Sleeping whilst flying
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Sleeping whilst flying
I was wondering if anyone else has had the odd kip whilst flying.
Beleive it or not, I have succummed to the odd nap whilst flying. Fortunately i was single pilot ops so no-one was there to scare. The first couple of times it happens it does come as a shock to you however after you get the knack of it, it's really not that much of a drama. My first experience was when I was doing a ferry flight a few years ago in a C172 from thailand to Aust. I had been up all hours the night before with two lovely oriental ladies (money well spent) and a bottle of Vodka and woke feeling a little tired. Looking in the mirror i realised my eyes looked like piss holes in the snow but i had to deliver this aircraft back to it's owners so i departed. After about 8hours flying a started getting heavy eyelids and then that was it until i heard the stall warning going on and off intermitently. I woke and found i had dozed off and lost several thousand feet but apart from beeing pissed off that i'd have to climb all that way back to height, nothing was wrong. It was then that i realised the stall warning has 2 functions. 1) notifying the pilot of an impending stall condition and 2) a very simple wake up device. If you are flying single pilot and require 40 winks than go ahead. BUT MAKE SURE YOUR HAND IS TIED TO THE CONTROL COLUMN. This is very important as after a minute or two of sleeping your whole body will relax and your hand will fall back against your body, pulling the controls back and stalling the aircraft. Stall warning goes off and you wake up. Get back on height and do it again. You can do this many times and when you get to your destination you arrive fresh and ready for your next international ferry flight. I like to call this technique "macro-naps". These are far more productive than micronaps as you get longer periods of Z's. You can modify the length of the string to modify the period of sleep and the frequency of wake ups. Give it a go fellas, but make sure you are in trim!!!
Beleive it or not, I have succummed to the odd nap whilst flying. Fortunately i was single pilot ops so no-one was there to scare. The first couple of times it happens it does come as a shock to you however after you get the knack of it, it's really not that much of a drama. My first experience was when I was doing a ferry flight a few years ago in a C172 from thailand to Aust. I had been up all hours the night before with two lovely oriental ladies (money well spent) and a bottle of Vodka and woke feeling a little tired. Looking in the mirror i realised my eyes looked like piss holes in the snow but i had to deliver this aircraft back to it's owners so i departed. After about 8hours flying a started getting heavy eyelids and then that was it until i heard the stall warning going on and off intermitently. I woke and found i had dozed off and lost several thousand feet but apart from beeing pissed off that i'd have to climb all that way back to height, nothing was wrong. It was then that i realised the stall warning has 2 functions. 1) notifying the pilot of an impending stall condition and 2) a very simple wake up device. If you are flying single pilot and require 40 winks than go ahead. BUT MAKE SURE YOUR HAND IS TIED TO THE CONTROL COLUMN. This is very important as after a minute or two of sleeping your whole body will relax and your hand will fall back against your body, pulling the controls back and stalling the aircraft. Stall warning goes off and you wake up. Get back on height and do it again. You can do this many times and when you get to your destination you arrive fresh and ready for your next international ferry flight. I like to call this technique "macro-naps". These are far more productive than micronaps as you get longer periods of Z's. You can modify the length of the string to modify the period of sleep and the frequency of wake ups. Give it a go fellas, but make sure you are in trim!!!
Last edited by control snatch; 10th Dec 2006 at 07:37.
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I am usually to busy scaring sh1t outta myself with my flying to sleep. And I have almost gotten to the stage where I can open my eyes when I land too. 
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Woke up once with Flightwatch calling and the other 3 on the crew asleep after drifting off and seeing ocean below when there was sposed to be land. " Yeah we've been trying to get you for the last 2 hours must be a problem with HF ". Nice call to make " Ah fellas you awake? Bueller, Bueller"
Not sure if it's an old wives tail but many moons ago in the j/s of a QF 767 was chatting to the F/O who used to fly night freight on the east coast and he was saying he'd fallen asleep in a Seneca a few times. Anyway he digressed and said that when Norfolk Airlines used to operate the King Air that they used to use it for night freight and one night when he was flying the Seneca centre kept calling and calling him with no response, he overflew SY at FLT240 and woke up. Not sure how true it was, but certainly possible I guess!
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Control snatch.........This is the CAA....could you please send me your home address and your telephone #.....we would like to have a "friendly chinwaggle wiff you.please".....we promise to treat you well
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I heard a rumour of 2 CPL's flying Mel - Bris in a Caravan at 3am. They agreed that one would sleep then they would change over after an hour or so. Some time later pilot 2 woke to find pilot 1 asleep with Mel Centre calling them. 'twas a nice moonlit night with no turbulence and no harm was done.
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I came across this article about pilots sleeping in cockpits ...
Do Boeings really have this as a 'safety feature' ?
Do Boeings really have this as a 'safety feature' ?
And Boeing has a safety feature in newer planes: an alarm that puts warning words on a computer screen, then finally beeps loudly, if no one in the cockpit touches any button for a specified interval.
C'mon guys, everyone knows that the reason pilots wear dark sunglasses is so that the pax can't tell when they're asleep! I remember sitting in the RHS of a Chieftain many years ago & reaching over & flicking the pilot's hair because he had dozed off!
DF.
DF.
Theres an article in Flying a few years ago about a guy in the states, who after working a full day flying had to go from Chicago t NYC to pick up a C180 taildragger and ferrit over night to Wisconsin. hw was just over the shore of lake michigan, which is some 100 nm wide, nice and trimmed could see the lights of Milwauke on the horizon when he drifted off to sleep. When he woke, there were lights everywhere, he had overflown his destination by some 200 nm.......................................all with no autopilot.
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mingalababya, they definately do! After a while of nothing, you get a "pilot response" message, which later upgrades to a Caution (with beeps), and finally a Warning with a continuous siren - the same siren used to warn for cabin altitude about 10000, and overspeed. 
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I remember doing a flight review in a guys C-210 and it had a whopping great alarm clock on the dashboard. When I quizzed him on the strange placing of the "approved time piece", he said it was to wake him up after a 30 min nap he takes all the time with the autopilot on...
At least he takes precautions I suppose.
At least he takes precautions I suppose.
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Don't Try This At Home!
While doing my CPL training I had a young instructor who worked at night on a second job. We were flying the Cherokee on a cross-country on a clear day when he told me that the 'cloudbase' had lowered and we would have to fly at 500' AGL, to practice low-level nav. I complied but said I wasn't happy with low level over 8 oktas of trees. "It's a certified engine, don't worry" he said!
It was a warm day and 10 mins later I noticed gentle snoring from the RH seat.
I waited till we had a nice paddock ahead, and manoevred to leave it left of the a/c as we passed (just in case). I then pulled the mixture quickly out and back in. The engine gave a convincing splutter, and the instructor jerked awake with his eyes out on stalks looking for a non-existent landing area. By that stage, the engine was running smoothly and I was looking as if nothing had happened. We exchanged meaningful looks, and he suggested that as the 'weather' had improved we could climb back to 2000'. He remained wide awake for the rest of the sortie!
It was a warm day and 10 mins later I noticed gentle snoring from the RH seat.
I waited till we had a nice paddock ahead, and manoevred to leave it left of the a/c as we passed (just in case). I then pulled the mixture quickly out and back in. The engine gave a convincing splutter, and the instructor jerked awake with his eyes out on stalks
looking for a non-existent landing area. By that stage, the engine was running smoothly and I was looking as if nothing had happened. We exchanged meaningful looks, and he suggested that as the 'weather' had improved we could climb back to 2000'. He remained wide awake for the rest of the sortie!