If you are looking for a great FREE website that combines the best of many free and paid briefing websites in one location, you might find this to be it.
PICBrief.com is a free service of Hilton Software, LLC the makers of WingX software so you can be all but guaranteed that this site will work with phone browers. They bill it as being specifically for the iPhone or your desktop but I’ve also tried it on my Windows Mobile device and it works quite well.
You get standard information that you’d find in the AFD like communications, runways, locations, METARs, TAFs, AFD comments but you’ll also find links to the PDFS of approach plates, DPs, STARs, Minimums and airport diagrams. What really sets it apart from the others, aside from the aforementioned phone friendlieness is that you’ll also see thumbnails of a moving radar picture, a satellite weather picture, sectionals and enroute charts (courtesy of SkyVector.com) as well as a the currently active airmets and sigmets in the continental US.
Of course, like most websites, this isn’t a LEGAL briefing tool. You will still need get an official briefing from either Flight Services or from DUAT/DUATS. I personally like DUATS since it’s mostly text web interface displays quite nicely on my Windows Mobile phone AND it suffices as a legal briefing and it is logged so I can prove I got one if need be. Of course, that coupled with a tool like this and http://weather.aero will help me understand the weather information given in the briefing in more detail.
Give it a try and let us know what you think of this tool in our comment section below…
Tags: brief, duats, yawsa