Definition
An advisory service provided by a Flight Service Station (FSS) located away from an airport that does not have an operating control tower. The remote FSS supplies arriving and departing pilots with information such as wind, weather, runway in use, known traffic, and field conditions to assist them in operating safely at that airport.
Plain English
A service where a Flight Service Station — not located at the airport itself — passes along useful information by radio to pilots flying into or out of an uncontrolled airport, helping them make safer decisions about landing, taking off, and avoiding other aircraft.
Context Anchor
Seen in airport information for selected non-towered airports and used when calling Flight Service near that airport.
Derivation
‘Remote’ here means the advisory service is provided from a location away from the airport — the FSS specialist is not at the field, but is communicating from elsewhere. This contrasts with a Local Airport Advisory, where the FSS is on the airport itself.
Why Pilots Care
Enables safe operations at unstaffed airports by giving pilots essential real-time information they cannot obtain locally.
Intuition Check
Remote Airport Advisory does not mean a controller is remotely running the airport. It means Flight Service is giving helpful airport information from somewhere else.
Example Sentence 1
Before entering the traffic pattern, the pilot contacted the Flight Service Station to receive a remote airport advisory on wind and known traffic.
Example Sentence 2
In remote areas, pilots rely on Remote Airport Advisory to learn about traffic and runway conditions at airports with no one on the ground.