Wouldn’t it be prudent to allow the pilot to nap on long, overseas flights so they are fresh when it’s time to land? I flew from Detroit to Frankfurt several years ago at night. It was gawd-awful boring for me and I could wander around, read, talk, whatever. I can’t imagine what it was like for the crew. Due to a fuel issue in Detroit, we had to fly to Shannon Ireland for fuel and then to Frankfurt. From the time we left the gate until the time we landed in Frankfurt was something like 13 hours later. I wouldn’t accept BOTH pilots snoozing but other than instrumentation, there’s not a lot to look at over the ocean at night.
ADS-B was trialled a year or two ago and is now being implemented in some areas without radar coverage. Unlike the USA, Australia has only a tiny fraction of its airspace covered by radar.
Broome, where I live, is one place with an ADS-B ground station. The aircraft I fly aren’t equipped to use it but commercial jets are using it around here.
I haven’t heard of it being used in any of the rig areas, it’s more of an overland thing for commercial operations outside of radar coverage.
Here’s a map of the Australian radar coverage, http://www.vatpac.org/vat-dean/australia/radar.jpg
I believe the plan here is for ADS-B to eventually supercede radar.
Long flights require some sort of relief crew. The exact nature depends on the specific country’s regulations. Sometimes it may just be a “Second Officer” who is allowed to occupy a control seat in the cruise while one of the other guys is napping. In other circumstances/countries a second Captain may be required or Captain and Co-Pilot.
I’ve lived through two auto-pilot malfunctions. Running along at 1000’ AGL on autopilot reading a magazine … I would have died both times. At 10,0000’ AGL reading works for me.
Do not the regs still require a current and legal aeronautical chart to be in the aircraft when over 25 miles from the home base of record? I am beginning to wonder how many pilots could get home after a total electrical failure?
How many pilots still practice total electrical failure night landings? Those of you that still still fly little planes regularly, can you land you regular airplane in the day and night without an airspeed indicator? Do you practice that? You usually do not take off with things not working but they can stop working while en route.
GPS and the new auto-pilots are great things, aircraft are more dependable than they have ever been. But … I am wondering if the new pilots are as improved?
I don’t recall hearing it in exactly those terms… but yes, paper charts are still required for all areas of intended travel.
Well, this one can because she has done so. But then, as I mentioned, I primarily fly airplanes with minimal technology on board so my eyeball-map-compass skills are probably better than average. I’ve run into some where I have my doubts as to their ability to reliably navigate across town even with technological assistance.
I stopped flying at night when I realized the only time I flew at time was that one half hour every three months to get the landings in required for currency. Given that I normally launch shortly after dawn and I can’t recall flying an airplane with more than 5 hours of fuel on board, the possibility of being caught by sunset is pretty remote - sure winter days are short around here but they aren’t that short!
No question I can land a regular airplane without an airspeed indicator, because I’ve done it, for the very reason you mention - in flight instrument failure. Quite uneventful, really. Doing it after dark… hmm, not so certain about that. If I flew at night I’d have much incentive to practice it.
I wonder the same thing - and I know flight instructors wondering it, too. Some schools have a practice of forbidding use of a GPS or autopilot or similar systems until the primary student has a solid grounding in the old fashioned methods, but if you don’t use those skills they will, of course, deteriorate.
Well we have a certain level of redundancy, including the other pilot who is not reading, that would make it extremely unlikely for an a/p failure to cause a problem at 1000’ AGL. An abrupt failure will get your attention regardless, and a subtle failure will be picked up by regular scans or various other visual/aural warnings (“TOO LOW, FLAP”) is a bit of an attention getter.) We are still very alert and aware of what is happening. It’s also not something that happens at night or in IMC.
Some may have trouble I guess. Probably depends on their background. I’ve flown aircraft that didn’t have any electrics at all so I like to think I’d cope ok ;).
Electrical failure night landings are not a big deal as long as you have your torch handy. I’ve had to fly without an airspeed indicator before* but it’s not something I would practice. It shouldn’t be a problem for anyone who’s familiar with the idea that a known power/attitude combination will result in a known airspeed.
Pilots, like anyone, get good at what they do. Commercial pilots of the 50’s would have had handling skills and an instrument scan miles ahead of one of today’s pilots. On the other hand they’d be lost in a modern cockpit and many would initially struggle with the modern crew concept. Working pilots practice for the failures that are likely to happen in their aircraft, non-working ones should do the same but some probably don’t.
*After take-off the airspeed was acting like an altimeter. It read high when I climbed and low when I descended. It highlighted a failing in my training which was that I’d been taught to “let the aeroplane fly when it is ready” rather than to rotate at a particular airspeed. I’d also never been introduced to the concept of an airspeed check in the take-off roll. So the first time I ever really looked at the airspeed indicator was in the initial climb by which time it was too late to abort the take-off. It was no big deal though, the air makes a particular whistle through the flying wires and various airspeeds and of course, a given power setting matched with a particular attitude will result in a known airspeed.
Nothing much to add here, except that I cannot conceive of a DVD or novel that I’d rather give my attention to than the world passing by outside. But I’ve never flown a leg longer than an hour and a half, either. Nor would I want to - lightplanes are generally not that comfortable for long periods.
There have been crashes attributable to pilots falling asleep from fatigue, but from boredom? I doubt it.
How could someone be fatigued from flying only an hour or so? Of course if they’re fatigued before taking off, well, that would be stupider that watching a DVD.
I think I’d be a little wary of anyone who didn’t need to do something specifically to ward off boredom on a 10 hour flight at night over the ocean. Especially at night.
It really is that much of a mental effort, especially when you first start flying. It’s not uncommon for a new student pilot to have a 1 hour lesson then a nap lasting several hours.
The noise is also fatiguing. Yes, it is customary to wear a headset that blocks much of the noise, but noise and vibration still have an effect on the body.
On top of that, you are actually moving quite a bit of the time, from the airport office to where the airplane is parked, through the pre-flight, and during the flight you’re moving your hands, feet, and head pretty much all the time in a small airplane, again, particularly at first before you learn to be efficient.
It’s one of the differences between flying and driving, and why pilots say that flying is more of an effort than driving. It really does tend to wear you out faster.
‘Nobody’ wore headsets when I was training in the '80s. I thought my instructor was just a gruff old man. ‘LOOK OUTSIDE!’, ‘PLAN AHEAD!’ and ‘FLY THE AIRPLANE!’ It was just that he had to be heard over the noise. (No, he really was a gruff old man. 
)
Or with the helicopter, a two-hour lesson (or flight) and then Mexican food and a beer.
If you want to to talk about students, I’m pretty sure you’ll find learning to drive to be pretty taxing as well.
But the OP isn’t really asking about students, but more about experienced pilots. Once you get some experience and if you still find it that taxing, you should probably find another way to spend your time.
I’ve only flown in Hueys a couple of times. I gotta say, the pilot seemed to be pretty busy. Much more so than a small plane.
I liked it.
Actually, I loved it. A Huey is a real “guy” machine. Kinda like a Harley, I guess. I’ll bet women love it too.
I’ve only flown R-22s and Schweizer 300s.
You should beg a ride (in a Huey) if you get a chance. It’s like flying in a big, noisy box that’s missing one side. You can sit on the floor with your foot on the skid thingy. And the pilot is right there. :eek:
There are different types of fatigue.
If you’re flying single pilot at night in cloud and turbulence with no autopilot and in busy airspace, you will suffer from acute fatigue very quickly. You won’t be fatigued at take-off but by the time your doing you’re approach an hour and a half later, you’ll be shagged and your performance will suffer. Even with an autopilot engaged, a pilot’s ability to effectively monitor is reduced after 30 minutes.
Then there is chronic fatigue which accumulates over time from not getting enough quality sleep. If you’re suffering from this then you shouldn’t be going flying. The problem is that fatigue is a bit like being drunk in that one of the symptoms is a deterioration in judgement. The fatigued person is likely to not recognised they’re fatigued.
One of the challenges with flying is that the workload is not spread evenly through the flight. There are very high workload times mainly during departure and approach but inbetween, depending on the operation, there may be very little workload. To make things worse, a person’s performance deteriorates when the workload is both very high and very low. So during a long cruise, your arousal levels have dropped right off and you basically go into glazed-eyes mode. If the workload unexpectedly increases due to say an emergency, you will intially struggle to cope. Once you’re into the groove you’ll do ok, but then if the emergency lasts a long time and the workload doesn’t decrease, your performance will deteriorate again.
With this in mind I think it is very important to keep your mind at a moderate level of activity during the quiet periods. Some people read magazines and share stories or bites of information with the rest of the crew which promotes conversation. Other’s may do a crossword puzzle, again talking about some of the clues with the rest of the crew. It keeps everyone awake and means that when workload increases you don’t need to drag yourself out of a half asleep stupor to cope with it.
A bad thing to see in a cockpit is two guys in dead silence staring glassy eyed at the instruments in front of them. They’re not monitoring they’re sleeping with their eyes open. That invariably happens at some stage on every flight I’m on. For me, that’s the time to crack open a red bull, or get up and offer every one tea or coffee then sit down and get some activity happening. Have a flick through the emergency checklists, discuss some of the more controversial company policies, or whatever. Anything to stave off the boredom and glassy-eyed sleep.
You want stress? Try driving I5, or any highway, in really dense fog. You want to pull over and wait it out, but you can’t see well enough to safely do so.
I mentioned I5 because you can be driving along in okay visibility and suddenly you literally can’t see the road at all. It’s called Tule Fog. I’ve had to roll down my window to see the divider line.
I can imagine what it’s like to encounter that kind of fog in a plane that doesn’t have the right kind of instruments.
Oh, yeah. I’ve experienced “white-out”, due to snow, once. That was fun.
Tule fog, tularemia… Nice area. 
Noise, vibration, lightweight seats, cramped position, short legroom, poor cabin temperature control, drafts, and that’s on a smooth-air day. Now add some moderate chop and some constant dense traffic you can’t see but is only 10 seconds or so away from possibly hitting you (even on a clear day it’s darn hard to see another plane more than a mile away), and the fun level starts to drop just a little.
But of course Death Ray’s answer is better.
BTW, there was once a case of an airliner headed to LAX from the east droning on a hundred miles out over the ocean because both pilots had nodded off after a long day. Finally there were enough loud noises made over the radio to avert catastrophe.
Unfortunately, I don’t have to imagine it - I have actually experienced it.
I am happy to have survived that flight.