uwochris
Flightinfo's sexiest user
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2001
- Posts
- 381
Hey guys,
I am doing another paper of fatigue and aviation, this time for my Aviation Law class. I will be examining how fatigue affects pilot performance and will look at the current standards to determine if today's limitations are appropriate.
I have tried to find some stuff related to the USA regarding these issues. I have however become very confused and hope someone can clarify the FAR:
Specifically, I am uncertain as to the duty day limitations for American pilots. I have read that the FAA has recently increased the duty day to 16 hours... is this correct? In Canada, our max duty day is 14 hours. I just thought it was odd how you guys would use 16 hours- it just seemed a little too high.
I also read the following from an ALPA website:
"Current domestic FAA regulations limit scheduled flight time to a maximum of eight hours in a single duty period, with an exception allowing the eight-hour limitation to be exceeded "due to circumstances beyond the control of the carrier."
I just don't understand how this ties into the max 16 hour duty day. Does this mean that while the max duty day is 16 hours in the USA, flight time cannot exceed 8 hours UNLESS augmented crews are onboard? It seems strange how you can have a max 16 hour duty day, yet a max 8 hour flight time day (what's the other 8 hours for?)
Thanks in advance.
ps- what does everyone think of ALPA's recommendation to decrease the max duty day to 12/10 hours?
I am doing another paper of fatigue and aviation, this time for my Aviation Law class. I will be examining how fatigue affects pilot performance and will look at the current standards to determine if today's limitations are appropriate.
I have tried to find some stuff related to the USA regarding these issues. I have however become very confused and hope someone can clarify the FAR:
Specifically, I am uncertain as to the duty day limitations for American pilots. I have read that the FAA has recently increased the duty day to 16 hours... is this correct? In Canada, our max duty day is 14 hours. I just thought it was odd how you guys would use 16 hours- it just seemed a little too high.
I also read the following from an ALPA website:
"Current domestic FAA regulations limit scheduled flight time to a maximum of eight hours in a single duty period, with an exception allowing the eight-hour limitation to be exceeded "due to circumstances beyond the control of the carrier."
I just don't understand how this ties into the max 16 hour duty day. Does this mean that while the max duty day is 16 hours in the USA, flight time cannot exceed 8 hours UNLESS augmented crews are onboard? It seems strange how you can have a max 16 hour duty day, yet a max 8 hour flight time day (what's the other 8 hours for?)
Thanks in advance.
ps- what does everyone think of ALPA's recommendation to decrease the max duty day to 12/10 hours?