A good visual lookout doctrine is assumed in all of the situations discussed above and should be your first line of defense (it is mine anyway). Procedural control, radar control, radar advisories, whatever - just keep your head on a swivel.

I don't buy your contention that FSS is useless in this case MTV. Supervisor testimony or not, FSS can't help you if you don't at least try to pull information from them. FSS won't be able to tell you where the flight is on the route, but they can tell you that a flight checked onto the route at time X. That information alone should tell you that there are higher odds than usual that you might see some traffic. In numerous instances I've checked onto a route and had FSS advise me that another flight had checked on some time earlier.

FYI if you like transiting Saline or Panamint moa's. As mentioned prior, Joshua cannot see you if you are lower than 10,000 or so. That said, the fighters are usually up in the low teens to middle 20's for work. They also will go down on the deck to play and if your down there they won't see you till the last second. My f18 friend told me a story of when he cancelled, went vfr, and got down on the deck to haul ass. Coming from the south in Panamint valley approaching the pass at the north end he pulled up and went inverted to pull down into Saline valley at about 500 knots. As he was inverted he saw a shadow and glimpsed an all black F4 doing the same thing going the other way. Canopy to canopy at mach snell. Scared the shit out of him to this day and got my attention as to going in there other than the weekends when the moas are cold. The Chicken Strip is a fun place to stop and also the Panamint Resort to the south has a strip behind the hotel and has excellent food and economical rooms plus about 80 different beers on tap. Fly safe.

I had a close encounter with a pair of A-10 Warthogs near Delta in Utah. I first caught glimpse of them at my 2 0'clock as they went across my path less than 200 feet above me and less than a quarter mile in front of me. They disappeared at my 10 o'clock. Whole thing took about 4 seconds. I thought it was very kuhl. I might have filed it in a different category if I had been flying something other than the Audi on Hwy 50 at the time.

Vick,

In the three flight service stations I discussed this with, all of which have MTR's in their areas, all three said they don't even record when a military jet enters a route. That may not be the case everywhere, but I then asked them "Isn't there a procedure defined to record this information?" their response, in all three cases, was that there is no requirement or procedure for recording this information. They also commented that since the fighters are generally on and off the routes in a short period of time, the FSS folks saw no point in recording the information.

You obviously got lucky, and probably talked to the same guy who took the first call.

Point is, look at the FSS consolidation process now. Nowadays, the guy you talk to doesn't even know the three letter identifier for major airports, and won't take the time to look them up.

Call em for sure--just don't bet that they'll get you any information that's useful.

MTV

Sadly I have to agree with you regarding recent FSS service - I don't think the LMT contract has done the system any favors. I gave up calling them for a wx brief, between the wait to talk to the briefer and the piss poor brief you got when they did take your call I figured I was better off getting the same info straight from a computer.

Most of the middle of Nevada where I live is in a MOA, and personally I never call anyone, or even pay the attention to that fact. However I do call a lot to request clearance through Restricted Areas, with about a 50% success rate.

Mostly I just key the mike and say

DIS IS ARONICA BOB AND IMA COMMIN IN

always worked so far

For my 32 years aloft I've always run right through them, always using FSS information and ATC where available. And keeping eyes peeled, too!