Flight Planning with 1800wxbrief

[donkaye]

I posted this on some of the Mooney email lists, and am posting it here because I think this is worth using in your flight planning.

I know there are many flight planning programs out there including those for the iPad, but there is a program out there that I feel worthy of consideration when you’re working on your home computer or laptop.  It was actually designed by our friends at Lockheed.  It can be accessed at : 1800wxbrief.com

There are several videos that describe its operation, making learning the ins and out of the briefing easy, and are really a necessity in getting the full value out of it most quickly.

 

My normal mode of briefing in the past has been to first go to the AOPA weather website and get an overview of the trip.  This can start as early as a week before the planned trip and involves a number of steps and decisions of what to look at on my part.  On trip day I’d go to the iPad and brief again as part of using the iPad to file a flight plan.

 

1800wxbrief goes much farther than that.  First the standard flight plan form is filled out.  Like many other programs, the altitude can be optimized for winds by the program.   The proposed departure time is filled in and then the power of the program comes to light.  Clicking on the Evaluate button will evaluate the flight from various departures times and will show on a chart forecast conditions along the route of flight at the time you would pass the points without having to gather all the information and interpret it yourself, as you would on an airman’s examination.

 

Clicking on the various briefing buttons on the bottom will bring up a chart showing your flight plan and graphically overlaying on the chart the weather you chose to look at from the briefing.

 

Under the Weather menu item at the top of the form graphs of all the important weather products are available all in one place, including the US graph of Lifted index and K factor, so important in considering stability of the air for possible thunderstorm activity.

 

All in all I recommend considering the use of this tool for your flight planning.  I certainly am using it.

[Aviator]

Thanks for the recommendation.  Makes sense for me and I will try 1800WXBRIEF next.  Have tried most flight planning options and continue to look for the best solution.

Jim

 

 

 

[kmyfm20s]

I never used them online but will give it try thanks!

[Robert C.]

Yep, its a good one.

I go back and forth between this LMFSS site and Fltplan.com. The latter has the advantage of a syncing iPad app.

The feature I like most of LMFSS is the timeline/route weather predictor that Don described. Very helpful for planning longer flights.

Robert

[Bob - S50]

I use Lockheed Martin and like it.  Just a couple small things about it I don't care for but overall it works for me.  Nice in that only tabs with information to read will have the green buttons.  However, some of those tabs have a lot of information that does not pertain to my flight.  I've learned to live with it.  The program shows a graphical representation of your route and plots the current tab information on the graph.  For example, when looking at unmanned vehicle areas, it may list 10 of them but none of them are near me.  I've learned to look at the text after each listing.  If it says something like 'not shown on graphic' it tells me it's not near my route of flight and I ignore it.  Same applies on other tabs.

Bob

[Yetti]

how does this compare with duats?    I have a duats account to work with efbdroid briefings internal to app.  Duats seems to be upping their game with some planning and winds level suggestions and such

[donkaye]

Duats isn't bad, but you still have to do a lot of the analysis that is done automatically with 1800wxbrief.

[Bob_Belville]

I moved from CSC DUATS to fltplan.com a while back when there was some talk of DUATS going away. I like it much better.

Don, one nice feature is getting email on my smart phone on the status of flight plans: when they get filed, what changes to filed routing I can expect. Does LM have that service? I registered for 1800... and plan to try it on my next flight.

[Mooneymite]

I tried your link using Chrome and it opened a home page, but about 60% of it was missing.  When I switched to IE, the link worked properly (I think).

I'm not sure if there are any advantages over Fltplan.com, and the learning curve seems pretty steep.  It isn't (to me) as intuitive as Fltplan.com.  Obviously, what you learn first seems more intuitive than a new program.

Can you give some examples of   1800wxbrief.com 's advantages over Fltplan.com?

[Andy95W]

28 minutes ago, Bob_Belville said:

I moved from CSC DUATS to fltplan.com a while back when there was some talk of DUATS going away. I like it much better.

Don, one nice feature is getting email on my smart phone on the status of flight plans: when they get filed, what changes to filed routing I can expect. Does LM have that service? I registered for 1800... and plan to try it on my next flight.

I'm with you, Bob.  I really like  CSC DUATS, its flight plan printout, and the best thing- as you said- getting a text message with my ATC routing even before I pick up my clearance.  Makes it real easy to program the GPS one time instead of literally on the fly.

It was my understanding that DUAT went away about a year ago (?) but DUATS got refunded.

I tried Lockheed Martin because Don suggested it, but I may be too much of an old dog to change.  Woof.

[donkaye]

1 hour ago, N1395W said:

I'm with you, Bob.  I really like  CSC DUATS, its flight plan printout, and the best thing- as you said- getting a text message with my ATC routing even before I pick up my clearance.  Makes it real easy to program the GPS one time instead of literally on the fly.

It was my understanding that DUAT went away about a year ago (?) but DUATS got refunded.

I tried Lockheed Martin because Don suggested it, but I may be too much of an old dog to change.  Woof.

Even old dogs can learn new tricks. Fltplan.com is interesting, but I can't find a button that will automatically give you forecasted weather at each point along your route of flight at the time you are projected to be there.

1800wxbrief requires almost no learning.  Go to flight planning and fill out the flight plan form as displayed and that you have done since you learned to fly.  Next click on the Optimize button in the altitude box to optimize you enroute altitude for winds.  Then click on the Evaluate button on in the Departure Date & Time Box.  Now you will see a graph of the forecasted weather along your route of flight and it will indicate whether it is VFR, MVFR, IFR, LIFR, or unknown and whether there are any adverse conditions.  If conditions are bad you can stop right there.  Otherwise, click on the Standard Brief button at the bottom and a new screen will pop up showing graphically your flight plan on you route with a multitude of weather choices to overlay on the route to further assist in decision making.

I use this in conjunction with Garmin Pilot which will feedback flight plan changes and is used in the air.  I use GP mainly because I have the Flight Stream 210 and ADS-B weather, traffic, XM weather and radio, and WAAS GPS position that is blue toothed to the iPad and 796 (XM weather and radio separate on the 796).

[Andy95W]

I get it. It's great. I'm glad I opened an account based on your recommendation. I will continue to mess around with it to learn it better. 

I've been using CSC DUATS since 1992 and it does what I need it to do and the products closely mimic the ones I get at work. Most of my personal flights are 3 hours or less so it's pretty easy to have a good mental picture of weather enroute. 

[laytonl]

I don't use Lockheed Martin because their password requirements are too onerous.  More like a corporate account than a consumer account.  Lee

[donkaye]

18 minutes ago, laytonl said:

I don't use Lockheed Martin because their password requirements are too onerous.  More like a corporate account than a consumer account.  Lee

What computer are you using?  I'm using a Mac.  I type in 1800wxbrief.com on the URL line of Safari, the entry screen comes up prefilled in with name and password, and I'm into the system.  Couldn't be any easier.

[Seth]

This is great information.  I'll have to look online and see which solution works best for me.

 

-Seth

[laytonl]

4 hours ago, donkaye said:

What computer are you using?  I'm using a Mac.  I type in 1800wxbrief.com on the URL line of Safari, the entry screen comes up prefilled in with name and password, and I'm into the system.  Couldn't be any easier.

I'm using a PC.  Haven't tried it on the iPad.   Generally just use ADDS anyway.  Lee

[Bob - S50]

Just thought of one thing that Lockheed could do better.  I don't care for their flight log form.  While you can choose to a limited degree what information you want, the text prints out too small for me.  I much prefer the larger print I get from Skyvector.com.  So I use LM for my briefing, and Skyvector for my flight log.

[donkaye]

 

1 hour ago, Bob - S50 said:

Just thought of one thing that Lockheed could do better.  I don't care for their flight log form.  While you can choose to a limited degree what information you want, the text prints out too small for me.  I much prefer the larger print I get from Skyvector.com.  So I use LM for my briefing, and Skyvector for my flight log.

I agree with you on that one.  The print is too small.  Frankly, I prefer the old Duats flight Log.  That doesn't, however, negate the value of the enroute planning.