New Flight Time and Duty Day Regulations

[milky]

Then half of regional pilots leave the industry. Who's gonna move to New York for $21,000 a year?

The same person that would pay $100,000 to get a job that starts at no better than $20,000/year.

 

[CesnaCaptn]

As for the max legs per day, I would love to hear a Hawaiian pilot's input. Don't they do up to 10 legs per day? Over how much duty day?

Want to get rid of CDOs? Don't Fedex and UPS pilots fly schedule similar to these? They fly into the hub, sit the sort and fly out a few hours later. They don't necessarily go to the hotel, but they might only fly 2 legs a night with a 4 hour sit. That's pretty close to a CDO.

We call reserve hours of availablity "zones of scheduled availability," or just "zone" at my airline. I don't see a problem with scheduling changing my zone. Just give me 1 calendar day for every 4 hours difference in zone and duty start time. If I'm in a zone that starts at 3pm and you want to assign me a trip that shows at 8am? Fine, just give me 2 days notice.

 

[Bringupthebird]

Careful. Some people LIKE those. (I don't, but I know people who bid them exclusively - they live in domicile, have kids, and that's ALL they bid).

The criteria for duty and rest regulations should be based on established safety research, not some guy's bravado who says "I can do it".

Should we have separate approach minimums for guys who are really good at picking out approach lights?

 

[ImbracableCrunk]

The criteria for duty and rest regulations should be based on established safety research, not some guy's bravado who says "I can do it".

Should we have separate approach minimums for guys who are really good at picking out approach lights?

Excellent post.

 

[UALRATT]

FAA did study in the late 80's early 90's and recommend controlled sleeping in the cockpit was the best way to combat fatigue. They studied the occurrence of micro naps, these are naps that you have no control over, and you nod off. On crews studied who did not have controlled sleeping in the cockpit there were 147 occurrences of micro nap, a number of them during the approach phase. On the crews at foreign airlines that allowed sleeping in the cockpit, there were no occurrences of micro naps during the approach phase. The FAA recommended that controlled napping in the cockpit be adopted as US policy, however Gov’t officials felt that official recognition of sleeping on the job was un-American. Sorry of a mirco-nap. When you fly shifting schedules, you have to plan sleeping otherwise it is uncontrollable. Having one guy rest his eyes for 20 minutes, when other one knows it is going on does wonders for your ability to make that tight approach at the end of the night. However when everyone in the cockpit is asleep, that is scary. We used to fly these night and day patrols around Vietnam, terrible schedule, 12 hr flights, fly a day flight 12 hours off fly a night flight, 24 hrs off fly a day flight. 10 days in a row. One night off the south end of the country, at 0300, nothing is going on, no contacts, no chatter on the intercom, I am fighting off sleep and loosing, a mirco-nap hits and I nod off. I wake up, you do not know if it has been 30 seconds or 30 minutes, we are on the autopilot' at 1,500’, #1 engine in the bag to save fuel, and all 10 of the crew is asleep. Talk about being wide-awake, Where the are we? Now how do you wake up the PPC without letting him know you nodded off also? The F/E was also in the bag. So I called for "Coffee around for my friends" The point is the worse thing about sleeping in the cockpit is letting it sneak up on you, You know it might happen, plan on when it is going to happen, control it.

The study was actually conducted by NASA. The FAA didn't really buy into it. It should be duly noted that these studies related onlyto long haul flight and were not part of a more comprehensive Fatigue Risk Management Study.

 

[UALRATT]

Having done a transcon turn within a 14 hour duty day part 91, they are MUCH less fatiguing than a 2-4 hour sit in the middle of the day.

Gives real meaning to the expression "fatigue is insidious".

 

[Lear70]

The criteria for duty and rest regulations should be based on established safety research, not some guy's bravado who says "I can do it".

Should we have separate approach minimums for guys who are really good at picking out approach lights?

Who said anything about Bravado? Good job at twisting my post into something it wasn't... Either you have a reading comprehension problem or you don't like doing back of the clock flying and want to apply YOUR personal beliefs/feelings into a reg that applies to everyone, just so YOU don't have to do them anymore. Nice.

People bidding and setting up their sleep schedule for CDO's doesn't have anything to do with any kind of separate minimums; it has everything to do with being able to safely accomplish that flying. XJOhJX is exactly right, some people don't have any safety problems at all with them, and some people do. You don't have the right to simply say, for EVERYONE in the entire world of aviation: "they're unsafe". Sorry, but you don't.

If you're going to write regs or even contract rigs that pertain to scheduling issues such as these, you have to be able to do it impartially. There are many of us who HAVE done such work who recognize that some people have NO problem with it (I can, as can many others who currently fly for UPS and FedEx, I just don't typically LIKE to). Therefore, you have to leave the airline the flexibility to run the schedule how they need while addressing the safety concerns that go along with it.

Not to mention the law of unintended consequences, you want to eliminate CDO's? Then you have to eliminate ALL back-of-the-clock flying. Bye-bye, FedEx and UPS. I've FLOWN one-leg-in, sit 4 hours for sort, one leg back out, at night, for 2 years for the USPS before FedEx took the contract. That's what a CDO is, as well. So how is one safe and one not?

I'll answer that for you since you seem to have a personal issue that likely clouds your judgment on the discussion:

What makes a CDO unsafe is a long night-cycle duty day with multiple legs or being flipped in and out of them from a day schedule. A shortened duty day with leg limitations and longer rest combined with a no "flipping" rule that keeps you on your night schedule known in ADVANCE with the ability for people who can't do them to turn the trip down fixes that problem. If you can find research that proves differently, quote it (I know you can't, there's been a lot of studies on this and I've read them).

You don't get it both ways, my friend. Either night flying is safe or it's not. Which is it?

 

[pilotyip]

Who said anything about Bravado? Good job at twisting my post into something it wasn't... Either you have a reading comprehension problem or you don't like doing back of the clock flying and want to apply YOUR personal beliefs/feelings into a reg that applies to everyone, just so YOU don't have to do them anymore. Nice.

People bidding and setting up their sleep schedule for CDO's doesn't have anything to do with any kind of separate minimums; it has everything to do with being able to safely accomplish that flying. XJOhJX is exactly right, some people don't have any safety problems at all with them, and some people do. You don't have the right to simply say, for EVERYONE in the entire world of aviation: "they're unsafe". Sorry, but you don't.

If you're going to write regs or even contract rigs that pertain to scheduling issues such as these, you have to be able to do it impartially. There are many of us who HAVE done such work who recognize that some people have NO problem with it (I can, as can many others who currently fly for UPS and FedEx, I just don't typically LIKE to). Therefore, you have to leave the airline the flexibility to run the schedule how they need while addressing the safety concerns that go along with it.

Not to mention the law of unintended consequences, you want to eliminate CDO's? Then you have to eliminate ALL back-of-the-clock flying. Bye-bye, FedEx and UPS. I've FLOWN one-leg-in, sit 4 hours for sort, one leg back out, at night, for 2 years for the USPS before FedEx took the contract. That's what a CDO is, as well. So how is one safe and one not?

I'll answer that for you since you seem to have a personal issue that likely clouds your judgment on the discussion:

What makes a CDO unsafe is a long night-cycle duty day with multiple legs or being flipped in and out of them from a day schedule. A shortened duty day with leg limitations and longer rest combined with a no "flipping" rule that keeps you on your night schedule known in ADVANCE with the ability for people who can't do them to turn the trip down fixes that problem. If you can find research that proves differently, quote it (I know you can't, there's been a lot of studies on this and I've read them).

You don't get it both ways, my friend. Either night flying is safe or it's not. Which is it?

Again a nice touch of reality, not found much of on FI

 

[Raskal]

Again a nice touch of reality, not found much of on FI

Yeah, seriously. This needs to stop.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!


Congress to toughen airline standards (Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act of 2009) - USATODAY.com

• "Require that all airline pilots obtain an Airline Transport Pilot license, which is currently only needed by captains. Pilots must have a minimum of 1,500 flight hours to obtain the license....

cliff
NBO