Fatigue
 

I am looking for help and guidance regarding fatigue management, for aircrew (pilots & F/E) as well as technical staff. Deliberately leaving the question wide open, I will appreciate any inputs on the matter.

Thanks!

PS: You can assume I have done the Google thing and the air law aspect. I am looking for any approaches to training, management, literally any material or such like which you may consider relevant.

Try CAP 371 - management of fatigue in aircrew on the UK CAA website. Its mostly in terms of UK regulatory aspects, but you will probably find other useful training & management principles in there too.

1. Get hold of a real pilot's monthly roster with 90 hours flying on it.

2. Load a Windows "Flight Simulator" programme into your computer.

3. Ask a friend to accompany you to the Supermarket. Get him to report to the management he suspects you of shoplifting - endure the cross examination and personal body search. Return home.

3. Fly the above roster in real time..........no cheating and no dozing at the computer !

4. At the conclusion of the flight, jump into your car and drive it around for an hour before returning to home

Repeat 2 to 4 five times...........long-haul or twenty-five times.............. short haul

Arguments with spouses, partners, children, local tradesmen and neighbours should be encouraged to add to the realism.

Try it for a month.............It'll give you an inkling into the fatigue factor

VIRGO I want a job where you are working.....sounds like a piece of cake. :)

Dunno if you've heard of the Swedish system that consists of counting points.
Basically, all hours between 06:00 and 22:00 will give you 6 points per hour.
Between 22:00 and 06:00 you will get 8 points per hour. Every landing costs you 5 points. You are allowed to accept a schedule of max 90 points per day with landing points included. If you fly this day and for any unforseen event, you need to exceed 90 points (weather, diversion etc) you may go up to 108 points.

For any given 7 day period, you are to have no more than 270 points planned excluding landing points. That kind of takes care of the long term fatigue.

As for rest, you rest down your points in the same way you accumulated them ie. 8 points between 22:00 and 06:00 and so on.

It's a reasonably complicated system, but works fairly well. Some argue thought that it's not the amount of landings that should count but the number of approaches... A day with poor weather and many minima go arounds will be a lot mor fatiguing than a clear day with no go arounds.

But even though you are within your legal points limit, you can still FEEL fatigued. Everyone is different and sometimes you sleep poorly or are under a lot of stress at home etc. In that case the only protection is your own say and to let those in charge know that you are not fit to fly.

Regarding managing fatigue on the line it is all about using all the available help all the time. Don't try to proove things by doing things "your" way. It's not about doing things as if you're about to pass a CAA check. If you fly an NDB approach, use guidance from the FMS if available etc, ask for vectors rather than doing full procedures and so on. Make life simple. But not too simple so that it becomes booring because that tends to bring on another type of fatigue.

When it comes to safety, you need to be able to recognise when you are fatigued. If you don't recognise it in time, the first thing that comes along is complacency. You find yourelf being very comfortable in just not doing stuff you normally should do and that's when the **** hits the fan. For me I'm especially cautious early mornings and around 15-16:00 after having a meal. That's when I try to really adhere to SOP's and do things by the book. That way I'm certain I wont miss vital items and so on.

It's a big subject and what's interesting is that just being a little bit too tired can result in so many more problems... That's my five pennies worth.

/LnS

thanks!
 

Thanks everybody for some good gen! I will post the "outcome" of our study, as soon as its done. Any other inputs, this is great!:ok:

CAP 371 - ah yes that fantastic piece of loo paper that allows companies to produce fatiguing rosters. CAA & fatigue management hardly goes well in the same sentence! Mind you its better than the document that the EU wanted to install!
NASA have done a lot of work in this field.
http://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/zteam/
as have Qinetiq.
http://www.qinetiq.com/home/commerci...ent_Page4.html

Several years ago I attended a seminar on "The affect of Fatigue on Flight-crew Performance". The presenter - a senior airline manager - explained that the findings he was about to deliver had been derived, researched and validated over a three year period by several disciplines including the FAA, CAA, Institute of Aviation Medicine, NASA and several International universities.
The total cost of the research was slightly under $2.5 million

He then spent just over an hour delivering his presentation with the following summary:

1. When people are subjected to long periods without adequate sleep they get tired.
2. When people are tired they tend to make mistakes.
3. In order to reduce the debilitating effect of fatigue, crews should not operate when tired.

So there you are Pointer41, all your questions answered !

"Thanks everybody for some good gen! I will post the "outcome" of our study, as soon as its done. Any other inputs, this is great"

Referencing PPRuNe sources I hope". ;)