JohnBurke

Seriously answering, though. My job.

That's what I do for 2 hours. And 8 hours. And 12 hours.

Lugar

But how many times can you check your position, check your altimeters, check actual vs planned performance, tune VOR’s ahead, check flight and engine instruments, check the weather, brief and study arrivals, approaches, and taxi routes, etc? At some point, you create a legitimate fatigue issue by overworking yourself, and then you’re just beat tired (and dangerous) where it matters the most .. the approach, landing, and taxi phase.

galaxy flyer

The longest flight I did was 17.8. With four refuelings and a off-load, engines running, there wasn’t any boredom.


GF

Lugar

Ok, what about those of us that fly an airplane that can do 17.8 .. non-stop, and with no refueling?

TheFly

We never utilize any other personal electronic device on the FD tithed than our EFB. Perhaps one could brush up on opsecs or company bulletins. ........

Flightcap

I do that during flight. Makes a lot more sense than doing it other times.

Dolphinflyer

Get a Glock with one round charged and do us all a favor.

Seriously. If I'm dozing in the back non-reving with my wife and family, I'd prefer a guy up front who can professionally manage his position vs some addled fool who can't decide the bass setting while listening to Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor on his DC-X Pro.

Dolphinflyer

FYI,
You get a C- for your entire troll act from day 1.

FlyJSH

Back in my early air ambulance days, occasionally we would get a looong flight (long by C421 standards). It would require about 12-13 hours of flying. In the 135 regs of those days, single pilot we could fly 8 hours; two pilot crew we could fly 10 hours. So to make the trip work, one pilot would fly "single pilot" there for 6+ hours while the other pilot sat in the back. At the turn, we would switch places. So, when I was on the return leg and running on fumes, I would resort to math problems in my head to keep alert.

Example:

Okay, we are cruising at FL240, burning 140 lbs. per hour per side, the props are turning 1800 rpm (IIRC), the gear reduction is 3:2, so the engine is turning 2700 rmp, it has six cylinders of which 3 fire each rev.

a. How many fuel explosions happen each minute?

b. How many per hour?

c. How many for this leg?

Extra credit:

d. In pounds, how much fuel is consumed in each explosion?

e. How much in ounces?


Answers

a. 8100

b. 486,000

c. 2,916,000 (assuming a six hour leg)

d. 0.000048 lbs.

e. 0.000768 oz. (Or approximately 1/2 teaspoon per ignition)

And this is how I would get through another 15 minutes.

Either that, or I would scan the ADF for ANY radio station. God bless clear channel stations at 0400.

TiredSoul

One of you always needs to be monitoring instruments, systems, flightpath, weather and everything else.
You’re basically single pilot when the other one goes to the john or the galley.
So take a little break get up stretch your legs, or tell the other guy to take over for a while so you can stare out the window and watch the scenery go by and zone out for a while.
As in : “Hey do you mind taking over for a moment while I read up on whatever manual, zone out or otherwise take a mental break?”
That I’ll do.
I’m not going to be single pilot as you play candy crush ( seriously dude you’re like 47 wtf)
Do that in your own time.
Yes in cruise you run maybe at 10% of your brain capacity so it’s not that fatiguing.
It helps if you have another pilot who can tell more then one story or talk about more then one subject.
I’ve got a mental library of almost canned conversations that I can access depending on who I’m flying with.