Drinking Rules

[Hugh Jorgen]

I am getting increasingly baffled with drinking regulations. I have my own company limits as well as it now seems local restrictions.
What do we follow? As the commander of a UK registered aircraft are myself and my crew subject to UK regulations or local ones of which we have limited knowledge. Do the local police have knowledge of UK regulations? Are we supposed to be following local regulations? If so where are they documented? If we have no formal documentation how can we be dismissed for something we have no knowledge of?

Before this attracts the barrage from the 'You cannot condone drinking brigade.' I am simply pointing out we are on an uneven playing field with scant information. Lets have some worldwide rules on this one.

I see a Labour MP has jumped on the bandwagon, thats fine. Are MP's kept from the bar in the House of Commons before voting on issues, are Journalists monitored for alcohol before they write things that destroy peoples lives?

Personally, I just don't think a couple of drinks are worth my career. In this present climate it is safer to abstain until we know exactly where we stand.

I am simply looking for definitive answers, if anyone has them please share them.

[Cathar]

The JAR-OPS requirements are as follows:

JAR-OPS 1.085 [(e)] A crew member shall not:
(1) Consume alcohol less than 8 hours prior to the specified reporting time for flight duty or the commencement of standby;
(2) Commence a flight duty period with a blood alcohol level in excess of 0·2 promille;
(3) Consume alcohol during the flight duty period or whilst on standby.

These requirements relate to the issue of an AOC. There is nothing to stop states appling more stringent limits on aircraft in their territory. This is no different to drink drive limits. For example the drink drink limits in a number of Euroepean states are now lower than those in the UK. Pilots are not facing unique problems, their pax also have to find about about laws of the states to which they are traveling (and this goes a lot further than alcohol limits).

[Ford Airlane]

I try and limit myself to not drinking within 40 feet of the aeroplane.

Has worked so far. :eek: :eek:

[Tcas climb]

You are limited by country of registration on your aircraft, company rules and country in wich you fly. The srictest of these apply, quite simple isn't it?

[Hugh Jorgen]

Tcas Climb - When you don't know each countries rules off by heart - no it isn't simple!! I've never seen them in any company or other documentation.
I just need enlightening as to where it is.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I recently researched the following for my own interest. All the information is from various texts in the RAeS Library in London...

The basic unit of alcohol within the body is mg/100ml of blood (referred to as %mg BAL). Obviously the relationship between how much you drink and BAL is dependent upon sex, weight, and a few other things. But the references seem to pretty much agree on the following rules of thumb for a standard adult:-

1 pint beer: 24%mg within an hour (can be up to 35%mg, depending upon strength of beer which clearly varies)
1 measure spirits: 12%mg within an hour
1 small glass wine: 15%mg within an hour.

The body (liver) then evacuates alcohol at a pretty constant rate of 15%mg per hour - although the references do admit that depending upon physiology it can actually be anywhere between 8 and 25 %mg/hour.


That stuff most of us had some idea about, but certainly it helps work out where we are after a good night out.


Now to the interesting bit - what the various studies gave as effects of alcohol. The various reports, papers and medical textbooks were pretty consistent. From them I came up with the following:-

11%mg - Reduced ability to maintain correct airspeed or flightpath under high workload

15%mg - 1/3 of pilots in fatal accidents had this level or above in their bodies (from autopsy reports)

20%mg - UK legal flying limit. Significant increase in errors on RT, planning and correct following of procedures.

40%mg - US legal flying limit. Major effect on number of errors on RT and following procedures.

50%mg - Impaired ability to visually fix or track objects

60%mg - Consistent degredation of long term performance even on low workload tasks.

80%mg - UK legal driving limit

150%mg - loss of self control (exactly what is meant by this wasn't defined)

200%mg - double vision, some loss of memory

400%mg - Loss of consciousness.


Three other notes were interesting...

(1) from a study where they tanked pilots up to 150%mg which was that afterwards when BAL had gone down to zero, visual impairment and disorientation could occur up to 7 hours afterwards.

(2) All the studies agreed that under high workload alcohol degraded pilots' performance much more than under low workload.

(3) Up until very high alcohol levels, virtually all the degredation was of judgment or ability to follow procedure, rather than of actual physical skills.



So far as I could tell, the UK limit is the lowest anywhere and probably a good working rule. Expressing only a personal opinion, I'd have thought if you used the standard rate of expulsion and aimed for a nominal zero BAL (combined with an absolute minimum 8 hour bottle to throttle time) you'd meet any regulations since they all seem to express in those terms when you get down to the core rules. If you want to be utterly confident of unimpeachable safety standards, I'd add 6 hours to that (note 1).

Assuming that is, you don't operate to Saudi Arabia in which case you have my deep sympathies.

G

[Ttree Ttrimmer]

I believe India has a 12 hour bottle to throttle limit that even applies to crews using their airspace. As far as I know this is the only country to impose such a restriction. Outside of this as far as I am concerned it is up to the rules of the registering and controlling authority of the aircraft.

[proxus]

In Iceland ( at least before JAR rules ) we had 18 hrs "bottle to throttle" rule that had to be obeyed. Even for the remotest ppl driver.

Proxus