Night-day rotations on a 4-2-4-6

[Devil 49]

What issues arise from covering a 24/7 position as follows:
Commence duty cycle with 4 nights, 8 PM to 8 AM;
48 hours uninterrupted rest;
Four days, 8 AM to 8 PM;
Off duty 6 calendar days (total 168 hours).

The typical U.S. E.M.S. assignment cycles from days to nights, mid-shift. In my case I work Fri-Sunday on days, and Mon-Thursday nights, which makes no sense to me except as a lazy way of scheduling.
The schedule proposed would seem to allow the individual pilot to acclimate to the night duty assignment as suits one best, nights would come at a point in the duty cycle where you'd be least fatigued, and the 6 day break would minimize the night-day switch. It also reduces the occurence of the sleep disruption issue by extending the cycle from 14 to 16 days.
Two issues occur to me from the proposal:
It appears that a larger portion of ones life is spoken for with duty assignments for a shorter break. My argument is that the first two days of the nominal 7-day break are lost to circadian realignment;
And, the 48 hours between the night assignment and day duty may not be suffficient interval, although it seems an improvement to the present situation.

[arismount]

If not, what they have you doing is all right. That's the way they think, anyway, and you'll not change it. Son, we don't need no stinkin' circadian rhythms, this is helicopter flying, not NASA.

[Devil 49]

Yeah, that's why we fly twice as much in the day as on nights; and have 3 times the accidents at night as on days... What was I thinking?

[ron-powell]

D49:
I guess my first question is why would someone want a 16 day rotation? This means every time the cycle resumes, it starts on a different day of the week. Seems like to me breaking up a 14 day rotation eliminates this using something like: 3-3-4-4 or 7-7. And why are you going from nights to days?
Second question is how much flying are you doing that would dictate short duty periods of 4 days to alleviate fatigue? Or is this an accommodation being made for personal reasons such as someone’s school schedule?
I used to work your present schedule of 3 days, 4 nights, off 7. Personally, I loved it because my last day shift, Sunday, was psychologically like the end of the week for me and then had 24 hours to prepare for Monday night. I didn’t mind the 4 nights because the base has NVGs and didn’t have a crushing flight schedule. With 7 straight days off, I never took a day of vacation because I could go anywhere in the U.S. and spend 5 days there which also meant I didn’t have to disturb another pilot’s break to fill in for me if I was on a schedule with shorter breaks such as the one you have mentioned.
Here’s a schedule I proposed to our former program manager:
Day shift – 0600-1400
Night shift – 1400-2200
Yeah, I know it isn’t 24 hour coverage, but it means no more getting out of bed at 0200 when we all know we’re at out best. It means every pilot gets to sleep in his/her own bed or at least away from work. Even if you catch a late night flight, you still get plenty of rest and it’s pretty hard to screw up your circadian rhythm on this schedule. The company doesn’t have to hire any more pilots, as if they could hire enough in the first place. And I did look at our flights and remember seeing about a 6-7% reduction in total flights launched between 2200-0600.
Anyway good luck with it,
Ron Powell
Permanently replaced at PHI Air Medical

[Gomer Pylot]

Cycling between day and night shifts means you'll die much sooner than you would if you didn't cycle, no matter what you die from. Numerous studies have shown that this causes many health problems, and those who do it die sooner than those who don't, regardless of the work they do. Why is it necessary to switch? Pay night differential, and get some of the pilots to work nights full time. Everyone is happier, healthier, and safer. But wait, the managers didn't think of it, so it makes no sense, so that won't happen. We'll just keep killing our customers, and let the insurance companies worry about the losses. :ugh:

[SASless]

A police department I worked at while in College , had one of the most evil rosters ever invented.

We had the three basic shifts, two "heavy" shifts, and two "Days Off shifts"....and each of the "heavy" shifts had different hours. We rotated between the rosters every two weeks by squad.

The two "Days Off Shifts" filled in the three basic shifts days off....thus one worked three different shifts in one week. One of the routines had you getting off duty at 7AM and returning for duty at 2PM on the fifth day of work. The good news was you then had four whole days off before returning to work. Not that you needed the time to recuperate or anything.:uhoh:

That meant 17 hours worked in 24 with only a 7 hour break between duty periods during a week working two day shifts followed by two midnights prior to starting the fifth day on the afternoon shift.:uhoh:

Assuming you did not have to work over or have court appearances to keep you busy during your "off time".

Can one spell "Zombie"? Talk about dangerous....just for driving much less dealing with violent felons with guns and knives!

Consider planning a social event or family event with that kind of roster!

[MightyGem]

You can get a different opinion for each reply with this one. We work a 24/7 op using 2 days/2 nights/4 off cycle, with a 0730/1930 changeover.

Advantages are: you only have to get up early for two days, then you can have a lie-in; after your first night, you've only got one more, then you're off; 4 days leave/holiday gives you 12 days off work.

Disadvantages: you always finish on a night duty, so your 4 days off is really only about 3 and a half.

With this pattern you don't really have to worry about circadian rythems, as you are not doing it long enough for them to start changing.

[tottigol]

Devil, how many pilots does it take to keep up that kind of rotation? And when during the week would the "other" pilots get their days off?
It's not true that the typical EMS assignment goes to nights midshift, it varies greatly and the scheduling is mostly the choice of the pilots at that particular base.
7&7, 6&6, 3/3&6, 4/3/3/4, and so on are all common choices.
The best solution for your circadian rhytms would be one month of nights and one month of days, but night currency (the real one vs the paper one) would greatly suffer from that, so the next best solution is 7N, 7off,7D,7off............

[SASless]

Gem's routine sounds pretty good to me....long about the third...fourth night of seven nights I was getting pretty ropey. The last night was a breeze because I was finally sleeping well and knew the one shift would be my last night for 21 days.

[Devil 49]

Tottigol, we cover the base with 4 pilots. Everybody would have the 48-hour break twixt nights to days, and at end of schedule, 6 whole calendar days off- actually 168 hours. That's as much as we get on a nominal 7&7, except that a whole day is spent as a zombie from the night shift.

The 4 of us are working around individual issues:
One pilot can't work a long schgedule of nights;
One- soon to be two- commute;
One has itchy feet, so maximizing consecutive time off is a goal;
Finally me- I'm convinced that forcing the shift to nights over a minimal time compromises intellectual capacity, and THAT'S the issue being addressed-
Which is my issue with the 2-2-4 proposition, MightyGem.

The things that make me think that the proposal might work:
It's easy to slide an hour or two a day. We can't do that on schedule, doing it on the break might fit.
If so, then one shows up for nights rested and as close to circadian shifted as one can get.
Finally, the 48 hours in the middle might break a long hitch into two shorter ones, and the switch to days is an easier flip mid-schedule than to the night assignments- at least in my experience.

Thanks for the responses, friends. Wishing one and all a Merry Christmas.

[Trini Pilot]

Hello everyone and best wishes for the Season. I am new to this forum and am very impressed with the ammount of information that there is in here :ok:

DEVIL 49
How many aircraft are you covering with your schedule and would you mind emailing to me the matrix for it. I would much appreciate it as I am tring to work out a roster for a 24/7 operation covering an S-76 and AS-355 millitary operation.

Thanks

[Devil 49]

Trini Pilot- I'm at a single ship EMS base, 4 pilots, no matrix.

[Trini Pilot]

Thanks D49,

We are presently crewing an AS-355 and S-76 with 5 pilots two of whom are only 355 qualified, another is 355 / S-76 qualified but not current on all of the operations that we conduct on the 76: (winching, SAR fastroping etc)

Myself and one of he other guys are the only fully qualified fleet Captains so this makes rostering for a 24/7 a real logistical nightmare. :ugh:

Presently we are on a 6/3 operation with three days and then three nights with the handover at 19:30 and 08:00 though the hours between 01:00 and 08:00 are not usually on a immediate launch but on a 1:30 min launch.

[meat bomb]

Gomer , do you have a link for any of those studies that predict an early demise?

[Gomer Pylot]

http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2006/11/rotating_shiftwork_can_kill_yo.php
http://scholar.google.com/scholar%3Fq%3Dauthor:%22Muller%22+intitle:%22Circadian+varia tion+and+triggering+of+acute+coronary+events%22+%26hl%3Den%2 6lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3DEg9%26oi%3Dscholarr
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061106145035.htm

Only 3 out of several pages of Google hits.

[havoc]

One of our pilots suggested a 5 on 3 off 4 on 4 off shift. The other service in the area uses that so you never work with the same opposite pilot?

Too much math to decide when to take time off, we are sticking to 7/7. It really comes down to the each group of pilots.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/04/000427103938.htm

Twenty percent of the U.S. workforce are shift workers," Menaker says. "Our findings suggest that frequent irregular light cycle shifts may have biological repercussions. Shift workers, for example, often experience reduced alertness, fatigue, ulcers and poor digestion. We do not know yet the full extent of the health issues that may result from regular disruption of circadian rhythm synchrony."

According to Menaker, most catastrophic accidents -- such as the Exxon Valdez grounding, and the Three Mile Island and Chernoble incidents -- are the result of human error, commonly occurring among shift workers late at night.

[Gomer Pylot]

And yet companies keep right on forcing rotating schedules. Ever read the definition of insanity?

[ZK-Pilot]

This is the roster in NZ 4 days on 7am to 7am then 4 days off.