Black Box Brief — The brief that keeps you out of the box

Preflight briefing — delivered via WhatsApp

THE BRIEF THAT KEEPS YOU OUT OF THE BOX

Text your route. Get a complete preflight brief in seconds.
METARs. TAFs. AIRMETs. NOTAMs. TFRs. IFR procedures.
Go/no-go called for you. Right in WhatsApp. No app. No login.

See a full brief How it works

$9.99

per month — everything included

Works with your EFB

Black Box Brief is not a replacement for your EFB. ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, FltPlan Go — keep using them. Black Box Brief is the fast, interpreted, go/no-go brief you get before you even open your EFB. One text. One answer. Should I go?

Your EFB briefing flow

OPEN APP. NAVIGATE. INTERPRET.

01 Open your EFB and navigate to weather

02 Enter departure and destination

03 Tap through METARs, TAFs, AIRMETs, NOTAMs separately

04 Cross-reference winds aloft against your route manually

05 Build your own go/no-go picture from raw data

06 Check TFRs separately. Check NOTAMs separately.

Powerful. Comprehensive. Takes time and attention to do right.

Black Box Brief flow

TEXT. READ. DECIDE.

01 Text "brief KCRQ to KPRB" to Black Box Brief

02 Read one message

03 Go/no-go is already called

Everything interpreted. Everything in one place. Go/no-go in seconds — then open your EFB and fly.

The full brief — nothing held back

THIS IS WHAT LANDS IN YOUR WHATSAPP.

Every subscriber gets the complete brief. Toggle between Full Send — every detail, every raw string — and ABV, the same safety-critical information compressed for a fast read. Both formats. Your choice. Included at $9.99/mo.

Your WhatsApp conversation

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Black Box Brief

● online

Saturday, 14:32Z

brief KCRQ to KPRB

📦 BLACK BOX BRIEF — FULL SEND ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ VFR | KCRQ → KPRB Dep: Now | Est. cruise: 8,500ft MSL Distance: ~195nm | Est. flight time: ~2h10m 🟢 GO — VFR conditions favorable throughout ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DEPARTURE — KCRQ McClellan-Palomar Airport | Elev: 331ft MSL METAR: KCRQ 181432Z 20005KT 10SM CLR 18/12 A2988 RMK AO2 SLP117 T01830122 Decoded: Wind: 200° at 5kts | Vis: 10SM | Sky: Clear Temp: 18°C / Dew: 12°C | Alt: 29.88" Density Alt: ~1,140ft — normal for field elev TAF KCRQ (valid 18/12Z–19/12Z): 20008KT P6SM SKC FM182000 VRB04KT P6SM FEW015 FM190200 VRB03KT P6SM BKN015 → Departure window clear. Marine layer expected after 2000Z local — depart before evening if possible. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DESTINATION — KPRB Paso Robles Municipal | Elev: 840ft MSL METAR: KPRB 181415Z AUTO VRB04KT 10SM FEW055 22/08 A2991 RMK AO2 SLP118 Decoded: Wind: Variable at 4kts | Vis: 10SM Sky: Few clouds at 5,500ft | Temp: 22°C Alt: 29.91" | Density Alt: ~2,280ft TAF KPRB (valid 18/12Z–19/12Z): VRB05KT P6SM FEW060 FM182100 00000KT P6SM SKC FM190600 VRB03KT P6SM SKC → Conditions improving through afternoon. Evening arrival favorable. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ EN ROUTE WEATHER AIRMETs: AIRMET SIERRA — None on route AIRMET TANGO — None on route AIRMET ZULU — None on route SIGMETs: None active along KCRQ→KPRB corridor PIREPs (within 50nm of route): No PIREPs filed for this corridor in the past 2 hours. Frontal Activity: High pressure ridge dominant over Southern California and Central Coast. No frontal boundaries within 300nm of route. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TFRs No TFRs active along KCRQ→KPRB route at time of brief. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NOTAMs KCRQ: No operationally relevant NOTAMs KPRB: No operationally relevant NOTAMs ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WINDS ALOFT — 8,500ft MSL LAX (VOR) 270° @ 18kts Temp: -2°C MQO (VOR) 250° @ 22kts Temp: -4°C Tailwind component: +6kts ✈️ Fuel flag: No — headwind component under 10kts, no flag required Freezing Level: 12,500ft MSL — well above cruise altitude No icing concern for VFR at 8,500ft ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ROUTE RECOMMENDATION Most commonly filed KCRQ→KPRB: CRQ V25 SLI V363 PRB → Coastal departure, inland via Victor airways. Avoids Restricted Areas R-2535 and R-2534 (Camp Pendleton complex). Recommended cruise: 8,500ft (VFR east) or 9,500ft depending on density alt. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FBO & FUEL — KPRB ACI Jet — (805) 238-1770 100LL: $6.42/gal | Jet-A: $5.89/gal Hours: 0600–2200L | Self-serve avail. Cards: Visa, MC, AVCARD, Multiservice Pacific Coast Aviation 100LL: $6.71/gal Hours: 0700–1900L Cards: Visa, MC, Phillips 66 ⚠ Prices self-reported. Verify before dep. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PLANNING 🌅 Sunrise: 06:16L | Sunset: 19:21L ETA est. 16:45L — Day arrival ✓ Density alt at KPRB: ~2,280ft (performance planning advised) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🟢 GO — Clear skies, tailwind, clean route. Paso Robles is waiting, Captain. Fly safe and enjoy the Central Coast. ✈️ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📦 Black Box Brief The brief that keeps you out of the box. Data valid: 18 Apr 2026 14:32Z

📦 BLACK BOX BRIEF — ABV VFR | KCRQ→KPRB | 8,500ft 🟢 GO — VFR favorable throughout KCRQ 20005KT 10SM CLR 18/12 A2988 KPRB VRB04KT 10SM FEW055 22/08 A2991 AIRMETs: None | SIGMETs: None TFRs: None | NOTAMs: None relevant WINDS 8,500ft: 270@18→250@22 | Tailwind +6kts ✈️ Temp -2°C | Freeze level 12,500ft ROUTE: CRQ V25 SLI V363 PRB FUEL KPRB: 100LL $6.42 (ACI Jet) 🌅 Sunset 19:21L — Day arrival ✓ Clear skies and a push from behind. Go enjoy Paso Robles, Captain. ✈️ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📦 Black Box Brief | 14:32Z

What's inside every brief

Departure & Destination

Raw METAR + decoded conditions, full TAF with time groups analyzed against your ETA, density altitude calculated at both ends.

En Route Hazards

AIRMETs (Sierra, Tango, Zulu) and SIGMETs filtered for your specific route corridor. PIREPs within 50nm. Frontal and pressure system activity.

TFRs & NOTAMs

Active TFRs along your route. Operationally relevant NOTAMs only — runway closures, navaid outages, approach outages. Administrative noise filtered out.

Winds & Icing

Winds aloft at your cruise altitude with headwind/tailwind component. Freezing level explicitly called out. Fuel flag on strong headwinds.

Route Recommendation

Most commonly filed and cleared routes for your city pair. Cross-referenced against active weather. Real filed routes only — never invented.

FBO & Fuel

Live 100LL and Jet-A prices, FBO hours, phone numbers, fuel card acceptance at your destination. Live reported data only.

Go/No-Go + Affirmation

Green, yellow, or red go/no-go color based on all collected data. A fresh, contextual affirmation generated every brief — never repeated.

EVERYTHING YOUR BRIEF NEEDS. NOTHING IT DOESN'T.

Every section built from live FAA and NOAA data — pulled fresh the moment you text. No stale data. No invented information. If it's not there, we say so.

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Complete Weather

METARs, TAFs, PIREPs, AIRMETs (Sierra, Tango, Zulu), SIGMETs, winds aloft, freezing level, and frontal activity — pulled live from aviationweather.gov every brief.

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TFRs & NOTAMs

Active TFRs and operationally relevant NOTAMs filtered for your specific route and altitude. Runway closures, navaid outages, approach outages — surfaced clearly, administrative noise filtered out.

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Full IFR Package

Auto-detected when conditions require it. SIDs, STARs, all published approaches with minimums, alternate required check per FAR 91.169, and alternate airport data — all included.

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Route Recommendation

Most commonly filed and cleared routes for your city pair, cross-referenced against active weather. Real filed routes only — Black Box Brief never invents a route string.

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FBO & Fuel

Current 100LL and Jet-A prices, FBO hours, phone numbers, services, and fuel card acceptance at your destination. Live reported data only — never estimated, never invented.

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Safety Contact

Confirm your flight and your safety contact automatically receives your route, altitude, departure time, key hazards, and ETA. Text "landed" when you're down — they're notified instantly.

Setup takes two minutes

HOW IT WORKS

Sign up for $9.99/mo. You'll receive a WhatsApp message from Black Box Brief to complete your pilot profile — name or callsign, aircraft type, and brief format preference.

Save the number

Save the Black Box Brief WhatsApp number in your contacts. Your briefing tool — available 24/7 from any device you have WhatsApp on.

Text your route

"brief KCRQ to KPRB" or "brief KSFO to KLAX IFR 11000" — plain English. Black Box Brief parses your request and pulls live data from FAA sources immediately.

Fly informed

Get your complete go/no-go brief in seconds. Confirm your flight and your safety contact is notified. Text "landed" when you're down — done.

Pricing

ONE PRICE.
EVERYTHING
INCLUDED.

No tiers. No feature gates. No surprises. Every pilot gets the full brief — VFR, IFR, routes, fuel, safety contact — for one flat monthly rate. Cancel anytime, no questions asked.

📦 Black Box Brief

$9.99

per month — cancel anytime

✓ Unlimited VFR and IFR preflight briefs
✓ Live weather — METARs, TAFs, PIREPs, AIRMETs, SIGMETs
✓ TFRs and NOTAMs filtered for your route
✓ Route recommendations — real filed routes only
✓ FBO and fuel lookup at any airport
✓ Full IFR procedures — SIDs, STARs, approaches, alternates
✓ Safety contact notification system
✓ Full Send or ABV format — your preference
✓ Go/no-go color with fresh affirmation every brief
✓ 24/7 availability via WhatsApp

Subscribe now — $9.99/mo

Have a promo or access code? Enter it at checkout.

⚠ Notice

Black Box Brief is not an FAA-certificated weather briefing service and does not replace an official preflight briefing from 1800wxbrief.com or a certificated Flight Service Station. All data is provided as-is from publicly available government sources with no guarantee of accuracy, completeness, or timeliness. The Pilot in Command is solely responsible for all preflight planning and go/no-go decisions pursuant to FAR 91.103. Black Box Brief and its operators assume no liability for decisions made based on information provided through this service. Use of this service constitutes acceptance of full Terms of Service provided at onboarding.