Rest times

D

denver

New Member
Just curious as to how many operators run crew rest right at FAA minimums. I find that 10 hours of rest when you account for driving :30, making and eating dinner :45-1:00 Winding down 1:00, falling asleep :30, waking up and taking a shower, getting dressed, checking weather and driving to the airport 2:00... is not enough. This is fine with me for 2 back to backers but the sleep deprivation after 2 days decreases the safety level for shure. This is assuming I am so buissy I am running at minimum FAA rest on duty times. Realistically we need 8 hours of sleep and only 1:00 on each side of duty out takes its toll day by day.

I am the only employee at a one airplane and one pilot 135 op and work for a very reasonable owner and would appreciate any ideas on this. Both the pilot and the airplane have to function correctly and it is a fine line with being operationally flexible in this situation.

Thanks
 
I was the pilot for a single airplane/single pilot charter operator for a year, and then DO/Chief Pilot for that same operator for 2 years. Our owner was extremely reasonable, we would try to provide as much rest as possible, and at times, simply turned down trip because the duty simply would have been unsafe, although they would have been legal. The expectation was that the pilots would be rested for a 14 hour duty day when they showed for duty. However, if at anytime the pilot said that he was too fatigued to fly, there were no questions asked. It was also rare that a multi day, minimum rest scenario presented itself.
 
Yea we had our first real push on a 2 day gig with barely 10 hours of "rest" on the overnight a little while ago. Rest is really from head hit the pillow to head off the pillow. I also need to learn how to sleep in strange hotel rooms when sleep is critical. The more I know I need to sleep the harder it is to sleep. After 1 hour of "sleep" I was trashed for the 14 hour and 8 leg next day all up and down Cali. It's never a good thing when you see bats at night at 14,000 feet.

Thanks for the response
 
Wow! 8 legs in a duty period are tough no matter how much sleep you have. I have never slept well the night before an early trip, nor have I ever slept good the first night in a hotel room.

denver said:
Yea we had our first real push on a 2 day gig with barely 10 hours of "rest" on the overnight a little while ago. Rest is really from head hit the pillow to head off the pillow. I also need to learn how to sleep in strange hotel rooms when sleep is critical. The more I know I need to sleep the harder it is to sleep. After 1 hour of "sleep" I was trashed for the 14 hour and 8 leg next day all up and down Cali. It's never a good thing when you see bats at night at 14,000 feet.

Thanks for the response
Click to expand...
 
While I'm not in Corporate/Charter Aviation. I do fly freight and normal days are 14 hour duty days with at least one, if not multiple days with only 10 hours rest. Yes, it does make a difference being home every night but recently I had a two day period where the first day was normal, 14 hour duty day, with ~3 hrs flying. The next day someone called in sick and I did 14.5 hour duty day (it was planned 14) with 8 legs and over 6 hours of flying. I was dead after that, but if I would've had to fly it's my job to be ready as best I can. But then again, I'm a freight pilot.

And yes, there are some days where just working 14 hours make me extremely tired.
 
The way we do it at the 135 operator I work for is we "lookback" 10 hours. Basically, we have a mandatory 10 hour assigned rest period that ends 90 minutres prior to scheduled departure. If we do not have a trip scheduled, we are on mandatory rest from 21:00 - 07:00 local time the night prior. Each day, techincally our duty starts at 07:00 unless we have a pre-scheduled trip. If we get a pop-up at 16:00 that will take us past 21:00, we turn the trip down. Business is good here and we don't have to screw our crews into BS trips at midnight.
 
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