Allows For Electronic Inflight PIREP Submissions

Lockheed Martin has released version 9.1 of its Flight Services product that allows for inflight electronic PIREP submission along with many other enhancements and new capabilities.

Inflight PIREP submission is the most recent component of the Flight Services Data Link strategy, building on the cockpit to ground communications capability put in place for inflight Adverse Condition Alerting Service (ACAS) alerts and Surveillance-Enhanced Search and Rescue (SE-SAR). Every pilot knows the value of PIREPs. The PIREP submission infrastructure lets you submit PIREPs without contacting Flight Service via radio, and Urgent PIREPs are immediately uplinked to other pilots registered for ACAS and flying in the same area.

Additionally, Garmin and DeLorme have joined the group of industry partners that have integrated with those services. And, based on user feedback, Lockheed says it has improved the ACAS alert messages. The text and inflight satellite communications messages are easier to understand, and the email alerts now contain complete information about the adverse condition, including a graphic showing where it’s located along the route of flight.

Color-coded time tags for intersections with adverse conditions have also been added to the latest release, allowing the pilot to know if a condition is active when passing (red), within an hour of being active (orange), or an hour or more from being active (green). NOTAMS have been reorganized so that less frequently referenced NOTAMs (e.g., airports along the route of flight) are segregated into their own tab, and filters have been added to obstruction and Navaid NOTAMs to help pilots focus on the ones that are relevant to their flight. Plain text translation is now available for several more sections.

Wondering what’s changed since your last briefing? If you received a standard briefing for a flight (online or via specialist), all subsequent online briefings contain an automatically inserted new section under Adverse Conditions called "Delta". It contains all new or modified adverse conditions since your last standard briefing.

Pilots can also email copies of their briefings to themselves and schedule a briefing to be generated and emailed at a specific time.

All pilot interactions with the web portal have always been recorded. Now pilots can view and print the last 15 days of their transaction history on the website (see History under the Flight Planning & Briefing menu selection).

To support flight planning, Lockheed Martin has implemented an Altitude Optimization tool. It checks two levels above and below the flight plan altitude and provides time and fuel burn estimates based on forecast winds and aircraft performance characteristics. The NavLog function is also available.

More details are available from the Announcements function in the web portal (automatically displays the first time you logon after a release, and always available under the Help menu selection). Additional capabilities will be rolled out in the fall.

FMI: www.lockheedmartin.com