Laughing_Jakal

I am an F-15 Pilot.....did I tell you we are the best of the best? ??????

"LOGBOOK!"

threeighteen

I said, we've got it.

Albief15

I'm glad the company is adding rooms, and maybe there will be enough for jumpseaters, non-hub turners, or anyone else needing some rest. Instead of "hub turn only" perhaps the only req will be "operating in or out..." I am sympathetic to the pilot who has a 0600 airport DH home after arriving at 0100. Yeah...he can probably afford a hotel, but for 3-4 hours of sleep it does seem like a tax. If there are enough rooms to go around to take care of operating pilots--whether they operate in or out--that would be nice. No hub turning pilot should be stuck in a recliner to make that happen, mind you....but maybe it will be better than it is now.

And as for the F-15 thing....you know the CFM says when you transfer the AC, you say "you have the AirPLANE" in the MD-11. When the captain tells me "you have the jet/aircraft", but not "airplane", tiny little anal part of me that was reinforced during 15 years of flying the mighty mighty does in fact SCREAM out "that's not what the book says!" However, years of socialization, CRM training, and some common sense remind me it ain't that big of a deal. However--the funny part--is I still NOTICE. Funny how you go from "I'll never be one of them..." to "these young guys just don't understand the importance of DETAILS".

And in case you missed it, there was a secret ceremony at Tyndall AFB where the F-15 community passed the guidon for being the most uptight, anal, freaked out fighter pilots to the F-22 guys. I think I sort of caught a glimpse of what an F-4 guy felt like when the first F-15s or F-16s showed up on his base in the 70s and 80s...

Rock

Yeah. That works great. Like those 24 hour layovers on a round the world trip. "Proper rest" makes shifting my circadian rhythm 12 hours in a 24 hour period a piece of cake. Forget the whole power nap thing that the sleep rooms were designed for.
Do people who don't jumpseat into their domicile get proper rest before their 0230 show time? Or do they feel as tired as I do the first night of a trip....

TonyC

I gather y'all think you should be able to jumpseat from your home to the hub, use a sleep room for rest, and then operate from the hub to your first layover. The implication of your remarks is that without the sleep room, you will be fatigued, in fact just as fatigued as the crew that operated the flight you jumpseated on. Therefore, you should be entitled to the sleep room rather than going to a crashpad or hotel.

So, when that jumpseat experiences a mechanical issue, or a weather delay, and it winds up arriving at the hub 30 minutes prior to your showtime, what's the plan? Without the sleep room, you'll be fatigued, so you'll call in fatigue and go to the crashpad ... err, go to the hotel, right? Or are you going to gut it out so you can get to the layover hotel The Company is paying for?

Let's be careful what we ask for.






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Rock

Obviously, there is a difference between feeling fatigued, and being too fatigued to operate safely. I just assumed that was understood.
There's no new information here. Sleep room or not, how many people in the AOC at 0230 aren't feeling fatigued? Unless you're a vampire, you've had a serious circadian rhythm shift, and that comes at a cost. The company is doing a good thing by providing more sleep rooms. If there are eventually enough for anyone who wants one to use one, I will certainly use a sleep room between jumpseating and operating. When I operate out of my home town, I actually show up at the layover hotel a few hours before showtime just to catch a quick catnap. Over the years, I have learned that a quick power nap can really take the edge off feeling like I'm missing a night of sleep.

Huck

Back when all I did was hub turns, I would have gladly traded the fifth-night sleep room for a sleep room the night I jumpseated in....

DLax85

+1

Spot on --- this should be the policy goal.

Sleep debt & fatigue are cumulative and not just related to what you did the 12 hrs or 24 hrs before a trip.

The answer to any pilot asking for a sleep room within 12 hrs before or after flying an active trip should always be "yes" --- we have one available for you!

It's a one time fixed cost to build this type of increased/sufficient sleep room capacity that will pay back very quickly by preventing even one mishap to the hundreds of multimillion aircraft we fly.

Safe, Legal, Reliable

Which word comes first?

Management --- Please put your $$ and policies where your words are.

In Safety,

DLax

pipe

That's right -- it's a crew force problem that there's not even a place to sit if you jumpseat in. You should run for MEC chairman.

As far as jumpseating in a day prior to the trip and going to the crashpad, you should take a good look at the 757, Airbus, and many of the MD domestic lines. Anyone who did that with the bottom 30-40% of the lines would be home about three days/month. Those lines have all been optimized into oblivion.

I'd be willing to buy my own freaking recliner if the company would just provide a dark, quiet place to put it in the gigantic empty building that we live in.

It doesn't matter what most of us do to prepare -- we are not at our best on the first night of a trip. No matter how much of a tough, prepared, dedicated, mission-hacker you may view yourself to be - human physiology and mother nature don't give a crap. To add to it, CRS sees a duty day with no end on that first night.

PIPE

TonyC

Any pilot? How about the pilot who lives in domicile and wants to get his 8 hours rest at the hub so his kid's french horn practice doesn't wake him up at home?

Sleep rooms serve a critical purpose, but I don't think The Company should be running crash pads.






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