Originally Posted by
deja vu
Is a 14 hour sector with 6-8 hours in the bunk still considered long haul?
Departing at 2030 local for a 14hr flight, I’d say is long haul,
Even with about 6.hrs “off duty” in the bunk that means that two pilots are trying to have a snooze between 2130-0030 and then again about 0330-0630 body time.
The other two pilots are taking their rest at 0030-0330 and then 0630-0930 body time.
Assuming they can go straight to sleep and don’t get disturbed by noise / turbulence / their bladders etc they would feel about average when they all turned up prior to descent.
I average about 2hrs of broken sleep at each break and feel ok by ToD. Not at 100% but good enough. Let’s not pretend that we’re as rested as if we’d been tucked up in our beds / hotel for 6hrs straight.
Having also spent half of my career doing multi sector domestic ops I can categorically say that long haul ops hurt way more - for me. That is offset by more days at home between trips etc but the overall effect on my body and flying skills is that I find long haul tougher overall than 2 man domestic ops day in day out.
Everyone is different.