Originally Posted by
AwkwardTurtle
Your math doesn’t check out.
Cargo pilots report at 530pm west coast or 830pm east coast. They got 15 hours of rest before that.
Pax pilots report at 9pm West Coast, (east coast is impossible) with a minimum of 14 hours of rest, possibly more since they arrived the day before.
Cargo pilots brief 1.0, fly 2.5, nap 2.0, brief 1.0, fly 2.5 and land east coast 530am. (230PST)
Pax pilots brief 1.0, fly 6.0 land east coast 7am. (4AM PST)
Crappiest time to be awake has got to be 2am to 5am. With cargo pilots taking a nap thru the majority of it, while pax pilots fly thru it. Both types of pilots get decent rest before, if not identical.
I think you’re mixing up the day flyers that are departing the airport at 5-6am with the guys are already sleeping in their hotel rooms before the pax redeyes even started their descent. As proven in the above rough calculations.
You think cargo pilots get only 8 hours behind the door? Explain that logic. Once again, use the above calculations, arrive at 4-5am, 8 hours would be a 12-1pm departure? And passenger pilots are the only ones allowed to refuse trips?
Sounds like you’re just digging for excuses to defend your decision more than using facts.
No offense.
Sounds like you’re offended. The math is skewed in your favor. Insert east coast city here, to IND or MEM or SDF with about a 950-10pm EST show (7pm PST). Fly a 1-2hr flight and then sit the 3.5 hr sort. Then takeoff IND or MEM or SDF to west coast city like LAX or OAK which is another 4-4.5 hr block flight. I’ve jumpseated this way even at a regional and we landed about 5am-6am PST which is 8am-9am eastern. That’s easily 11+ hr duty. Most pax carriers , when they do a transcon redeye it’s very typically only one leg. West to east is about 5.5-6 hr block so duty time total is just 6.5 hrs to 7 hrs.
Btw, pax carriers like JetBlue have east to west coast (reverse) red eyes that do report after 9pm eastern and fly 1 leg. Besides, we’re hung up on the night portion only. I don’t even do redeyes much and it makes up a small portion of the pax carrier’s overall operation.
Maybe you glanced over it, the schedule I originally quoted was UPS 1354 accident crew’s schedule that night. Read through the CVR and hear from their actual conversations how they felt on that flight and about nighttime cargo flying and 117 rules.
Like the guy above said, to each his own but there’s no way I’d want to do that back of the clock night flying with a hub sort. I can’t take a 2 hr nap in a pod. I like flying one and straight through the night if I have to with a 6-7 hr duty day redeye. Your mileage may vary
