Next year CSC DUATS contract w/ the FAA comes up for renewal.

At this time the FAA is stating a preference to give the contract to Lockheed.

I don't know about anyone else, but DUATS is one of the most useful services out there and I can't see how giving the contract to Lockheed would do anything but screw it up.

I personally use the Golden Eagle flight planning software, which is FREE, all the time and it is incredibly useful. Will Lockheed have as good a program???

Sounds a lot like $$ changed hands during election season.


I am not sure who to write to, but your Congressman would be a good place to start.

I like DUATS too, for the simplicity and the lightweight nature of a pure text briefing. But I also have to argue that this is 2006. We have weather graphics on our cell phones and Doppler graphics overlayed on our handheld GPS units. DUATS, however, is still pinching digits with a pre-millenium data philosophy.

When you fill out the route of flight form for a briefing with DUATS, does it annoy you that the briefing includes Airmets and Sigmets that are only relevant to the other side of the continent? If CSC loses out and Lockheed gets this contract, I'll be sad to see DUATS go, but I do have hope that a superior product will come along that utilizes the technology of today. DUATS is 60's computing technology with early 90's web technology. It can be improved upon.

That said, I don't really want to see DUATS go away. I'd just like to see something better come along in addition to.

does it annoy you that the briefing includes Airmets and Sigmets that are only relevant to the other side of the continent?

Immensely

Zane,

I believe the notion of giving you ALL the weather warnings is an FAA requirement on the provider, and not necessarily DUATS choice. Basically, what you see with a DUATS briefing is what the AFSS briefer sees when he or she calls up a route, I believe. The AFSS person then edits the material.

Here is the biggest issue of this proposal, though: If DUATS is contracted to Lockheed Martin, you now have ALL legal weather briefings contracted to one entity. Monopolies are generally not good, which is why the FAA originally contracted with two DUATS vendors.

Personally, I think the FAA would love to dump the whole FSS system, and go to all internet briefings. We'd all lose if that happened, though.

I'll keep briefing with AFSS, thanks,

MTV

mtv wrote: Basically, what you see with a DUATS briefing is what the AFSS briefer sees when he or she calls up a route, I believe. The AFSS person then edits the material.

That's how I understand it too. It's at the discretion of the trained briefer what information you hear. It might be more difficult to determine that programmatically and filter the relevant airmets/sigmets, but hey, they're Lockheed. Set a threshold distance for the closest point in the airmet/sigmet boundary point set.

Personally, I think the FAA would love to dump the whole FSS system, and go to all internet briefings.

That would be a big mistake, since last I checked, good internet access is hard to come by at most airports, and even then the weather information available in a pilot lounge is provided by an FBO, not a FAA facility.

Monopolies are bad, yes, but there is some advantage to having a fair amount of cohesion and cooperation between the services. I just hope we get to have an alternative.

If you don't like the reams of data that DUATS outputs ( I know I don't ) go with the Golden Eagle Flight Prep software.

The data is downloaded into a graphical format and then when you plot a route at a given time the appropriate windspeeds at your chosen altitude are plugged in.

You also can get graphical depictions of the weather from the full DUATS download.

I assume other software vendors utilize the DUATS download to give similar outputs.

All the data is there and the software to present it in a more usable form exists and I don't want to start reinventing the wheel.

TD