Originally Posted by
marcal
This x1,000,000.
Granted I always did Asia, but I NEVER woke myself up when my body wanted to sleep. I'd rather go to the jet with an hour of sleep and take first rest on the way home. You'll will be amazed to see how you can function on such small amounts of sleep. Some will say, "well thats not showing up rested for a flight". Well, you are now flying international and its impossible to always show up rested for flight. It is necessary to rest on the airplane(physiologically speaking not legally).
For instance, using Europe as an example I personally wouldn't wake myself up. I'd rather sleep until I wake up(possibly at 5PM europe time-Noon at home) and stay up until 5am in Europe(midnight at home) and sleep for two hours and then go to work and try and get first rest(most don't like first rest so it shouldn't be that hard to get).
Finally, even if you can't sleep in the bunk, simply resting with your eyes shut will actually go along way. If we had "controlled rest" like every ICAO carrier out there it would be even better. I loved naps in the seat for 20 mins. When you can't keep your eyes open in the flight deck, those 20 mins can carry you another 3-4 hours.
The thread reviver seems new to international and wants to have fun on layovers. So while the sleep when you’re tired is a great strategy for a boring layover, it doesn’t allow for the fun factor.
There are also other implications. Flying out of the Middle East, Australian layovers used to be a killer for me. Leave at 10 in the morning, fly 14 hours, land at 6 in the morning. Everything in Australia closes at 6pm, so if you don’t force yourself up for lunch, you’re not going to have anything to do, and limited options for food. Apart from pubs nothing is open in the evenings.
The length of the layover plays a part too. While you can wing a 24 hour layover staying on your home time, it gets really tough with longer layovers. We used to do a 48hrs LAX with the previous company. 16-hour flight and a 12 time zone difference. It was too long of a layover not to semi-convert to PT.
Everyone has their techniques on how yo deal with it, but it’s hard not to believe that this lifestyle doesn’t take a toll on your health in the long term.