Yarpy
The current roster on the Air Contractors A300 is 8 on 6 off, starting on either a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. The 8 days must include a 'legal rest day' which for the purpose of this roster only is a minimum of 24 hours off (and is not the same as a day off which must include 2 local nights). The duty week starts at 0001 on Monday morning. Under IAA regs we can do 12 duty hours on a 3 - sector night, or 11hrs30mins on a 4 - sector night. The maximum allowed on any 8 day period is 65 rostered hours. The company can ask you to operate into a 9th day but this happens only rarely (twice in the last year for me) and is usually used to cope with last minute changes imposed by DHL.
The roster works very well despite a few initial misgivings and the opposition of a few within ACL.
The 727 work pattern is considerably worse, offers no roster stability, and is a good reason why we should ALL try ensure that the 8 and 6 continues. Unfortunately there is a train of thought within ACL that rather than try to improve conditions for everyone, it would be easier to put everyone on a 727-type roster i.e. equal misery for all. Not very enlightened thinking I fear!
Hope this os of use to you.