Fatigued is when...

On a personal flight, subtracting the fuel credit from the engine tachometer time to arrive at the total rental charge. And then not realizing your mistake until after 10 seconds of staring at the charge sheet saying "6000 seems awefully high for 4 hours Cessna 172 rental."
 
Winner

ComplexHiAv8r said:
You wake up in the hotel not knowing where you are and there is a ton of snow outside. After a new minutes you realize you know the hotel, been there before, etc. You go out, get in your rental car and drive home. Getting home you notice your car is not in the carport. You ask your wife about it and she asks how the flight home was.

DAMM, left the plane in PA.....
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I couldn't even have made something up as funny as that!
 
Yeah, I've woken up before not knowing where I was, but I've never driven home. That tops it all!

Besides, who get's rental cars on an overnight?

Keep it comin'
 
You reach up and hold on to the v-brace so when (not if) you nod off, your hand falling from the v-brace will wake you up. Or so some people tell me.
 
After flying solo into an unfamiliar towered airport during your primary training (brand new to towered ops after training at an uncontrolled field), you taxi back for departure. There is only one other airplane in the pattern and tower tells you to position and hold for spacing with the aircraft on upwind, but as you're rounding out to line up with the runway center line they clear you for takeoff. You're eager to readback both instructions professionally, but in the process you fail to retain them and they go in one ear and out the other.

About five seconds after starting your takeoff roll you think to yourself "Oh my god I was never cleared for takeoff!" and slam on the brakes and abort. Stopped on the runway (but ready to taxi clear) you query the controller about whether you had received a takeoff clearance, and they reply "Affirm" in a half-horrified, half-feeling sorry and embarrassed for you tone of voice where you can just imagine they are shaking their head and burying their face in their palm.

You acknowledge and elect to continue from your position because of the 5000 ft runway. You takeoff and go on your merry way cursing yourself under your breath and thanking your higher power that you weren't given a phone number to call. :banghead:

...Not a story of caving to professional demands, but rather learning my (I mean the hypothetical 'your' ;)) fatigue limits and developing personal aeronautical decision making skills to better make the "go"/"no-go" decision.
 
There have been a few times when I'm talking to the passengers in the back telling them where we are flying to with the trip numbers and forget where we are going.

Just makes me wonder when will the rules change for rest requirements?
 
flyingmaniac said:
This is not the thread to discuss who is wrong or right or what you did was wrong. It is a base for people to learn from the mistakes of others being fatigued (a little or a lot).

Once again, I am looking at the checklist right now, and turning on the APU is not required nor on the checklist.
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Ah come on man, you know non-121 pilots would jump down your throat about this one. Don't you know, everyone has our FOM and our company's CR2 OM on their bookshelf.
 
flyingmaniac said:
There have been a few times when I'm talking to the passengers in the back telling them where we are flying to with the trip numbers and forget where we are going.

Just makes me wonder when will the rules change for rest requirements?
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I don't fly in the 121 world yet (and I may never), but I have been a professional in a field known to have fatigue problems with rest requirements that are supposed to solve the problems of fatigue. One thing I learned from that is that no bureaucrat can look at a group of people and say, "You know, every one of you is going to need X amount of rest, and all fatigue will go away."

I don't know the solution exactly because I haven't studied it enough. But I know that you can change the rest rules all you want to, but the fact that different people are different means that you're always going to have fatigue problems in aviation, medicine, trucking, etc.
 
flyingmaniac said:
You land in Atlanta, pull up to the gate and turn off the engines and forget to turn the APU on. The airplane goes black and you look at the captain and the captain looks at you and you both smack your heads and then you turn the APU on.

I would like to make this thread into a "Factors of Fatigue", which explains the mistakes that a pilot might or might not make due to the flacid regulations that the airlines or operators abide by.

Please give your lessons learned from being fatigued.

Thank You,
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Maybe you're just a reserve CA who doesn't fly enough. Either one is dangerous.
 
msmspilot said:
I don't fly in the 121 world yet (and I may never), but I have been a professional in a field known to have fatigue problems with rest requirements that are supposed to solve the problems of fatigue. One thing I learned from that is that no bureaucrat can look at a group of people and say, "You know, every one of you is going to need X amount of rest, and all fatigue will go away."

I don't know the solution exactly because I haven't studied it enough. But I know that you can change the rest rules all you want to, but the fact that different people are different means that you're always going to have fatigue problems in aviation, medicine, trucking, etc.
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This is true. However, there is no way a 16 hour duty day and 8 hours on the ground for an overnight should be legal.

My biggest issue that makes me fatigued is being on reserve and having an early duty in one trip and a late duty in on the next. On reserve you don't get enough heads up to propery adjust your sleep schedule.
 
Fins Up said:
Maybe you're just a reserve CA who doesn't fly enough. Either one is dangerous.
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There is more than meets the eye!

Until you have been in the cockpit of an airliner and hear and see the things that the pilots do, you have a lot to learn.

Either you fly too much at maximum every month or you don't fly enough, people still make mistakes.

Some training programs are good, which is at the airline that I fly. And others are marginal which I have heard from other people at a lower moral airline.
 
flyingmaniac said:
There is more than meets the eye!

Until you have been in the cockpit of an airliner and hear and see the things that the pilots do, you have a lot to learn.

Either you fly too much at maximum every month or you don't fly enough, people still make mistakes.

Some training programs are good, which is at the airline that I fly. And others are marginal which I have heard from other people at a lower moral airline.
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Fins Up is a JetBlue pilot, and former Navy pilot if I remember correctly.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
This is true. However, there is no way a 16 hour duty day and 8 hours on the ground for an overnight should be legal.

My biggest issue that makes me fatigued is being on reserve and having an early duty in one trip and a late duty in on the next. On reserve you don't get enough heads up to propery adjust your sleep schedule.
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I understand the reserve thing. My wife and I drove a truck for a year, and when you're waiting on a load, you're essentially on reserve. It's rough. But how do you regulate that? And furthermore, every time you try to put something in place that makes sense from a fatigue standpoint, you upset pilots (and drivers) because now they can't make money.

It's tough. And it's one area where I am glad I'm not the one trying to figure out the best way to do it.
 
I don't have the problem of not flying on reserve. In fact, it's the opposite. I'm flown to the limit, and then they'll test that. I never called in fatigued as a line holding FO because I never felt I needed to. Reserve CA, however, is a totally different animal. With the constant clock swapping, CDOs mixed with regular trips and not enough days off to recover (2 days off in a row is NOT enough most times), it's a recipe for fatigue. I've called out fatigued twice since October. The way our block hours are starting to look, there's not much of a break in sight.

Now, if I were in ATL and on reserve, it would be a different story. However, even then, it's the pilot's responsibility to maintain proficiency. If you haven't flown in 3 or 4 days, run through the flows just as a refresher. Dig out a book and thumb through some stuff. If you're sitting ready reserve, all the more reason to find something to numb the pain. :)
 
I can't think of any specific times, but I do know that when I get tired, I have the typical issues. Things that aren't "routine" and automatic or take a little thought get the least attention and that's not good. I liked Ian's example. It sounds really bad, but makes complete sense because of how the brain works when you are fatigued.
 
flyingmaniac said:
There is more than meets the eye!

Until you have been in the cockpit of an airliner and hear and see the things that the pilots do, you have a lot to learn.

Either you fly too much at maximum every month or you don't fly enough, people still make mistakes.

Some training programs are good, which is at the airline that I fly. And others are marginal which I have heard from other people at a lower moral airline.
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jtrain609 said:
Fins Up is a JetBlue pilot, and former Navy pilot if I remember correctly.
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:yeahthat::rotfl:Very Amusing!
 
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