There seems to be a worrying amount of guys on here saying how tired, knackered, dead-on-their-feet they are. I am not a pilot (yet) but will be starting training very shortly, and just wondered what makes people so tired?
Please don't jump down my throat but I'm struggling to see how people can be so tired they had to pull over at road services 20 mins away from home after a shift as one poster mentioned. Surely you can't be that tired? I mean let's say you flew 900 hours a year, and doubled that for ground duties ect (I don't know exactly how much that would be but I can't see it being more than that) that's still 1800 hours per year, considerably less than many other professions that involve a lot of physical work also.
I can understand that early mornings are hard work, and certainly 12 hour days are very tiring but these are by no means unique to professional flying.
Again I'm not disputing that people are very tired, and I may well be completely missing the point as to the reasons why they are so please excuse my ignorance but if anyone could explain exactly what's causing it it would be very helpful, mainly to help me make an informed choice as to whether a professional pilot career is truly what I want.