Personal Health Limits
 

A few weeks ago I had a pretty bad cold, but could contain it using Day Nurse. However, it got me thinking about flying whilst not well.

Personally I don't fly if I don't feel 100%, but that can lead to cancelled flights, and a bit of frustration. I then got to thinking, what criteria do other people use? For example, would you fly at the tail end of a cold, or wait for it to clear up completely, and what other criteria would you use to consider whether or not you feel fit to fly?

I guess I'm trying to work out if I'm a wimp or not...

I guess you can not be a wimp when cancel flying due to not feeling well.

My personal limit is quite clear: if I feel health limited, I don't fly. This is especially true for anything around a cold or similar. If I am on the ground on afterglow of a cold, I am unable to estimate wether issues with eye, nose or ear will cause trouble when in the cockpit - so I take the safety route and don't go flying.

Can I think straight enough to handle any difficult decisions.

Can I clear my ears?

Am I happy that any minor bugs I might have aren't infection or likely to deteriorate through the day?

Am I happy that I have stamina / ability to see it through to the end of the day, in the flying environment, are sufficient?


Unless I get four yeses in a row, I don't fly.

G

now that I'm not a student the answer to your question is a lot easier for me.

While I was learning I was always aware of the fact that I was screwing up my instructor's schedule as well as mine.

Now as well as G the E's questions, I also ask myself "Am I going to enjoy this flight"

if the answer is no , then I don't go

I did once, never again.


I had a circuit to do with an instructor first, so I reasoned that if I was going to have any problems I'd have them on that circuit, as the pressure change is greater in the bottom 1,000' than any other 1,000', so this was a nice safe way to find out whether I was fit to fly.


No such luck. On the subsequent solo descent from 5,000' or so my ear started hurting like hell and I couldn't hear what was being said on the radio.

Three points:

1. Flying with a cold can burst your eardrums. It can cause significant sinus pain such that you lose your sight!

2, The are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are no old bold pilots.

3, If you don't have to fly, then don't.

Similar to GtE, if I think I can think straight, won't deteriorate or have blocked ears etc I am usually happy to fly anyway. If privately then obviously I make sure that I will still enjoy it if I am not feeling 100% otherwise what's the point, if for work then I will go even if not 100% as long as I am confident that it won't have an adverse effect on my ability to concentrate and do a proper job, as above.

Only a few weeks ago I woke up feeling 99.9% fine but a little more tired than usual and went to work, and on the last sector of the day my colleague was pretty much down to single crew ops because I was sitting shivering with fever and splitting headache. It's a horrible place to be if you're not feeling right.

I'm very bad at handling cold, I have absolutely no strength, no focus and it takes me days to recover, I don't even go near a car.

I showed this thread to a friend of mine (x0.000+h, now retired and only on UL) and he commented - if you can walk to the plane, you can fly it. I do not share this thought, but it reflects - everything is possible and the ruler are you yourself.

Possibly just the attitudes of a different generation people aged under 50 these days, and I include myself, have a relatively strict view of personal risk that perhaps our parents and grandparents didn't have.

Just possibly that's why HPL was brought in as a mandatory subject in the late 80s, and nowadays all airline crews have to do regular CRM training. Some people of my generation are stupid about never taking any risks about anything, but conversely some people of my parents generation are too relaxed.

Drinking and driving anybody?

G

Our ancestors called that courage - you trade personal risk for the possibility to reach new levels of insight into nature.
The inner driving force to explore, to follow curiosity and ultimately sacrifice your life for the pure knowledge is something missing almost completely today, at least in science. Sadly it survives in certain religious fight. It is also some kind of nasty decadence nowadays to ban progress by taking risk and replace it by don't even touch fully comprehensive coverage.
I can and will not judge wether our grandfathers did better, or we, but maybe simply both ways are fated to die only.

Back to the original issue. Is there a way to come narrower to a procedure to gradually learn what is acceptable by means of a fading cold & flying? Maybe take a safety pilot is one way, but what other is thinkable?

A week since last symptoms works for me.

I got airborne one day from Benson in one of Mrs Windsor's Argosys. At about 200 feet, the flight engineer started screaming (and I mean screaming) and holding his hands over his ears. It was pretty obvious that he was not going to go very far so we told ATC that we were coming straight back.

I tried to climb up just a little but the screaming got louder. Luckily, the weather was good and the terrain wasn't limiting so we were able to fly a circuit at 200 feet and land successfully. Said flight engineer was rushed into the hands of the medics and they were just able to save his hearing.

Do not risk flying with a cold it is simply not worth it.

By the way, just about the most successful way of ruining your ears is to do a winch launch in a glider when you are bunged-up!

I don't see how we can, or should, have a universal procedure.

All human bodies are individual and different from all others, and there are numerous flavours of flight operations. You can't, for example, reasonably apply the same standards to an aerobatic flight in a high performance single, as to a sub-1000ft bimble in a microlight, and might reasonably apply different standards with and without passengers.


So, as aircrew, we should have learned to read and understand our own bodies, and to form our own conclusions. And, so long as it's clear we're not extracting the urine about it, other people should respect our decisions.




Back to a separate point. My grandfathers were able, brave men, who both served their country in war very well. But if either had chosen to risk other peoples lives through operating a vehicle in peacetime - surface or air - when not fully fit to do so, that would have been arrogant stupidity, not courage. (I have no idea if either ever did, please consider them in any case to be "generic grandfathers").

G

I don't fly if I'm paler before my flight than my pax typically are after.

I also think you need to consider whether you are single crew or multi crew?

Single crew be strict with yourself especially carrying PAX who are reliant on you.
If you have the remnants of a cold and have another pilot up front you will put up with more.

If you are flying commercially its your bread and butter and job and while I am not saying you will fly while your ill you might do with a slightly difficult ear after a cold or a slight headache if you have another pilot :E

Pace

So it seems this wasn't such a stupid question after all. (I actually thought it was when I asked it.)

It also seems I'm no different to most other people, and am not being too cautious.

However, I do have a question for any commercial pilots. What do you do? Surely if you never fly when less than 100% you'd spend more time off sick than actually working?

Obviously a cold/flu can last a week or drag on for a month you cannot vanish from your work for a month because you still have remnants of a flu/cold

There are those who choose to fly and those who have to

If you fly for fun its not fun if you are not 100% and better to leave it to another day when you will enjoy the flight more

if you have to you don't have that luxury

Pace

A typical cold will get you off from work for about 2 weeks +/- days.

If you fly for fun in a small plane, it may take a couple of days more to get comfortable with pressure changes.
If you fly in an airliner, you are flying pressure cabin, so that is not really such an issue as in small planes. So, I do not see a difference to any other employee.

But airliners typically go to the equivalent of 5000-8000 feet, which are common altitudes for light aircraft so surely the same problems apply?

Having said that, I wonder why we don't see more cases of passengers having ear problems when flying with a cold...