Awake for 20 hours? - you're good to fly !
 

According to the latest postings on EU OPS FTL with our company;
after being on standby for 5hr 59min you can then legally complete a 13 hr Flight Duty Period, Generating a rest of 19:29.
Now I may be the only one that finds this completely ridiculous for a short haul european operation but i am interested in what you think.

You get up at 6am, called from standby at 11.59, get to work for 12.59 and are then good to land from your second flight at 01:59 the following day, finish your paperwork and drive home and arrive home at say 3.29 am.
Some might say that you then have a rest of 19:29 but this takes no account of the fact that your body clock is completely messed up.

Our company Safety training states that for someone to be awake for 18 hours their reaction times are that of someone that has drunk 3 pints of beer.

This cannot be right!!

Could not agree more..crazy!!

Why would you have got up at 6am? Surely thats a personal choice which is the cause of you being tired for a legal duty. If you had been called from standby at 6 that would be different obviously.

The cowards in the companies and and their bought-and-paid-for flunkies in the government don't care about how rested or alert you are, that is, unless something goes bad, and then it will be YOUR FAULT for flying tired and not calling-in fatigued. It's ALL about money and not safety.

Try the supplemental freight carriers. Those guys don't have any duty day limits.

"You get up at 6am, called from standby at 11.59, get to work for 12.59 and are then good to land from your second flight at 01:59"

Are you saying that if you are on standby you are going to get up at 6am? Don't think that anybody else would

"Why would you have got up at 6am? Surely thats a personal choice which is the cause of you being tired for a legal duty. If you had been called from standby at 6 that would be different obviously."



Most people cannot sleep at will. Circadian rhythms dictate it. This sounds like something that would drivel out the mouth of a company or government hack.

The answer is simple. When you get tired, called fatigued mid-sequence. When that happens a few times, maybe some of the management geniuses will figure it out. But, as long as you accept it, that's exactly what will be shoved up your . . .

Well, but then call in fatigued. The company will not carry on with this practice for long, if everyone did this. Easy as that. I wondered as well why one would get up at 6am for a standby. I definetely wouldn't. Earliest show in the morning is dicated by the time that the breakfast-buffet closes ;)

Have to agree re getting up at 6am.

It amazes me how companies are allowed to roster an 1000-1500 standby which could allow you to do operate long duty getting back at 6 in the morning, then roster the next day as an 0400 report. How do you rest for that? :ugh:

I think you will find that as far as your company are concerned , they " see" that you are resting / asleep until 11;58 am and are oblivious to the realities of possibly ( small children / wife / partner working) being awake and up and around since 6.00 am. Correct it is not.

I thought a legal precedent was set here in the UK when the guy with the Land Rover and trailer fell asleep at the wheel and subsequently crashed onto the railway line killing several rail travelers in the ensuing carnage. I believe that his employer was charged with manslaughter for sending the guy to work knowing that he was fatigued. I would love to here the correct details from a legal boffin here.

You are on standby - therefore crewing are entitled to call you at 0600 for a report at 1255. You could go back to sleep - if you weren't spitting feathers!

No sympathy from me.
When you walked thru the HR door, you asked for work, now (apparently) you want to back out and bit*h and moan about long duty periods.
Put a cork in it and do your job....or find another, doing something else.
Period.

PS: there are three other older pilots here reading this now, and they are of the exact same opinion.

Why would you wake up at 6 am.
- Because you are on an early standby. Starting at 4 z until 16 z, You are in the middle of your early schedule, where you check in around 0415 Z for 4 days, and then a standby at the end.

411a - glad to see you have something constructive to add.
maybe you could tell us how EU OPS FTL affect you in the USA !!

As for the getting up at 6 am, if you are on standby you have to be able to get to work within an hour - so presumably you ahve to get up at some time. If you are on earlys then you will have already been used to getting up at 3.30 - 5.30 am so if you are on stanby after working the previous day and are scheduled to work an early following your standby , if you don't get up early on your standby then your sleep patern for the week will go out of sinc.

Yup, get used to it, it ain't likely to change anytime soon.
IF it's legal, you have no leg to stand on.

An airline pilot is 'supposed' to realise this early on, if they don't.....tough beans.

Them's the facts.

"It ain't likely to change anytime soon"..... Well funnily enough 411a we had two patterns changed here at EK that were crippling - enough ASRs and hey presto - new patterns...

I do agree with you in some respects about this, but I know what it's like when the kids make 'getting ready for school' noises at 6am (which is how early they've got to get ready for school over in these parts...
I have no sympathy however for guys I fly with who complain about being tired, yet then tell me they only went to bed at 3am:confused::confused: And that's for a rostered 9:30am flight!!!

411
 

I think you are missing one of the points.

Scenario:

I live between 45mins and 60 mins from work depending on conditions. If my SBY requires me to report within 1 hour then there is not a hope in hell of me making it if I am still in bed at 5:59 and the call comes in at 06:00 to report at 07:00.

If I am SBY I have to be up, and more or less ready to go, no question. My professionalism means that I will ALWAYS be in a position where I can get to the airport within an hour of the SBY call, no exceptions.

I agree that sleep scheduling is part of the job, and I do get agitated by the pilots who consider themselves to be the only ones in the world who need sleep however crewing departments are not always as considerate as they could be. In my experience us pilots have it much better than the CC. My track record for being called in on a short notice standby is very good, for some of the CC I know it is diabolical.

Your very attitude in relation to this shows your inability to comprehend the TEM model and thus reveals potential holes in your SMS. Think about it the next time you are propping your eyelids up after having been awake for 22 hours.

RIX

It is your responsibility to be rested; whether you have been awake all night with kids is irrelevant to the company - it is your responsibility to report unfit for duty at that point.

I agree with many of the above posters as well; are you sitting on tenterhooks at the door from 6am onwards?

I believe this only applies if you are given 2 hours or less from call out. Any more than that and your max FDP goes from the start of your standby. Complete and utter nonsense and a rather nasty way of reducing crew numbers.

Luckily my employer allows 45 minutes from being called for duty and leaving home/the hotel. This is feasable. If I do have a very early start/standby planned for the next morning, I do shower and shave the evening before I go to bed, so I do not need to waste time with this in the morning. Helps to reduce stress/worries.

And remember that they cannot call us too early, too! If the company calls you within the WOCL (02:00-05:59h), the FDP starts right away and not only at show time.

On one hand I do understand people who are in a different rythm or do have difficulties finding sleep because they have family at home. But then again: this is part of our job, you know of it.

EDIT: missed a word.

"But then again: this is part of our job, you know of it."
I agree and was not suggesting otherwise... These are the ground rules which we have all agreed to.:ok:

TEM...SMS.
Just more mumbo-jumbo for the younger pilots on which to hang their collective hats. Older pilots have been at the airline flying business for a very long time, and have learned to cope, so do your job, and stop complaining.
Do I sound like a Chief Pilot?

Yup, that is exactly what I am...sorry, no condolances from my end.
RHIP.

I work for the company concerned, I don't really have a problem with it.
With regards to being able to get there wthin an hour, the part A says you must live witin one hours drive. I read this as it says "one hours drive" It doesn't say you must be there within one hour of a phone call. EG wake up and take call, get ready, have breakfast, then drive one hour. sounds like an hour and a half to me!

Errr.... Is that a company agreement or in your countrie's version of the EU OPS? The German version says nothing regarding such a restriction. At least I haven't foud it yet.

Clarification much appreciated.

Thx, MAX

If you lived closer to the airport, say 15 mins like I do, then you could have slept until 11:59 when woken by crewing. Roll out of bed, have a shower & shave, a bacon sandwich and a coffee. Leave home at 12:30, report on time at 12:59. Do as much as possible of the paperwork before landing, then finish it up quickly and with no traffic on the roads be home by 02:45.

Now call me devil's advocate but you were putting one extreme twist on the situation and I have put another, and the effective duty has gone from 21 hrs 29 mins to 11 hrs 45.

I do understand some people live a long way from work but I really find having a short commute does so much for you lifestyle.

Another point is if they called you out at 6am, you wouldn't finish so late and if they didn't call at 6 but you got up you could always sleep again once you've put your uniform on if you're tired.

in reply to mungo man
How do you reduce a 13 hr FDP to less than that. If you read the original post again then there is no reduction of duty to effective 11.45.

A lot off the posters seem to get stuck on the point of the 6 am wake up, this was just meant as an example.

Assuming that you don't spend all day on a standby in your bed, which some of the posters appear to, then would you agree that it is possible that you would find yourself in a situation where you will have been awake for this length of time ,whether by choice or not, and that LEGALLY they can expect you to be in control of an aircraft after being awake for this length of time, despite studies showning that your reactions are the same as those who has had 3 pints of beer.


411a - i have no objections to working long hours, the point that i am trying to make is that this period is ,in my opinion, too long.

411A,
 

Ignore 411a, if you don't like what he says.

Luckily people within our industry have challenged unsafe practices over the generations to the extent that accidents now are thankfully very rare. Compare that to the "good old days" when there seemed to be a major accident every month. We owe a lot to those who died because lessons were learnt. However we should carry on challenging what we deem to be unsafe.

411
 

Of course I am aware that I am but a spring chicken, with only 17 years experience and just 6 of those in airline management, consultancy and NAA roles. I also realise that the LOSA programme I am currently implementing (LOSA, I take it you know what that is?) will route out a lot of dirt directed at management.

What I also realise is that in the LOSA pilot study I did, there were crews who made significantly more errors after being called in on standby the previous afternoon, working late then going out onto the line the next afternoon. Crewmembers who's judgement would undoubtably be impaired. Crewmembers who would be the ones in the firing line if they bent an AC, yet fatigued to the hilt thanks to bad scheduling. Which is cheaper? Training scheduling departments and crew dispatch to get a grip on reality, or making an insurance claim? Please 411, do enlighten me as to your particular study in this area - I know what my recommendation will be!

Obviously I lack your heigtened level of expertise - I suggest you read a little though - maybe some of the the new thinking really aint that bad. Then again, there are some people who are too obstinate to change. Those are the people I try not to offer a job to in the first place.

RIX

Actually, we don't.
What we do have on hand is a group of old(er) professionals whom have been in the airline business for many years, have the T shirt and hat to prove it, and simply.....get on with the job.
If it takes long(er) hours, it simply takes....longer hours.
What we do have however, is a financial incentive to work to the max allowed duty, then smile all the way to the bank.
We also have a definite advantage....we have a professional Flight Engineer to do all the heavy lifting...we pilots just (more or less) point the aeroplane in the right direction.
In addition, our cabin chief looks after us quite well....IE: a crew working closely together, for the benefit of all.

In addition, we also have another advantage....several Lockheed TriStars, simply the best in the business (still) for comfortable ad-hoc/charter air transportation...for both crew and passengers.

No LoCo here....big bucks.:E

Am I the only one thinking this?..............................


http://www.geekologie.com/2007/09/20/dinosaur.jpg

Dear Flinty
 

Nope you are not, I've spent time with FAA91 operators, the lack of regs sucks to the 'nth degree. 10 hrs airbourne, 4 hrs on the ground with a 9 hr back end ferry, bollox to that, 27 hr duty day off to on blocks:ugh:

The next thing 411alpha will tell us that he was the guy with Air America that flew the Pacific twice driving an ONA stretch whilst on a World 707, and was on the ONA DC10 @ JFK when they had a bird stike, O and yes he was driving the World 72 with Ed Daley onboard ex Saigon. 411a = Bovine Scatology me thinks?

411A
 

Someone really should let you know that you can stop your sales pitch for the L-1011 any time you like. I can't believe you have had any comission from this since the mid 80s.

You neatly side-stepped my personal observation of fatigued crews blatently making more :mad: ups than the control group. You also evaded the question of how much cheaper it would be to get scheduling done properly insted making an insurance claim. I can only assume that in the 2mins between our posts you saw the light and are currently downloading a copy of ICAO doc 9803 or the FAA AC of similar ilk. You may like to know that AC (as far as I am aware) means advisory circular. I take it with your wealth of experience you are above taking advice from anyone? Even the FAA? Perhaps even you consider yourself to be ABOVE the FAA (I am assuming it is their jurisdiction you operate under)?

I pray I am never SLF behind you. While you might like to be fatigued beyond the point of useful human operation, and thus endager your crew and PAX, I am sure most of the SLF would not be so happy to know your prefered work state. 90 hours per month does not have to mean matchsticks for the benefit of the eyelids (and yes, I am all for crews doing 80-90 per month).

RIX

411a;
I've flown the 100 & 500 series 1011's and I have to agree that it's a fine, if not dated, airplane. For it's time there was simply nothing better - a beautiful machine to fly then, and that wouldn't change.

While bragging in aviation always risks it's own reward no matter who you are, your company obviously has taken "support" for crews and the operation seriously. That can go a long way to mitigating the undeniable, physical/mental effects of going without sleep for a long time. If older pilots know anything, it is knowing that one did sign on and must take the responsibility to be ready, "lifestyle" and living in the countryside notwithstanding. Today's crews do not have the luxury of such support and must balance pauper's wages, raising a family, perhaps finding a second job, no pension and a management constantly pressing them for more with nothing promised in return except next month's paycheque will likely show up.

What obviously applies to, and works well for your organization as we here are incessantly reminded, does not and cannot work well for most simply because there is little by way of robust, effective support in what has become shoestring operations even at major carriers - this side or that side of the Atlantic - we won't even discuss Asia. Domestic crews are almost always on their own in terms of flight planning, weather assessment, meals, (cold dried buns, a steady supply of peanuts & coke, maybe one bowl of cereal/banana, quick pretzel and coffee for lunch at one of the station stops, all this for a domestic lo-cost operation), and for long-haul overseas crews, we have the MK 747 accident at Halifax, the Korean Guam accident, the oft-quoted-but-still-relevant Gitmo DC8 accident and a host of domestic (Little Rock) accidents to illustrate that even old pilots aren't he-men when the kind of support your company offers it's crews isn't there in other operations.

You say that SMS, TEM, FOQA, ASRs, CRM and all those fancy gadgets like TCAS, EGPWS, FMGC's are for soft, pampered crews but in truth they are the result of an industry accident rate on the verge of increase after decades of reductions. I think most if not all crews would welcome the kind of support, the money and the operation of which we are constantly reminded and that most simply do not have. A large, complex operation can do all that but these days likely not for long, so thin are margins. You are indeed very fortunate in an industry where the bottom line, not safety, is the key to staying in business.

Mitigation of fatigue is most certainly the responsibility of the individual crew member but remember that domestic crews especially must deal with 15 to 20 days of the long duty days on their own without regulatory support. The medical profession, notwithstanding what our chief pilot tells us, knows that physiologically, he-men and old men can only last so long before sleep takes over. Your support system obviously deals with these realities but most, for the reasons outlined, do not. If your small operation is as you say it is, you're very fortunate indeed but there are others in the world who aren't so lucky, and every time you tell all young pilots reading here your war stories it shows how vastly out of touch with the industry is your leadership. I'm glad it works for you because we don't need more statistics. It can't, elsewhere, without serious result.

RIX
 

Don't bother old chap, the guys a numpty of the first order:8 Rather a pillock in old English:ugh:

merlinxx;
Well, we'll see. What I wrote is entirely rational and the truth about commercial, passenger and freight aviation today. The door's open for clarifications. One can either continue bragging irrelevantly because almost nobody has the kind of support indicated, pointing out this anachronism and that, or one can acknowledge today's reality in commercial work.

PJ2
 

I have a feeling that Merlinxx was relating that to 411A.

You decidedly have to be a numpty of the first order if you are prepared to dismiss something outright, something that has been developed over nearly two decades, something that many major airlines have participated in and benefitted from, and something that has a sole purpose of improving operational safety. Then again, what would I know? Like I said before, I am only a spring chicken.

RIX

edit - read that I am a spring chicken who gets to implement and see the benefits of safety programmes.

IS 411A one of those codgers who think CRM ( This is the Cockpit you are the Resource prepare to be Managed ). Reminds me of a Monty Python sketch in my day we flew 24 hours before we licked the runway clean with our bare tongues .....

The fact that some guy drove his land rover off the side of a hill into a train should say it all regarding rest required. "jUST GET ON WITH IT " that sounds like the dark satanic mills. Its all moved on since then.

Welcome to the world of commercial aviation.

The trouble is that modern commercial aviation is still based on the tenets of:
No complaints;
Get on with the job;
Complete the mission.

Only trouble is we're not flying Lancasters anymore.

FOK :)

Surely the time a duty from standby at home starts depends on the type of standby your are on. If it is immediate then that is the time the duty day starts regardless of what time one chooses to get out of bed hours beforehand.

The airline I used to work for gave us standby's lasting a couple of weeks with time off on some nights.The minimum amount of time we could be called from standby varied from days to day. Max 24 hours notice down to 90 minutes notice or immediate at or near the airport. If I was selected for a duty from say 12 hours notice my starting time would be the normal reporting time at the airport, not 12 hours earlier.

If the standby is from airport standby then the time one starts the standby is the time the duty starts. If someone was selected from standby after spending 5 hours 59 minute on standby then the maximum duty they could perform is about 6 hours depending on the airline. the time the standby was started and the amount of sectors for short range flying. Obviously airport standby's starting before 0559 would be far more restrictive and could only be a short duty.

I cannot calculate the long days amounting to 20+ hours that some people have come up with.

If people want to live more than 60 minutes driving time from their airline base then they should accept that every working days is going to be a longer day than it would be if they lived closer to their base. I realise of course that some people have to live where they do for reasons relating to their private lives.

RIA;
Yeah, I know Merlinxx was referring to 411a; I thought I would try an invitation to a rational dialogue one last time, to see if it was just attention-seeking with nothing to offer fellow aviatiors except arrogance, (in which case, he's not an aviator), or a serious discussion on operational issues that we can collectively benefit by. I have a feeling any response will be a direct copy of the last 5300 or so wastes of time.

I've flown with guys who talk like that, (thirty years ago, mind you) and I always bid around them because they had nothing to pass on, nothing to teach colleagues.

But there it is, a civil offer to discuss professional issues with present realities kept in mind. Like I say, we'll see.