Weather to Proceed

Remember the old days, when there was an onsite briefing office at the airport? Long before iPhones and tablets, retrieving weather and filing flight plans was a process that involved a physical briefing office, on-site at larger airports. Bankstown Briefing Office, located in what’s now the terminal building, was staffed by Flight Service, ATC and staff from the Bureau of Meteorology, who were known colloquially as the "Met Men". All the capital city secondary airports had a briefing office, and so too did the many regional centres where Flight Service had a base.

The Met Men would verbally brief pilots and hand out printed weather forecasts, containing TAFs and ARFORs with the en route winds (it would be the job of the pilot to whip out the whizz wheel and enter the winds into the flight plan). The weather counter even had a weather radar. Often, a conscientious staffer would annotate a weather map of the immediate area by hand, helpfully detailing the day’s non-VMC weather for pilots.

Flight Service Officers would check pilots’ VFR flight plans and give them a stamp when ready to go. IFR plans would be passed to the duty ATC Officer for approval. Flight plans that ventured into the sticks would often attract a "NOSAR outside VHF coverage" endorsement to remind the pilot