how many of you long haul pilots ever sleeping in the cockpit(seat, not bunk)? if you do ,how often? how many people you know doing so? thanks!

how common is this "common practice"

I think that it is a very good idea. I regularly take a nap on very long sectors, and, in turn, allow my F/Os to do the same.

My Company also thinks that it's a good idea.

My boss (who writes the SOPs) also thinks that it's a good idea, but steadfastly refuses to issue an SOP or even guidance material on the matter - WHY?

Because the regulatory authority DO NOT think that it's a good idea, and would immediately issue a compulsory instruction banning it if the company acknowledged the practice. Then we could never take a snooze.

Unfortunately there are those amongst us who require an SOP or guidance material for just about everything, sad sad Pavlov's dog cases. My advice to them is to go take a snooze in the corner.

Regards,

Old Smokey

I sleep in the cockpit! Sometimes in the seat, sometimes in a bunk.

Any other questions?

the reason i post this topic is that i just get caught by our flight attendent, and she wrote a report against me. the airline is about to punish me. now i can ask the airline to make it 'sop' and take the punishment.
life is tough!!
already in the "sop" ---no reading in the cockpit, expect AOM FOM RIM FCTM RAM FCM GHM OM MEL SEP jeppesen manual..... ,concerning this flight
----no blocking the sun except aircraft original equipment

oh i almost forgot,,
old smokey ,thanks for the tip

So on hour 14 when the Sun is coming up, perhaps having gone 36 hours without real "rest," they prevent you from blocking the sun effectively, nor can you put your head down to read something more engaging than an MEL, thus you squint at the little screens in silence. If there ever was a recipe for sleepiness, this is it, and now they're going to give you static for sleeping? Ask that inane flight attendant is she's ever curled up in a back row during a long, mostly empty leg. Hypocrite.

At my airline, (a middle eastern major), our flight ops manual specifically provides instructions on, "Controlled rest on the Flight Deck". It specifically details planning, advice on what do for the pre-rest preparation, the rest period itself and the post rest period. We utilise it all the time as much of our flying is back of the clock with minimum rest periods between flights. In an ideal world we would actually have rosters that allowed fully rested crews to operate or augmentation for tiring flights on a much more frequent basis, but commercial necessity, it would appear, is king. At least we don't have to break the company's and regulator's rules to grab 40 winks and this, I believe, increases flight safety. Not perfect I know.

Night night,

HUB

I read newspapers or magazines with nude photos of women in cruise flight, ...and I use a large automotive sunshield to block the sun from shining into my face. I also take off my tie and put my feet up on the lower instrument panel. I haven't heard any complaints from any cabin crew yet.

Glueball

Your probably the scoundrel who swipes all the magazines from the cabin just before an acft swap and takes them to the new plane. Fess up...

Uk CAA review of inflight napping strategies



http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/2003_08.pdf

I flew once with a transatlantic crew who had a simple but effective system. When one of them was 'napping' (with the agreement of the other crew member), a small and cheap clockwork kitchen timer was set by the other crew member for 10 minutes. This was then reset on a rolling basis before it reached the 10 minute countdown until the other crew member had completed thier 40 winks. It meant that even if for some reason both crew members immediately went in to napping mode, the maximum time period would be 10 minutes before they would be alerted. Seemed a simple solution, but no doubt the CAA would class it as a major modification to the aircraft if asked to endorse it as a SOP

... likewise, we used to use a similar tactic for back of the clock freight ops. Probably more robust with a three man crew .. and a touch more difficult and tenuous with two.

Rukai,
did you say the CC reported you? does your pit have a lockable door? maybe you should use it next time around. i also think that PPRuNE Radar's write-up makes sense...10mins on the timer -

better luck next time...

Some current aircraft have a "Pilot Response" caption which appears every twenty minutes or so if no button is pressed. If the crew do not respond to the caption, a minute or so later the "Master Caution" goes off, which should have the desired effect.

Many years ago I got to jumpseat in an AC 767 - this was before I started flying and it was great. At that time AC had a policy that every 20 minutes an FA was to enter the cockpit to make sure the pointy end as awake! Not sure if this meant a nap for one was OK.
To me it makes a lot of sense to have a reasonable policy with some guidelines and back. Even a quick nap can be very helpfull in restoring alertness.

I agree. A better SOP would be to insist that the flight deck door is kept locked from Doors closed to Doors open then this problem will never arise.

gen3,
yes, we do have a lockable door ,electrical controlled from the pit and bulletproof . but the other guy was innocent enough ordered coffee and let this fa in. who could have guessed she is the one in a thousand report pilots?

H.F.
\'pilot response\' came on more like in 45 minutes. we get that quite a few times. in 744

And this company you work for will take the word of a cabin crew member(sic) over the front end? Where is the other member of the flight deck? Does he/she not back you up? Sad...very sad...

how does she know u were sleeping? Were u snoring... ?!

If it were me I'd deny everything... but then again your not me

Sadly in some region, the word of the FA have more value that the word of the captain

On the topic itself, I have done it and will do it again, even on my present airline were the only reading material allowed in MEL,..

Much safer to take a controlled nap that having both pilots falling asleep on final.

A few years ago, my previous employer tests for Airbus Industries on an A310, a device that monitor, a special databus, were info from comms and FMGS pass through.

You set the timer, and if there is no traffic on the bus (=no comms and not FMGS page change), the system light a visual alarm.
If reset immediately, the system starts again its monitoring, if not, it suspects both pilots asleep, gives an aural warning and re-start the monitoring with a much shorter time delay.

System was working well according the crews, wonder why it has never been put in operation besides the testing.