Toughest Duties
 

With the NZCAA in the process of rewriting the duty rules I have become interested in what other NZ and Aus pilots are doing duty wise.
What's your toughest duty?
Mine,
Sign on 7pm
2 crew
2 sectors
Land at 5am

Some pilots I fly with find this duty no problem, horses for courses I guess.

Very similar:
Sign on 2120
Two crew
Three sectors
Sign off 0800

Sign on at 1900
2 crew
4 sectors
Supposed to sign off at 0510 but invariably about 30 minutes late.

Jetstar had a MEL-ADL-PER-ADL-MEL duty. Not sure if it's still done but it was a 6am signon and hated by all.

Anything that involves signing on before sunrise and signing off after Sunset for me.

0530 sign on:

AKL - MEL
MEL - ZQN
ZQN - AKL

Melbourne turn was 35 mins, Queenstown turn was 45 mins but you needed to leave the acft and pass through customs, immigration and back through security. Entire fostered duty was 25 minutes inside max FDP but you would normally end up extending. Arrive back I. AKL just in time for evening peak hour traffic. They used to roster them back to back.

These monster night duties are also scheduled elsewhere in the world. What I can't understand is when crew say the duty was scheduled within max duty (just) but the crew regularly extended to finish the duty. This beggars belief. If the duties are THAT bad (and they are!) AND the crew have to regularly extend, there is a simple solution. Refuse to extend, get off mid duty and require min rest then continue. If most crew applied this fix, those duties would have to be changed.

many issues will not be solved until pilots stop bitching/boasting about them on Pprune and actually take some action about them

Reality is that many crews will extend if it means going home to their own bed as opposed to spending a night in a hotel. It's not right, but it happens.

Also the mitigating factor is duty before the killer red eyes. Blocks of red eyes or mixed?

Then there is controlled rest, ok it's in the manual, a requirement to file a report when you use it. Why do so many not want to file a report?

Difference with our industry to regular shift workers is the constant mix of duties. Unless your a night freighter!

FRMS ������!

Wimps all of you.

PER, Morawa, Yalgoo, Magnet, Cue, MKR, Wiluna, Sandstone, Magnet, Yalgoo, Morawa, Perth.

had to be done in Summer for first and last light at Morawa.

3 Crew, DC-3, F/O did the books, sold tickets, balanced the mail bags and depending on the Captains got some LH seat time for some fun.

Then in a later life SIN DAC SIN at night with a brand new S/O under training with the safety F/O checked out the day before.

Suck it up

:ok:

No doubt greybeard, you had to fly in bare feet, because you couldn't afford shoes. On you days off you had to come in and wash the aeroplane then go and wash the chief pilots car?

I found one of the worst fatigue generators was the split shifts over a five day week. The boss said it was public service job, so suck it up princess we're his words! Funny about a 0600 sign on, 1000 sign off , 6 hour break, 1600 sign on and then a 2000 sign off, by Friday you were knackered!

Is the requirement to report controlled rest a company requirement or the regulator?

that mel per adl mel one was tough. it used to be a triangle, one direction or the other. didnt know they made it 4 sectors.

personally found the bkk-mel back of the clock tough. 2 crew with 1 capt in particular sleeping most of it :* in summer the sun would be up by about bhi burning your retinas out

yeah yeah, rod for my own back etc i learnt from that

Stationair; May I suggest that greybeard was, whilst probably saying truthfully how it was way back then was also attempting to wind you up a bit!:= And I'd say he succeeded!:D

If you want an example of Flight and Duty times totally ignored, let alone observed in the abeyance thereof, I would refer you to the things that any GA Pilot in Papua New Guinea back in the 80's and 90's had to endure, merely to ensure that the Company he worked for continued to operate....let alone keep his job!:eek::ooh::mad:

For instance; Twice a week I signed on at 0-Dark Hundred at our Port Moresby base with a take off at first light on what was termed 'The Jungles Run' and the day generally finished somewhere near Last light returning from the other side of the Country (Wewak, Madang, or wherever) knowing that you had to be back at the Office around 7am the following day.

None of us complained! We all knew that we were breaking some rules but we all also knew that if we didn't, the Company would not survive!:= The work was there and we had to do it.:ooh:

And quite frankly; I enjoyed it!!:ok::ok: I'd go back to it in a flash if I were given the opportunity. Sadly, it 'aint gonna happen!!!:{:{

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story ( I think it now has a name!)

The Jetstar sector was MEL-ADL-PER-ADL and the flight crew and CM got off and overnighted in ADL. It was all very civilized and a pleasant duty. Unfortunately with most things LCC if the crew enjoy a pairing it will be changed or dropped altogether.:ugh:

the temptation to get to one's own bed by extending may very well lead to a permanent resting place 6 foot under!

New thing that gets me is changing from earlies to lates with one day off in between , doing a few lates and then one day off before going into earlies again. Everyone is different but it's the inability to fall into a routine that slowly stuffs me.

What peeves me here is that even if a rare journo that actually might interpret your posts correctly - and they quite possibly can't conceive it's true because it would be so far outside their experiences as to not register. But even then doing it once is easy. There is no way they would understand what it means to do these sectors month after month and year after year.

All this from companies that have the gall to publicly speak of 'maintaining a great work/life balance'.

and "Safety is our priority!"

5:30am bus Kimbe
6:30am sign on Hoskins (DHC6)
7am departure Hoskins- Uvol
Uvol - Jacquinot Bay
Jacquinot Bay - Gonalie
Gonalie - Manguna
Manguna - Cape Orford
Cape Orford -Tol
Tol - Tokua
Tokua - Lihir (Buka)
Lihir (Buka) - Tokua
Tokua - Tol
Tol - Cape Orford
Cape Orford - Manguna
Manguna - Gonalie
Gonalie- Jacquinot Bay
Jacquinot Bay - Uvol
Uvol - Hoskins
6pm sign off
7pm bus drops you home in Kimbe
11.5 hours duty, 12 hours rest
Sign on again 0630 next day. Do it all again.
West New Britain 1990s post eruption.

Geeez!!!, some of you blokes don't know you are alive.

In the "good old days" in the UK, the stick hour limit was 125 hours per month, then the company sent you to the company doctor, who pronounced you not suffering fatigue, and sent you back to work.

From memory (can somebody else remember) the "month" was 28 days, so some (at the whim of Scheduling) could and did rack up 1500-1600 hours per year - stick time, not duty time.

In those days, among the scrag-end non-scheds, the loss rate was pretty impressive, but there were plenty of war surplus aeroplane and crews, and plenty more passengers where the last lot came from --- just had to make the bucket and spade brigade fares cheap enough.

Tootle pip!!