P&E TECHNOLOGY Modernizing the FAA weather briefing Your flight service station has changed B Y A LTO N K . M A R S H DID YOU KNOW you can open and close a visual flight rules (VFR) flight plan via email from today's FAA flight service station? Prior to the flight, Lockheed Martin Flight Services-currently running flight service stations for the FAA under contract-will send you an "EasyActivate" email, and when you are ready to take off you click on a link. The flight service system responds that your plan is activated. After your arrival, look for an EasyClose email, click on the link, and a confirmation arrives that the flightplan is closed. Those are two of the changes you'll find at today's flight service station. Chances are you didn't know that because you use one of a half-dozen or more competing flight-planning services, including the new one just launched by AOPA with Jeppesen (www.aopa.org/Jeppesenonlineflightplanner). It's time to take a look at what has happened to the FAA's old phone and face-to-face briefings that many learned to use in decades past. Technology now www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 101http://www.aopa.org/Jeppesenonlineflightplanner http://www.aopa.org/pilot