The Flight Service Station (called FSS) position has the responsibility of ensuring the provision of aeronautical information and service to aircraft pilots before, during, and after flights.
The people who communicate with pilots from an FSS are referred to as Flight Service Specialists.
The FSS controller is responsible for:
- Providing flight information in his airspace which can cover a flight information region (FIR) or a part of it.
- Providing flight assistance and information for aviation safety.
- Monitoring activities to ensure that aircraft are moving and events are occurring as expected
- Relaying ATC clearances when applicable (approach, arrival, departure...)
The FSS controller deals with:
The FSS controller is never responsible for:
- Giving any control instructions (route, level)
- Giving any landing and take-off clearance
- Giving his own clearance (approach, arrival, departure ...)
- Giving instruction to provide separation
The Flight Service Station agent is not a controller. He has no rights to give control instructions and clearances except for oceanic Flight Service Station which can give ATC clearance when applicable.
This position is mainly available in North America. Some countries, such as Canada and the United States, have been consolidating flight services into large regional centres with remote communications outlets (RCOs) connected to the centres.
The precise services offered by stations vary by country. Usual FSS services may provide:
In many countries, flight service stations also operate at mandatory frequency airports to help co-ordinate traffic in the absence of air traffic controllers.
The FSS agent should prioritize tasks using the following order as guideline:
All special IVAO procedures are mandatory since they fit to situations or special IVAO features which cannot happen in real life while they may occur on the network because of its proper limitations.
It is the responsibility of the division to create a FSS position in their flight information regions.
As this position is mainly available in North America, this position is not commonly used in IVAO.
The FSS controller shall verify that flight strips are correctly filled. In the case of a sudden pilot disconnection, the FSS controller must refill the flight strip before transferring the traffic to the next controller.
With the absence of nearby ATC or FSS station and when aircraft leaves its area of responsibility, the FSS agent transfers traffic to UNICOM 122.800.
As FSS position is not a controlled position and the radio contact between aircraft and the FSS station is optional. So, FSS position shall never use the FORCE ACT command (except for oceanic station which require clearance to enter)
The FSS controller ensures that the transponder is set to:
Setting the transponder to TX mode at the holding point and to STANDBY on the runway just after landing is permitted.