Asleep at the wheel (stick)

[ColeFace]

Just spent some time with an old buddy who has now 18,000 hrs (accident free) in your rotary machines and he was telling me how he frightened himself by falling asleep then coming to skimming an icefield (the frightening pary) (does a lot of work above 10,000 ft). He promptly set her down and got some sleep.

Now how many of you heli jocks will admit to doing the same, falling asleep that is.

We know the fixed wing guys do it all the time and I can see why as a more boring job one rarely sees.

[GLSNightPilot]

I've done it many times, although not for long. In a BH206 you don't have long until you either wake up or die, but I've had long bouts of microsleeps. I'd slap myself, sing, or whatever I could think of & still go to sleep. The only thing that really helps me is peppermint. I can either taste or smell it, & it wakes me up for a little while. I discovered this when I read an article in Scientific American, IIRC, about a study some university had done, which showed peppermint increased alertness. It works for me. I've also looked over & seen my copilot sound asleep a time or two.

[SASless]

That's odd GLS....my Co-pilots always seem to be wired....eyes wide open....hands and feet fidgeting.....all the time looking over my way and making funny noises....almost like whimpering or something. Haven't been able to catch the lyrics...but the melody sounds the same! They seem to stop it when I engage the Autopilot.....odd that?

[ShyTorque]

Is it the one with the arm actions, making the sign of a cross in front of the body? :)

[rwm]

I read in one of the safety reports of a long ranger hitting power lines and crashing in ontario and killing the pilot. The report speculated that the pilot had fallen asleep, possibly due to the angle of the sun causing him to be fatigued as the flicker through the rotor numbed his senses.

[peter manktelow]

Hey Coleface

Imagine if you will. Long…very long ferry flight in an S61 helicopter. Two pilots and an engineer. Vancouver to Bombay. This particular day/leg was somewhere out of Iceland for Aberdeen. My co-captain and I had agreed that we should , if we felt the need , take turns at taking a “micro nap”. This I did.

As we were flying over water (very cold water) we were wearing immersion suits. Somewhat similar to wearing a full body condom with rubber seals at wrist and neck.

Back to my micro nap….after about 30 minutes , I was brought back to consciousness by the noise and cold air of my partner’s window opening , then the shock as I looked at him to find that he had physically expanded to the size of the “Michelin Man”.!

Silly buggar had shoved his arm out the window , pulled the wrist seal away from his wrist and allowed the inrushing air to inflate his immersion suit. He sat there with a stupid grin on his face while I struggled back from the”land of nod” thinking that I was having some sort of nightmare.
Wish to hell I had a camera.
I laughed so hard it kept me awake for the rest of the leg.

He knows of whom I speak !!!

Peter
:8

[MPT]

G'day Coleface,

Nowhere near as exciting as Peter's awakening, but here we go.

Third or fourth flight of the day, not a breath of wind, sea absolutely flat, no other boats around and no sign of fish all day, so my observer is snoring away to my right. Well I assume he's snoring as his head's back and his mouth is wide open. Have the 500 trimmed to within an inch of it's life, everything's hanging in the right direction on the panel and I'm BORED (yes it does happen!!). Somehow, my next recollection is of Sinatra's "My Way" in a broad (?) Chinese accent at great volume inside my helmet bringing me back from the land of nod. I nearly filled my pants and exited the machine simultaneously. He nearly filled his pants laughing!! I was wide, wide awake for a long time thinking of what could've happened.

Cheers,

MPT

Oh yeah, the peppermints do work, I'd just run out (my excuse anyway!!).

[Bladestrike]

That crash in Ontario was quite some time ago, and he was a friend of mine. I had an experience not long before that where I dozed off in a mountain pass.

I was 19, had been out all night dancing expecting to sleep all the next day (I wasn't booked to be on, but luckily I wasn't drinking at all either, nasty ulcer on the mend!) but there was an emergency and I ended up flying some 11 hours that day. It was the last flight and I knew I was bagged, so I asked the passengers to keep an eye on me. When my head bobbed (good things those heavy helmets!) I looked up to see us heading towards a large rock face. I was able to turn gently enough to not wake up my passengers, who were all out solid, so it wasn't "that" close but a few seconds more would have been the end.

My friend's crash certainly drove the point home to get adequate rest. It was believed he had very little sleep the night prior.

[Outwest]

Hey PM, Boy that was a few years ago. You forgot to mention the part about breaking wind in the suit and venting it in your direction. Now THAT was the funny part.:D :D