Posted on 10/22/2006 7:43:45 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Edited on 10/22/2006 7:49:09 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Last year, thousands of JetBlue Airways passengers became unwitting participants in a highly unusual test of pilot fatigue.
Without seeking approval from Federal Aviation Administration headquarters, consultants for JetBlue outfitted a small number of pilots with devices to measure alertness. Operating on a green light from lower-level FAA officials, management assigned the crews to work longer shifts in the cockpit -- as many as 10 to 11 hours a day -- than the eight hours the government allows. Their hope: Showing that pilots could safely fly far longer without exhibiting ill effects from fatigue.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I'd still rather fly JetBlue than coach in any other airline.
online.wsj.com is the Wall Street Journal subscription website for anyone unfamiliar with the url.
Well since there's always 2 pilots - say on the "boring" part of the trip it's OK for one to snooze a bit. I could work an 11 hour day that way easy.
Neither one of them has to work very hard at all unless something goes wrong.
That's when their skills are put to use.
Kinda' synonymous with the "May Tag" repairman.
The aircraft systems do all the work until they show a fault.
isn't this the same as 2 truck drivers on long haul road trips....one drives and the other sleeps????
if one has ever been in a cockpit of a plane...most times..the computers are flying the planes....each pilot could get a nap while the other monitors the computers!!!!
The computers don't have to be monitored, they will wake them up with bells and whistles if there is an issue.
Pilots are true professionals who require constant recurring training and are indispensable with their work.
Things do go wrong from time to time and without the talents of a highly skilled crew, when something does go wrong, it would make for a catastrophic scenario when it happens.
Oh, and I'm in the cockpit of an aircraft almost every day.
I googled JetBlue because I know so little about them. Non-union. Successful. Former Southwest execs.
Now I know why JetBlue is the focus of the story and investigation.
Hell, since the computers do all the work and the pilots can sleep while they fly I don't see why they couldn't work 18 hours a day. /s/
DVT; blood clots.
Sarcasm tag at the end of my post. The comments regarding pilot's workload and rest requirements on this thread are less than informed.
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Couldn't be that they put passengers in a situation that violates FAA guidelines, eh?
"Things do go wrong from time to time and without the talents of a highly skilled crew, when something does go wrong, it would make for a catastrophic scenario when it happens."
Yes, and when things go wrong, one does not wake up alert and situation-conscious from a nap. That isn't how the mind and body works.
Crew rest is necessary. How much, it is difficult to say precisely. 8 hours a day is certainly within the safety line. 11 hours per day, day after day? Doesn't sound safe to me.
This is not a place to "push the envelope", and the idea that one pilot can catch some z's while the other flies is ridiculous.
One drives and the other sleeps works just fine in an airplane until something suddenly goes to worms. Then the guy waking up gets to ride the aluminum lawn dart screaming down to the ground like everyone else. Because there is no way in hell that a man can wake up in the middle of a bad airborne emergency and have the situational awareness or immediate mental acuity to anything other than die with the rest of the passengers.
No, you cannot have one pilot napping while the other flies. An airplane is not a truck. You can stop a truck, pull it over, if something happens. There's no shoulder in the sky.
???????? Snore detectors?
ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.... (Low alertitude)
Hats off to pilots! There is not yet a computer that can replace a pilot (take offs, landings) and just plain good logical thinking and deciscion making in an emergency that are required by pilots on a daily basis.
From reading the article (here's a version if you are not a WSJ-nik):
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/10/jetblue_pilots.html
...what this appears to be is something everyone under FAA management knows all too well... the FAA is not one agency. It's a feudal operation with dozens of independent vassals (FSDOs) and princelings (Regions) under one weak but vain king (the Administrator).
What appears to have happened is that the airlines Principal Operations Inspector, for the airline the voice of "the FAA," cleared JetBlue to gather this data. They already had, I presume, tons of data of people in labs and simulators. They needed to get data in line service... and they did.
And the airline people were working in good faith with "the FAA."
So, along comes Jimmy Olsen cub reporter asking questions. He asks "the FAA" which to him is public affairs at HQ. PA goes into PIO mode (panic induced oscillations, or as our British cousins say, "flap," like an early ornithopter) and runs it up the flagpole to The Administrator.
Now, the Administrator of the FAA is not (and the last one wasn't either) anyone with knowledge or experience of aviation. She is (and the last one was) a career bureaucrat, bog-ignorant of aviation but skilled in the ways of DC infighting. So the Administrator gets out in front of the news story by condemning the airline for (as far as it knew) working closely with the agency.
That this cuts the operations inspector who approved the experiment off at the knees is immaterial. To the Administrator he or she's collateral damage. If the inspector has the years to retire, now's the time, or a short-notice assignment is coming, and you're going to be inspecting airport beacons in the Aleutian Islands by Thursday.
Expect an awful lot of shrieking-type reporting from the general media on this. "JetBlue diced with passengers' lives!" "Napping at Flight Level 370!" and similar horse puckey.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I think everybody gets that the pilots are important if something goes wrong. But it's a lot more than that.
Your flight plan may change because of weather. Indeed, it almost certainly will. How many times have you heard, "this is your captain speaking... sorry it's a little bumpy, I've asked Center for another altitude and in a little bit we're going to go there and see if it's any smoother..." but the big part of it is not the altitude changes, but the deviations to avoid bad weather.
You absolutely MUST NOT fly into thunderstorms or other severe weather. An airliner is a wonderful technological achievement, but it's not built like a railroad bridge: extreme storms or other winds can generate loads that (and on rare occasions, do) literally tear a plane apart. To avoid that unhappy end, the crew has forecasts, radar (which can see precipitation), and sometimes data link. (Airliners don't generally have the sferics that private airplanes often have, which can see and plot electrical activity). Most importantly, they have thousands of hours of successful flight and an eye for weather.
Then -- even if weather is no factor in YOUR flight, it could be screwing up somebody else's flight. And that is YOUR problem, when HE winds up in your airspace. Holds, diverts, fuel levels, making up time. This is the everyday of the line pilot, making hard decisions under time pressure -- and your decisions must be right, always. All of this is done under a level of scrutiny that no other profession endures. A brain surgeon is under the gun for two or three hours a day. A pilot is under the gun for longer... then arrives at his base and has to pee in a cup 'cause his number came up for urinalysis.
You get to play stern father to fools that try to board your plane staggering drunk, and when you deny them boarding they call you names or pull the "Do you know who I AM?" (Answer, which you can't say in so many words: "Some smelly bum who ain't flying on my airplane! Rotsa ruck after you sleep it off").
You get to go in the simulator from time to time, where tortures worse than waterboarding cascade upon you from V1 onwards. It is a cool 65º in there but you will emerge sweating. And that's if you're successful -- if you're not, you get a do-over with nothing riding on it but your living and livelihood. Establish a pattern of busted checkrides and you're fired. Get fired and no. one. else. will touch you with a bargepole.
You worked your way up to this flying traffic report at minimum wage, or towing banners, or hauling canceled checks back towards their issuing banks, or going around and around in a traffic pattern teaching n00bs how to land, wanting to grab the stick but gritting your teeth and letting them learn for themselves... thanking, if you know the names, Steve Wittman, Fred Weick, and John Thorp (the guys that designed the landing gear used on training airplanes). That was before you got your break which was flying a commuterliner between Buffalo and Albany for two years... five times a day... or hauling car parts from Michigan to Wisconsin through the worst icing in the inhabited world, at night, over a cold lake, on the back side of your circadian rhythm.
You can't stay with the boys and have another beer, your company rule is stricter than the FAAs and you're flying tomorrow night. Your spouse, who thought your job was glamourous when you used passes to go on vacation, now thinks it's a drag when you've missed seven straight birthdays or can't help with homework because you're laying over in Cincinnati again tonight.
Even if the layover is Paris or Kuala Lumpur, it's usually a hotel room and a wakeup call. If the hotel has a good gym, that's a big plus.
As Sherman said of war, line flying's glory is all moonshine. People still queue up to do it (also like war). Me, I'll stick to war and keep my flying in the personal, air-sport, and training milieu.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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