Good Evening (Morning)!

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So, if you flew the redeye, what kind of crew rest did you get?

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We got in about 10am into DEN and went to the hotel. Then we had a hotel pickup at 11:30pm later on that evening. Once we arrived in ATL, it was the end of rotation. If you look at Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on pix.jetcareers.com, it'll chronologically follow thru the trip when you click on the day #'s.

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Did you have to pick up another leg immediately, or was it time for a hotel?

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See above.

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If it was time for a hotel, how hard was it to get to sleep at 0800?

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Tremendously difficult to go to sleep mid day, but if you mentally prepare yourself for it, it's not bad every once in a while.

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Can you drift right off?

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Nope.

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As a night owl, can you sleep easier in the day?

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Nope. My natural ryhthm is getting up about 0900 and staying awake until about 0300 or 0400. I'm usually fine until the sun rises because that resets my brain.

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How does your circadian clock respond to widely varying flight times?

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It doesn't very well, which is primarily why a lot of international pilots look like walking death. I hear that international flying is really a job for the young. A good example would be British Airways where the junior pilots fly international and all of the senior pilots fly domestic or short hops.

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Does it make it tough to stay in any kind of reasonable physical shape?

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Yes, because generally when you have a chance to go work out, you've either (a) got to go do some 'strategic' eating or (b) wiped out.

I was compeltely wiped out when I got into DEN, but instead of napping, I went for a long walk to tire myself even further, goofed around on the computer, skipped lunch and then had a meal that I knew would push me over the edge of consciousness. Then I stumbled around like "walking death" for about an hour, closed all of the blinds, put on my sleep mask and conked out for about six hours before the flight.

It went pretty good all flight long, but when I got to Atlanta, got changed and walked upstairs to find some brekkie, it was like a brick wall. The sun was rising, there were a billion people everywhere and I was physically and mentally 'toast'. I slept all the way back from ATL to PHX this morning with a sleep mask and earplugs in my own row, but I'm going to stay up until I normally go to bed so I can reset my psychological clock.
 
Off Topic

A little off topic here perhaps, but I must know what your signature means Doug!

No, Donny, these men are nihilists. There's nothing to be afraid of.
 
Re: Off Topic

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A little off topic here perhaps, but I must know what your signature means Doug!

No, Donny, these men are nihilists. There's nothing to be afraid of.

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The Big Lebowski.
 
Re: Off Topic

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Hmm, sorry to be so uninformed, but what exactly is the big lebowski?

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a movie.
 
I'm not even sure if that's on the FAA-approved medication list.

We were only able to start taking Sudafed a couple of years ago!
 
Doug I wish I had know you were coming in on 1444. I was already at work and would have stopped by to see you. My shift starts at 5 am. If you are doing anymore of those this month let me know..
 
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How does your circadian clock respond to widely varying flight times?

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It doesn't very well, which is primarily why a lot of international pilots look like walking death. I hear that international flying is really a job for the young. A good example would be British Airways where the junior pilots fly international and all of the senior pilots fly domestic or short hops.

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After a comment like that you sure you still want to fly 767-300ER's internationally? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Matthew
 
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Doug I wish I had know you were coming in on 1444. I was already at work and would have stopped by to see you. My shift starts at 5 am. If you are doing anymore of those this month let me know..

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Nope, that trip was a swap. Took me an entire day to recover after that trip! Yow!
 
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After a comment like that you sure you still want to fly 767-300ER's internationally? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

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Yes.

At least for a bit. That's primarily the reason I got into this job is to travel to foreign countries - not shuttle between ATL and every little medium-sized city in the southeast.

I can do almost 8 hours of flying and end up on a short layover in TLH whereas a little more and I can end up with a 28 hour layover in Munich, Paris, Rome, etc.

International is where it's at, baby!
 
When I was with AA based in NY most of what I did was the transcon all-nighters. It never bothered me that bad. I was always pretty coherent by the time we'd get back to JFK. What did start to wear me down was the commute after the trip! Part of the crew pre-brief was who wanted to share a cab back to LGA in the morning, and when we'd get to JFK around 7-ish, whoever was in the back (working the farthest aft in the plane) would call for the cab, and we'd all run together over to the other terminal to where they picked up. We'd get to LGA 8-ish, depending on traffic on the Van Wick and how crazy a driver we got. If I was lucky I'd make the 8am flight back to ORD, then wait an hour for the connection to IND, then a 45 minute drive from IND to our old apartment. If I was lucky I'd get home around noon. This is after being up all night, starting work at about 10pm and (only if I was very lucky) getting a couple hour nap in during the day before. Honestly, the all-nighter flights weren't bad, but that commute was kicking my @ss. It got better when we moved back to ORD and I didn't have a 2-leg commute anymore.
 
We do quite a bit of "red-eye" stuff out of Las Vegas, I think something like 20 departures between 10p and 1a. If it's a short hop to SLC or LAX, it's easy. Longer flights, like DSM or YYC, can get quite boring and become a challenge to stay awake. The direct routing is great, but the lack of radio chatter puts you to sleep. So does an anti-social CA / FO.

What's insane is that we tend to be scheduled to fly two or three nights of flying the backside of the clock, get 8 hours of reduced rest, then fly 3-5 more legs on the last day while the sun's up. Legal? Sure. Safe? Well ....
 
Remember, the FAR rest requirements don't have a darn thing to do with safety!

I could have flown another 5 hours after my red-eye from DEN to ATL and been completely legal... Even though I couldn't hold a coherent conversation because my brain was fried after arriving in ATL.
 
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Even though I couldn't hold a coherent conversation because my brain was fried after arriving in ATL.

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Most of us can't do that on 12 hours of sleep, so what's your point? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
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