Enlarged Cockpit Crew: How long you gotta go to get it?

[FCS Explorer]

While i'm flying B737 on up to 14 hour days, i know some guys on MD11 & B744 how get some proper inflight rest and a relief pilot on flights that are 'only' 10 hrs long. now i'm wondering what the usuall policy on extra crew members is, in respect to start time of duty and flight duration.

[2engop]

I think it's on sectors over 7 hours.

[lordsummerisle]

Suppose it depends how much you eat and how quickly??

[DooblerChina]

Depends on FTL's Ive had 9 hour sector 2 crew and 7 hour sector 3 crew.....

In flight relief extends the duty period for a proportion of the relief taken, i.e. 2 hours in the bunk gives an extra hour on the day etc..

Doobler

[GlueBall]

Duty periods, Flight Duty periods and rest periods come in a big package; minutely defined; depending on many variables, such as:
Local time of day you report for duty;
how many sectors you fly;
how many time zones you cross;
how many time zones you stay away from your base;
whether you have augmented or double crew;
...to mention a few.

[Intruder]

US FAA regulations dictate at least 3 Crewmembers for any flight or series of flights over 8 hours in a day, and at least 4 Crewmembers if over 12 hours. That is based on block time, not total duty time. Also, since 8 hours is the limit for domestic flights, these other rules only apply to international flights.

An interesting twist is that a 747 Classic with 2 Pilots and a Flight Engineer can go for 12 hours without relief, but a 747-400 needs a 3rd [relief] Pilot to do the same flight -- "dozing for dollars" on the Gucci jet!

[warmkiter]

on our company it goes by milege. fra-ord 2cm muc-ord 3cm

[Hotel Mode]

In flight relief extends the duty period for a proportion of the relief taken, i.e. 2 hours in the bunk gives an extra hour on the day etc..


Thats not strictly true, (in UK anyway) like a split duty credit cannot be taken until 3hrs rest has been achieved. 2hrs will allow no increase to duty, what the 3rd crew member will do however is remove the requirement to use the 2 crew long range ops tables for reducing allowable FDP.

[Voeni]

Although there may be some legal limits, I think it's mostly depending on the company.

We fly up to 14h FDP with 2, up to 20h FDP with 3. It's pretty tough sometimes, especially at night, although the company started rethinking and adds an additional crewmember for flights at night, even if not necessary with the above rules.

US FAA rules seem pretty relaxing... ;-)