are very thin, and likely will burn off by 9am. I also know that widespread low ceilings pushed onto western shores are much more likely to last for days, and if a really strong
High Pressure is centered in Nevada, southern California will get some nasty high winds at low
levels that don’t affect the surface.
That’s what you get when you call for a standard briefing at flight service, a professional who
looks at the weather for hours every single day for years and
knows how it will affect flight.
To be the best pilot you can be, Get a Briefing. Whether you
brief yourself on a website, or call flight service, take your time
and make sure you understand what environment you are about
to launch yourself and others into. Once your wheels or flo