Flight Information Centre
Flight Information Centres (FICs) are Canadian clearing houses for flight-related information, operated by NAV CANADA.
NAV CANADA's Flight Information Centres (FIC) and Flight Service Stations (FSS) are located to provide maximum coverage and assistance to aircraft flying in all areas of Canada. Flight service specialists staff these stations, providing essential aviation-related information to support mainly general aviation, commercial and private. Pilots can contact FICs to obtain any pre-flight information required 24 hours a day. The specialist will provide callers with an interpretation of the latest weather reports, forecasts, satellite images and weather radar, copies of the latest Notice To Airmen (NOTAMs), and file, modify, open, or close a flight plan. Only a few FICs provide for face to face briefings but all can be contacted on a toll free number, or via radio using an RCO (Remote Communications Outlet, located at numerous aerodromes). Historically, the common enroute frequency of 126.7 has been used to contact the FIC, but as general radio traffic has increased, the congestion on that frequency has resulted in a plan by Nav Canada to change over a significant number of RCOs to one of four dedicated FIC frequencies - 123.275, 123.375, 123.475, or 123.55 MHz. When this occurs in a particular area, 126.7 will no longer be monitored by the FIC, however, they will retain broadcast capabilities on 126.7 to transmit urgent messages such as SIGMETs or to aid in a search for an overdue aircraft.
Read more about Flight Information Centre: History
Famous quotes containing the words flight, information and/or centre:
“What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.”
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)
“The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.”
—Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)