I am a Lockheed Martin Flight Service Specialist and this is for controllers who ponder why flight service does some of the things we do.
Tower Light Notams = We all know how annoying these things are. We hate having to coordinate these things with air traffic just as much as controllers hate us calling them with these. Unfortunately the FAA requires us to do this and very closely monitors this. We are constantly fighting with the FAA to drop the coordination requirement on these.
IFR flight plan amendments = We dont have FDIO so we have no way of ammending anything on any IFR flight plans 30min or less prior to departure as they leave our system and go into the NAS system. Therefore we have to call FD at the centers and tracons to make amendments. This also means we cant amened info on active IFR plans. Several times I have had aircraft call me up in the flight levels requesting amendments. While it would be nice to do for ATC since they are quite busy we can't since we dont have FDIO. I wish we did have it, becauase it would make things easier for all of us.
Cant reach the right person looking for a clearance = Lockheed has 3 hubs, Prescott which handles the whole western 1/3 of the US, Dallas which handles the central 1/3, and DC which handles the eastern 1/3. Each hub has AOR's which handle several states. Flight Data recieves the calls from pilots for these. However each AOR has several flight data people. The easiest thing to do is just say the airport and callsign and we will find who has the pilot on the line and have that specialist pick up the line you are on.
Lost radar and or radio contact on IFR or IFR aircraft didnt cancel FP = Flight Service is not responsible for IFR aircraft and is technically only obligated to help you find them once an ALNOT is issued. Now, personally I help ATC out right away by digging through our database as we often have pilot info from briefings they requested and we have the phone numbers to just about everywhere. Some specialists however will tell you they wont do anything untill an ALNOT is issued. Its not that they are lazy, but that they are fearful. Once they begin helping you they are now partly responsible.
A bit about me. I am a commercial pilot and worked as a controller for a short time with the FAA. I am young (early 20's) and went to college for aeronautics. My plan was to do air traffic. However the low pay was too much of a burden. I was assigned a level 11 ATC facility and make more money in flight service than I would as a CPC there. Pretty sad isn't it. Plus I work with great people and got to pick the schedule I wanted with no problems. Years ago I would have laughed if someone said I would work flight service. It really is a job very much misunderstood. It gets crazy busy and can be very challenging and stressful. In the end I actually ended up liking flight service better.
Tower Light Notams = We all know how annoying these things are. We hate having to coordinate these things with air traffic just as much as controllers hate us calling them with these. Unfortunately the FAA requires us to do this and very closely monitors this. We are constantly fighting with the FAA to drop the coordination requirement on these.
IFR flight plan amendments = We dont have FDIO so we have no way of ammending anything on any IFR flight plans 30min or less prior to departure as they leave our system and go into the NAS system. Therefore we have to call FD at the centers and tracons to make amendments. This also means we cant amened info on active IFR plans. Several times I have had aircraft call me up in the flight levels requesting amendments. While it would be nice to do for ATC since they are quite busy we can't since we dont have FDIO. I wish we did have it, becauase it would make things easier for all of us.
Cant reach the right person looking for a clearance = Lockheed has 3 hubs, Prescott which handles the whole western 1/3 of the US, Dallas which handles the central 1/3, and DC which handles the eastern 1/3. Each hub has AOR's which handle several states. Flight Data recieves the calls from pilots for these. However each AOR has several flight data people. The easiest thing to do is just say the airport and callsign and we will find who has the pilot on the line and have that specialist pick up the line you are on.
Lost radar and or radio contact on IFR or IFR aircraft didnt cancel FP = Flight Service is not responsible for IFR aircraft and is technically only obligated to help you find them once an ALNOT is issued. Now, personally I help ATC out right away by digging through our database as we often have pilot info from briefings they requested and we have the phone numbers to just about everywhere. Some specialists however will tell you they wont do anything untill an ALNOT is issued. Its not that they are lazy, but that they are fearful. Once they begin helping you they are now partly responsible.
A bit about me. I am a commercial pilot and worked as a controller for a short time with the FAA. I am young (early 20's) and went to college for aeronautics. My plan was to do air traffic. However the low pay was too much of a burden. I was assigned a level 11 ATC facility and make more money in flight service than I would as a CPC there. Pretty sad isn't it. Plus I work with great people and got to pick the schedule I wanted with no problems. Years ago I would have laughed if someone said I would work flight service. It really is a job very much misunderstood. It gets crazy busy and can be very challenging and stressful. In the end I actually ended up liking flight service better.