The results of a recent Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Aviation eBrief poll on pilot familiarity with Advisory Circular (AC) 91-92 shows a staggering level of ignorance among those who answered the survey.
I don’t know how many people responded, but 77.92% answering “no” when asked if they were familiar with AC 91-92 is pretty overwhelming.
For the record, AC 91-92 is titled, “Pilot’s Guide to a Preflight Briefing.”
The AOPA’s annual weather survey — a more formal look at pilot awareness of AC 91-92 — shows that fewer pilots are calling Flight Service for preflight weather briefings, instead relying on apps and even general weather sites for their briefings.
The survey was sent to 30,000 members and saw nearly 2,500 responses. It found that a whopping 68% of pilots have never heard of or are only “slightly familiar” with the Advisory Circular.
AOPA officials suggest the FAA and industry should continue outreach efforts to increase awareness of the AC’s guidance and resources.
Given the dismal weather survey response, you might think accidents in general and weather-related accidents specifically are trending in the wrong direction.
Not so according to the AOPA Air Safety Institute’s annual Nall Report.
The straight lines in the chart are the trends for weather-related accidents (blue) and total accidents (red).
Even better, the weather-related accident trend is the steeper of the two.
But how can that be if fewer pilots are calling Flight Service for preflight briefings and the majority of pilots aren’t aware of AC 91-92, which instructs how to perform a proper self-briefing?
I can’t help but wonder if the FAA ever heard of ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, FlyQ, and the electronic flight bag (EFB) marketplace in general.
ForeFlight added Graphical Preflight Briefing in 2015 — seven years ago.
Watching the video I couldn’t help but think back to calling Flight Service and drawing all those Airmet boxes in my head and on the paper chart laid out in front of me. What a nightmare.
And then there’s this little nugget on the ForeFlight website, “ForeFlight Briefings are timestamped and stored in the app on your iPad and iPhone, and in the ForeFlight cloud, to record that you obtained weather and pertinent NOTAMs in compliant manner with 14 CFR 91.103(a) preflight action.”
In case you’ve forgotten, 14 CFR 91.103 states, as AC 91-92 reminds us, “Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight.”
The EFB marketplace just makes it far easier to gather preflight information and engage with it.
In other words, as EFB usage has increased, more pilots have likely been successfully self-briefing. All while being ignorant of AC 91-92.
The effect, from my perspective, is showing up in accident statistics cited in the Nall Report. Good on us.
Maybe we’re not that ignorant after all.
Calling weather brief has always been courteous. However, an all clear good VFR left me landing at night in a blinding snowstorm within 45 minutes. And within 2 hours landing so iced I couldn’t maintain altitude on another occasion. Fortunately my decent and the runway came together in a timely fashion.
I was taught 48 years ago…what you see is what you’ve got. Hasn’t changed a bit!
I’ve called Fright Service’s 1-800 number twice in the past year, and found it slow, clumsy, and unhelpful. Case in point: I made my way past the recorded go-away messages, held on ‘ignore’ for ten minutes despite being assured I was first in line. The human “briefer” seemed surprised and annoyed that I barged in on his day, ignored my introductory request (good morning. a/c #, type of briefing, departure time, type and altitude, route of flight, etc.) with a tired request for the very info I had just given, along with the news that this stuff is available online.
Honey, if I had decent internet out here, f I weren’t driving, I wouldn’t be disturbing your nap. (No, I didn’t say that, but tempting.) The briefing was disjointed, lots of inapplicable NOTAMs, and the specific airspace info I asked for not available. So I finally thanked him, said I’d like to file, Huh? Oh, ok, well, um… aircraft number? And the rest of the info I had just given him not ten minutes earlier.
Got to the airport 15 minutes later, eventually departed vfr, called for my clearance, and ATC had…nothing. Went through the call -FSS rigamarole. My tax dollars at work.
You know what? I am stuck in the last century’s good old days when a balding avuncular chap would greet me warmly from across the counter, tear off a sheet of thermofax paper and mark it up for me, pointing out potential pitfalls and wish me a great flight. I miss that guy. I probably won’t be inconveniencing that poor 1-800-wxbrief fellow again if I can help it.
Flight Service has been known for decades as 1-800-VFR-NOT-RECOMMENDED. No question the visual weather apps beat listening to someone on the phone and trying to draw that into a map in your head. In flight weather availability through either ADS-B or XM gives pilots real time weather conditions while en route and keeps you up to date on conditions at your destination. For the average VFR Pilot, Flight Service weather briefings are redundant.