Originally Posted by Flymeaway

The difference is, in your scenario, you aren't getting an 8 hour sleep opportunity between your 2 FDPs. On day 1, you have gotten an 8 hour sleep opportunity between your 2 FDPs, just not within the last 10 hours, which is not required as per the text of the reg.

I've read and re-read and re-read that section of 117 trying to see it from your point of view. I will acknowledge that it would have been more clear if they had inserted the word "minimum" in front of all the instances of "10 hour rest period" or just eliminated the "10 hour" modifiers from all of the "rest period" references. However, it's obvious to me from reading it over and over is that you only need one 8 hour sleep opportunity since your previous duty period ended, and the total time from from the previous duty period to the new duty period needs to be at least 10 hours. It does not state that your sleep opportunity needs to fall within 10 hours of your report time.

I understand that you are convinced of your interpretation, but the FAA disagrees, as stated in section 3 of the LOI linked above by another poster. Additionally, your interpretation just doesn't make sense. I realize the FAA is a government agency and making sense isn't a requirement, but that 8 hour sleep opportunity is in the reg with the expectation that the crew member is actually getting approximately that much sleep at that time. They call it an opportunity to give some latitude to people who can't sleep more than 7 hours at a time, and they don't want you to have to log your sleep, etc, but the intent is that you are sleeping.

If I have a 1500 report time for a duty day of less than 3 hours (not unheard of at a regional) does it make sense for me to be required to try to sleep until 2 PM? No, I get my sleep the night before. I've had my 8 hours of sleep and got up at 7 AM, did whatever I wanted from 7 to 3, then reported for duty. If I had a contractor replacing my back patio with a jackhammer going all day, that's not a sleep opportunity. Does that mean I shouldn't be allowed to go to work in that situation? No, of course not.

I always recommend to other pilots to CYA. Even if you don't feel fatigued, if a reasonable person would suspect you were fatigued, and you end up in a mishap, you could be in trouble. However, I think everyone else is in agreement, you won't get in trouble just because you didn't get a sleep opportunity within 10 hours of reporting for duty, just so long as you got one since you were last released from duty.

I will give you your grey area about a jumpseater being an additional crew member. As pilots, we're having our cake and eating it too here, legally. We want to be able to commute without causing FDP problems, but in order to jumpseat, the FAA insists on calling us additional crew members. You could argue that if I'm a crew member in a part 121 operation, even if I'm not employed with that company, that that should start my FDP. That's not the way pilots want it viewed, and that's not the way the FAA is viewing it right now, so everyone's happy