BBC Tiredness Study
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There used to be a loophole of the definition of a week. Max duty hours in a week are 55 on your roster, 60 if delayed at all. My record is 63 hours in 7 days however it wasn't counted as a week because it didn't start on a Monday!!!! 17 hours and 63 hours. Hmm, some difference there. Being rostered over 100 hours flying per calendar month isn't unusual and in addition there is positioning at all times of day and night, strange airfields, and the endless chatter on the radio as you head east.
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ABG.
Quite right. Others earlier, in management and vested interest positions, have said that pilots are severly limited in what they do, and none work more than 900 per year etc. etc. = 17 hours per week. Nollocks. Fecking nollocks!
I know of pilots who have flown +1000 hrs in 12 months because their company year was not a rolling year. That is allowed by one illustrious EU 'AA. Even under UK CAA FTL's I regularly flew more than 100 in 28 days long-haul. Their interpretation of the 28 day rule was grey to say the least. I would take off at 95 hours on day 28 and land in USA with 105 on day 28. 24 hours off, reduce back to <100, then depart USA and land in EU >100 again. 2days off then repeat. It made a nonsense of the rules. I phoned BALPA. Answer? They disagreed but said the CAA allowed it. What is a union for if not to police the rules. What does "max 100 hours in 28 days" mean if not just that. How can you depart knowing that you will land on day 28 with more than 100 hours?
That con, plus the roster week starting on a Monday, or whatever day the airline sees fit to choose. My body works per day, not Monday - Monday. 7 days is 7 days; it must be rolling, the same with a year. The bending of the rules is rife and there are too many blind eyes from the supposed inspectorates. It is not only pilots who break/bend the rules. I suspect that the very authorities who wrote the rules are sailing too close to the wind as well in their implementation of them. What about an independant inquiry into the whole matter; but not the white wash that we've seen in many previous investigations of industrial malpractice or goverment jiggery-pokery.
Quite right. Others earlier, in management and vested interest positions, have said that pilots are severly limited in what they do, and none work more than 900 per year etc. etc. = 17 hours per week. Nollocks. Fecking nollocks!
I know of pilots who have flown +1000 hrs in 12 months because their company year was not a rolling year. That is allowed by one illustrious EU 'AA. Even under UK CAA FTL's I regularly flew more than 100 in 28 days long-haul. Their interpretation of the 28 day rule was grey to say the least. I would take off at 95 hours on day 28 and land in USA with 105 on day 28. 24 hours off, reduce back to <100, then depart USA and land in EU >100 again. 2days off then repeat. It made a nonsense of the rules. I phoned BALPA. Answer? They disagreed but said the CAA allowed it. What is a union for if not to police the rules. What does "max 100 hours in 28 days" mean if not just that. How can you depart knowing that you will land on day 28 with more than 100 hours?
That con, plus the roster week starting on a Monday, or whatever day the airline sees fit to choose. My body works per day, not Monday - Monday. 7 days is 7 days; it must be rolling, the same with a year. The bending of the rules is rife and there are too many blind eyes from the supposed inspectorates. It is not only pilots who break/bend the rules. I suspect that the very authorities who wrote the rules are sailing too close to the wind as well in their implementation of them. What about an independant inquiry into the whole matter; but not the white wash that we've seen in many previous investigations of industrial malpractice or goverment jiggery-pokery.
And is it age-related? (Forget discrimination here, this is medical)
In summary, I think there are many factors which affect the level of fatigue and I hardly think age is that relevant. Older pilots are usually more experienced and able to see the "wood for the trees" which might arguably mean they are less stressed and therefore less susceptible to fatigue.
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Gorilla,
"Was sat in the cruise over the pond on my last sector reading an article in the telegraph about pilot fatigue. Turned to the skipper to ask him if he'd read it, only to find he'd nodded off!!"
Doesn't sound the most onerous of jobs really
"Was sat in the cruise over the pond on my last sector reading an article in the telegraph about pilot fatigue. Turned to the skipper to ask him if he'd read it, only to find he'd nodded off!!"
Doesn't sound the most onerous of jobs really
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There speaks someone who doesn't fly professionally!
I'm 35, fit, exercise regularly, fly about 820hrs a year LH and regularly feel completely bu%%ered on all my days off....only to go back to work for an 8 hour time change in the opposite direction.
I'm 35, fit, exercise regularly, fly about 820hrs a year LH and regularly feel completely bu%%ered on all my days off....only to go back to work for an 8 hour time change in the opposite direction.
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FFB:
"All depends on the individual I think. Whatever your age if you are overweight and/or take no exercise or do not use the rest period sensibly then you might be more susceptible to fatigue/tiredness."
Sounds all very simple. I once had a chief pilot who said that rest management was a major part of being a pilot, and if I was not rested before duty it was my fault. Rest periods are for resting. Again, sounds all very simple. However in the real world it does not work.
I've had many rosters of max hours followed my minimum or near minimum rest periods. In other words for many days it was work/sleep/work/sleep. There was no time or energy for excercise, especially with long-haul in such a pattern. Hours on end sitting down; weight went up, energy went down. Same true with intensive short-haul.
In the second case, minimum rest before early starts, real rest/sleep is not always easy. There is a real world outside & inside your house. They do not abide by the same schedule.
One of the problems with this whole argument is the immotive 'F' word. If fatigued it means you have reached your limit. In other words being 'very tired' is OK. I know many colleagues who are regularly 'very tired'. Should it be like this? I'm shocked when I talk to my doctor friends, some surgeons. Their schedules are appalling. If the patient knew they were under the knife of a tired person.......anasthetic is a wonderful thing. I wonder if the pax would also be shocked if they knew the truth of some of our schedules.
The medics think they can measure fatigue; I wonder; but this is why the word is used. The bean counters think they can quantify the limit and so use it. Thus they come up with a schedule, which in theory, should prevent fatigue. i.e keep you away from the limit. As has been said, everyone is different and effected in different ways. Thus there should be quite some buffer built into this schedule because there is a spectuim of individual limits. Is there an adequate buffer? There might be some, hence discretion. But the FTL's need to be used sensibly. They can not apply in black & white to all applications. For some uneducated twits to say that the FTL's are robust in preventing fatigue is to demonstrate that they know very little about the subject and should follow Eisenhower's advice.
In most applications, whether it is design or operational, there are buffers built in. It could be stress design of components or applications of operational limts. There are always margins. It would not seem to be the case with FTL's. It is often said that the weakest link in the accident chain is human, conveniently called pilot error. Many accidents have been a perfectly servicable a/c being dumped into the ground by a not quite so fully serviceable crew. All efforts seem to be going to make the a/c more reliable and less likely to break, but at the same time weakening the already weakest link by running the last link in the chain to absolute limits. It ain't rocket science to realise that it won't work for ever. Instead of being proactive, as aviation is supposed to be, the pressure of money is making everything reactive.
I would like to see a study by the BBC, or anyone else, as to why this is the case and the consequence thereof. I'm sure the public would find it sober and shocking reading. When was there a 'Paddington/Potters Bar' type investigation into a plane crash. In those train crashes the investigation went right to the top and deep into the culture of the industry. It included the regulators, incident histories, what was known in advance, management styles etc. Same happened after Herald of Free Enterprise. Aviation could do with something similar, before the worst happens.
There was a little of this with the KLM TFN accident, but the well documented cause of events stopped at the airfield and in the cockpit. I can not remember many crashes where the investigation has gone 'upstairs'. There were a couple which discovered deviations in engineering practices, known by management, which led to component failures. Rather than find out the real reason for this 'corner cutting' and cut out the root of the problem, the CAA's just introduced more/stricter paperwork filters. If there is an endemic attitude problem I'm not sure paperwork will cure it. It will then become a game to beat the system.The cancer has to cut out, deep.
Ask your self why there are so many youngsters queing up to get into airlines balanced by many others who, after 30 years or so, can't wait to quit? Something needs to change. Was it always this way? 20 years ago, I don't think so.
"All depends on the individual I think. Whatever your age if you are overweight and/or take no exercise or do not use the rest period sensibly then you might be more susceptible to fatigue/tiredness."
Sounds all very simple. I once had a chief pilot who said that rest management was a major part of being a pilot, and if I was not rested before duty it was my fault. Rest periods are for resting. Again, sounds all very simple. However in the real world it does not work.
I've had many rosters of max hours followed my minimum or near minimum rest periods. In other words for many days it was work/sleep/work/sleep. There was no time or energy for excercise, especially with long-haul in such a pattern. Hours on end sitting down; weight went up, energy went down. Same true with intensive short-haul.
In the second case, minimum rest before early starts, real rest/sleep is not always easy. There is a real world outside & inside your house. They do not abide by the same schedule.
One of the problems with this whole argument is the immotive 'F' word. If fatigued it means you have reached your limit. In other words being 'very tired' is OK. I know many colleagues who are regularly 'very tired'. Should it be like this? I'm shocked when I talk to my doctor friends, some surgeons. Their schedules are appalling. If the patient knew they were under the knife of a tired person.......anasthetic is a wonderful thing. I wonder if the pax would also be shocked if they knew the truth of some of our schedules.
The medics think they can measure fatigue; I wonder; but this is why the word is used. The bean counters think they can quantify the limit and so use it. Thus they come up with a schedule, which in theory, should prevent fatigue. i.e keep you away from the limit. As has been said, everyone is different and effected in different ways. Thus there should be quite some buffer built into this schedule because there is a spectuim of individual limits. Is there an adequate buffer? There might be some, hence discretion. But the FTL's need to be used sensibly. They can not apply in black & white to all applications. For some uneducated twits to say that the FTL's are robust in preventing fatigue is to demonstrate that they know very little about the subject and should follow Eisenhower's advice.
In most applications, whether it is design or operational, there are buffers built in. It could be stress design of components or applications of operational limts. There are always margins. It would not seem to be the case with FTL's. It is often said that the weakest link in the accident chain is human, conveniently called pilot error. Many accidents have been a perfectly servicable a/c being dumped into the ground by a not quite so fully serviceable crew. All efforts seem to be going to make the a/c more reliable and less likely to break, but at the same time weakening the already weakest link by running the last link in the chain to absolute limits. It ain't rocket science to realise that it won't work for ever. Instead of being proactive, as aviation is supposed to be, the pressure of money is making everything reactive.
I would like to see a study by the BBC, or anyone else, as to why this is the case and the consequence thereof. I'm sure the public would find it sober and shocking reading. When was there a 'Paddington/Potters Bar' type investigation into a plane crash. In those train crashes the investigation went right to the top and deep into the culture of the industry. It included the regulators, incident histories, what was known in advance, management styles etc. Same happened after Herald of Free Enterprise. Aviation could do with something similar, before the worst happens.
There was a little of this with the KLM TFN accident, but the well documented cause of events stopped at the airfield and in the cockpit. I can not remember many crashes where the investigation has gone 'upstairs'. There were a couple which discovered deviations in engineering practices, known by management, which led to component failures. Rather than find out the real reason for this 'corner cutting' and cut out the root of the problem, the CAA's just introduced more/stricter paperwork filters. If there is an endemic attitude problem I'm not sure paperwork will cure it. It will then become a game to beat the system.The cancer has to cut out, deep.
Ask your self why there are so many youngsters queing up to get into airlines balanced by many others who, after 30 years or so, can't wait to quit? Something needs to change. Was it always this way? 20 years ago, I don't think so.
Last edited by RAT 5; 4th Jul 2007 at 15:13.
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RAT 5,
A good posting indeed.
However, at the end of the day we are responsible for preventing an accident.
If calling in sick is the method, then so be it.
If at some point in the future the company want to talk to me about the sickies, well so what! They haven't got the capacity to think and make a case, as one's allowed sick periods of up to 7 days without a doc's cert.
As it happens I have done it a few times, but all within reason, there's no "pattern" to be seen!
I call it Accident Prevention, by Self Regulation.
A good posting indeed.
However, at the end of the day we are responsible for preventing an accident.
If calling in sick is the method, then so be it.
If at some point in the future the company want to talk to me about the sickies, well so what! They haven't got the capacity to think and make a case, as one's allowed sick periods of up to 7 days without a doc's cert.
As it happens I have done it a few times, but all within reason, there's no "pattern" to be seen!
I call it Accident Prevention, by Self Regulation.
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Lcc Redeye
hello folks i fly for an asian lcc and would just like to find out how other lcc's deal with redeye flights. we fly out of manila around 8-10 in the evening to several regional destinations and after a quick turn of 45 minutes were heading back to manila to arrive around 6-8 the next morning. landing 06 ,redeyed ,two man crew, sun at your face,headache and all. company authorizes NAPPING as to RON to save on mulah
im looking for a new job by the way.....
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There was an recent interesting MOR listed on the CAA list on a "fatigue" issue, not sure if it's available in the public domain though. It was to do with a schedule that was MOR'd as fatigueing. In response to the MOR a "Senior Management" Pilot undertook the schedule and said it was fine (ok he would do!). Other Pilots were asked for their views and they advised it was "tiring" but not fatigueing. It's worth remembering there is a difference 
