Duty Time for regionals
In talking with airline pilots, the subject of duty time seems to come up a lot. The one regulation that seems to have pilots questioning their schedules the most is obviously this one:
121.505
"No pilot of an airplane that has a crew of two pilots may be on duty for more than 16 hours during any 24 consecutive hours"
The question is, 24 consecutive hours means what exactly? Time blocks from midnight to midnight? 24 hour timer starts right when you start your duty time? I hear a lot of guys say that they have to question scheduling for being scheduled over the 16 hour limit. This problem seems to come up most often when pilots are arriving very late to a given destination and then having to get up early to fly the next morning for another LONG day. It also seems like this could be a major problem when DELAYS occur as well. My question is, as a regional airline pilot, how do you guys monitor this? When do you start/stop your 24 hour timer?