FAA Head Denies Pilots Sleep in Crew Lounges

anybody seen the show "Lie to Me"? Good show, one episode was about scratching your nose when telling a lie. So now that I've seen that one episode I'm an expert on detecting lies (yeah right)... although interesting that he scratched his nose right when he was talking about how the industry has self governed itself out of fatigue issues, or something like that..
 
denver said:
Red Bull works well for me.

So what happens when you are up front(single pilot) and the sun goes down and at the end of a long day your eyes start to toothpick and you realize you left your emergency Red Bull in the cooler in the Back? Do you:

a. Put the aircraft on autopilot and walk to the back to get it.(Illegal)
b. Ask one of you passengers to get it for you.(not very cool in my opinion).
c. Do a negative g pushover and a quick decell to try and get the cooler up front.(would not work if the cooler was restrained properly as per FAA regulations)
d. Push on with toothpick eyes into the inky blackness and hope you don't make any life threatening mistakes as you fly a night approach into an uncotrolled field with broken VASI lights on a non-prec runway with only MIRL.
e. De-pressurize the cabin to open the window to get some fresh air.
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This is the post of the year for me. Bravo.
 
Ask him about the 8 hours reduced rest (which means a maximum of 5 hours of sleep) that the FAA says is sufficient for being the "well rested and ready to fly" that he says we need to be.
 
You figure as the former leader of ALPA, being "Mr. Schedule With Safety" he would be all over rest and fatigue issues, but it seems like he's just enjoying his government pension and the daily noontime sandwich board.
 
Doug Taylor said:
You figure as the former leader of ALPA, being "Mr. Schedule With Safety" he would be all over rest and fatigue issues, but it seems like he's just enjoying his government pension and the daily noontime sandwich board.
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"He who pays, gets their way".
 
Crews should be allowed to take naps in crew rooms. Whats the big deal? If they move into the crew room while on reserve, thats another story.

"We want you to be rested. But you had better not take a nap in the crew room!!!!"
 
About a week ago Babbitt and NATCA President Paul Rinaldi came to speak to the ~200 ATO employees here in OKC. One guy in the back asked why he wouldn't approve naps, and he gave the same answer: "I was a pilot. We didn't nap." You should've heard the collective chuckle go up around the room.
 
Rosstafari said:
About a week ago Babbitt and NATCA President Paul Rinaldi came to speak to the ~200 ATO employees here in OKC. One guy in the back asked why he wouldn't approve naps, and he gave the same answer: "I was a pilot. We didn't nap." You should've heard the collective chuckle go up around the room.
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"I CALL *explative deleted*"
 
I hear you Titansox....Babs is crazy...Just walk into the crew rooms in IAD in evening. There are so many bodies sprawled out on the floor you can barely walk.

I don't know what big deal is. Some foreign airlines allow naps in flight, our own USAF has procedures for it. So why is it so bad for US Airline Crews to even nap out of cockpit...
 
I think all you 121 guys need to rally crews together, and start sleeping in the terminals. What would they say then?
 
mshunter said:
I think all you 121 guys need to rally crews together, and start sleeping in the terminals. What would they say then?
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I can just see Administrator Babbitt's spin now. "There is no indication these pilots were actually sleeping. The word I received is that they were in a deep meditative state with their eyes closed for inner introspection."
 
Sounds like ATC spillout... god forbid a pilot or controller sleeps during a break from controlling/flight to be more rested while they are at the controls. Blame the media for this one.
 
mshunter said:
I think all you 121 guys need to rally crews together, and start sleeping in the terminals. What would they say then?
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A few months ago, due to a snowstorm, we were going to be forced to sleep in the terminal. No joke. Luckily, after the weather subsided, we talked the company into letting us ferry the crews out of there to another city that had hotels and transportation.

The crew room was completely full. I even heard the SWA crew room at a nearby city was filled to capacity with stuck crewmembers.

I wonder how many people flew the next day.
 
If pilots aren't allowed to sleep...... or take naps, or even just close their eyes.......

Then Randy Babs shouldn't be allowed to open his mouth and produce stupidity through sound waves.....
 
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