From my logbook 12th September, 1960........
Report for Duty @ 20.40. GMT
Flight - London/Shannon/Keflavik/Detroit
Landed 14.40 GMT
That's 3 sectors, 18 hours, on my calculator.
Just curious--how many times a month did you do that? How much time in Detroit was given to recover? Were you allowed to doze on the flight deck? How much vacation did you receive a year? How many months of the 12 months were over 90 hours hard time? Was your carrier at the time engaged in any action to force concessions to your pilot group? What was the planned retirement age for you when you did this? Were you constantly stressed by the uncertainties of the "career" choice or did the public and press stil think that you were better than a felon? As one of the other posters asked what was the accident rate then?
Not to be provocative but at my age it boils down to the rather wistful obligation to be somewhat alert on the flight deck--that should after all not be a high hurdle for a company to arrange but it is.
I would imagine that every poster on this forum who has been flying for any amount of time has experienced breathtaking stretches of time without sleep. In the military our "augmented" (could be a co-pilot day 1 out of the schoolhouse) duty day was 24 hours. If that started at 10 p.m. so be it. I do not think this kind of thing is safe in the slightest and although that type of day is not allowed for most airline operations the scheduling can be just as brutal and not surprisngly, in my experience, often so.
I really dig the ideas of self-actualization that are extant in the world as people post their thoughts Guys and gals summit Everest without gas, Lord Coe ran a sub 1:42 800 meters, I knew a trucker that drove from St Louis to L.A only stopping for gas and food. These men and women have every right to savor their "toughness" and prowess compared to mere mortals--Ah, those 10,000 men abed in England whilst I was out fighting the good fight. Others relish the idea of working in an office 17 hours a day.
Note to such individuals: Leave me out of your self-actualization schemes. When I am transporting your family across the world I should be rested and fit. If that is "soft" to you tough--go buy an airplane and self-actualize to your hearts content--just not with my relatives on board. This is the transportation industry--not a springboard to collect experiences that one can yield into bragging rights.
