Jetlag..

[jrpilot]

Has anyone ever flown for more than 5 hours on a plane...well whenever I go to the West Coast of the US from the East Coast I become so jet lagged...and with a flight of 18 hours available I think I would go insane...


How do the pilots cope with getting only 8 hours of rest between flight (and how does this rule apply since I was on a flight and as sone as we landed the pilots where  off to fly the B737 again) I beleave between flight and still do there next flight with out being jet lagged...

[Craig.]

Never suffered jet lag myself. I find as long as you plan accordingly you shouldn't suffer it. If your fly east to west never sleep on the flight, but be prepaired to stay awake for a little longer than usual. and west to east depending on the flight time, try to sleep the whole way if its a night flight so you wake up morning local time like it was just another day. This works Europe to US and US to europe. Also east coast to west coast, and night flights west to east coast. I am sure pilots do it so often they get used to it quickly.

[beefhole]

Pilots have a maximum flying time for each day, week, and month (I think that's how it works).  When that time has been filled for a day, they are required to be given a break.  Therefore, a 737 that just came in on a 1 1/2 hour flight and will be turned around in 40 minutes has no need to change aircrews.  I'm sure someone like Saratoga can fill you in on this some more.

And for the jetlag?  The longest flight I've ever been on is the same as yours, Philly to San Francisco/San Diego (flown these like 4 times round trip).  Only a 3 hour time difference, not that bad for me.  Something like the UK would really mess anyone up, no doubt.

[Ben_M_K]

Longest flight I was on was 13 hours, with a 13 hour time difference. I wasn't jet lagged at all. I didn't sleep at all though like Craig said. I got up early in the morning, and stayed up all that day. Then at nite, our really long flight started. When we arrived in China it was still nite and I went to sleep. All was good!

[Craig.]

Hi Ben.
I dont sleep on flights either. However it is the most sensible option for those who have to drive themselves after landing

[Rocket_Bird]

Been on 13 hour flights as well, overseas 747 flights... and whew, i get jet lag for couple days.  While flying east to west, i can never get any sleep anyways (insomnia  ;), plus those engines are loud)

As for your question, pilots rotate regularly i believe.  Captain flies for a bit, then the first officer.

[Nexus]

There are plenty of regulations concerning flight time for a pilot and how many hours of rest he needs (or must have) between flights. I think these sets of laws are the most complicated jibberish ever created by the JAA and FAA.

Just scimmed thru them very briefly and it seems like 8hrs of flight time is the max. for a pilot. So for a flight of 12hrs you'd need three pilots, no?
But I got a feeling it's not that easy  

[Saratoga]

Well I don't sleep on the flights...want to sometimes, but hey!

For the long long flights (say Sydney to LAX) the 747 has two crews, one takes off, flys for a while, the pilots alternating duties from radios and flying, then about halfway through or so, they get up, the backup crew sits down, and the first crew goes and sleeps or eats or just chills or sits in the cockpit or whatever.

I don't know what my truly longest flight was, but I've been on several trans-Pacific flights including some from New York direct. My longest pilot where I was the one flying is probably the US-Europe routes I fly sometimes right now.

And yes, airline pilots frequently switch duties during flights. I let my copilot fly a lot, but I take over sometimes, sometimes we cooperate to get a task done. It's always one person flying one on the radios with ATC. During low approaches, ones where the weather truly sucks, I will almost always take over, as will pretty much any airline captain. Just some things require experience and if we encounter wind shear, I don't want someone flying who doesn't know how to recover.

[beefhole]

Just some things require experience and if we encounter wind shear, I don't want someone flying who doesn't know how to recover.

Aye, I got a taste of that this Sunday... :-/ (gusty this weekend)

[Saratoga]

Aye, I got a taste of that this Sunday... :-/ (gusty this weekend)

Eh, never fun. What happened?

[beefhole]

Local flight, landings/takeoffs in preperation for solo.  Majority of it was at an unfamiliar airport, Quakertown.  VERY narrow runway.  The winds were gusting over our max x-wind component (like my CFI cares) and I wasn't allowed to exceed 20 degrees of bank because a gust could flip us over.  I maintain that it wasn't as bad as my cross-country to York... :-/

Marco can back me up on this, he had to ground himself on Saturday because it was too gusty.

[Saratoga]

Wow, that sucks. Sounds like the instructor needs a little lesson himself. Get a military pilot (just my cup of tea) to scare the piss out of him flippin' over, he won't let you try that again.

Speaking of the cross country, what happened there?

[beefhole]

This is what happened on that x-country.  taught ya a thing or two about workload management, I'll say that much.

[Saratoga]

Turbulence will do that to you. Something I love about large airplanes, they take the turbulence and you never feel much of it.

Felt sorry for a guy I passed this morning though. We were climbing through 15,000 and gettin' slammed comin' out of DFW by some heavy turbulence (I would say moderate, and that's on a 767) and this turbocharged Cessna 210 passes under us and he contacted ATC and said he needed a new altitude, you could hear the pain in his voice, he must have been fighting with that thing for dear life.