Originally Posted by
JW411
Well, I can think of dozens of reasons why he might have got just 4 hours sleep in his hotel room so let us start with just a few:
1. Children running up and down the corridor.
2. The staff emptying bottles into the skip just outside his room.
3. The maid calling on the telephone to see if she can come and clean his room.
4. The air-conditioning has failed and the room is stiflingly hot.
5. The heating has failed and he is freezing his b*lls off.
6. The front desk has just called to see what time he is going to check out.
7. The company has called to change his roster.
And so it goes on and on. How many of you genuine pilots out there can put your hands on your hearts and tell me that you have always enjoyed 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a hotel room somewhere down route?
Dream on!
Been there on all of those and yes, I have fallen asleep on the flight deck. Some of the schedules were crazy - especially as we were "military" and could do a 16 crew duty period with up to 5 sectors and then be required to do an extra hour of "captain's discretion" to get the job done. Think about it: 4 hours sleep, get up at 2am, airborne at 4am, fly until 6.30pm (possibly extend until 7.30pm) and do 5 sectors in the process.
Thank God that we had a 4 man flightdeck so that we could watch over each other.