I did IAD-LHR-IAD last summer unaugmented on the 787 a couple times and it sucked. Both flights coming back ended up blocking almost 9hrs.

 

Its amazing that a guy who flips burgers can’t be forced to work 8 hours straight without at least 4 breaks, but airline pilots can be forced to work that long with no break.

 

9 hours domestic daytime.

Forced?

Flipping burgers/ flying an airliner..... I can see the similarities:

 

😄

I see your Air India job and raise it with a crappy old DC-8 flying non sched international for 10 hours. Then doing a Pt 91 reposition for another 8 hours with no breaks, no food, no glass, no sel call, no GPS, and a narcoleptic/alcoholic/geriatric flight engineer with a bad attitude.

 

Or even worse. How about all of those 14-15 year old kids who grew up on a farm or family business and work 12 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week. One difference is that they don’t complain as much as pilots do. We get paid well and work in a comfortable, low stress environment. We have it so good that one of our biggest threats is boredom, complacency, and actually dozing off. Laying on the sarcasm pretty thick (a clue for the sarcastically challenged), but we get paid for what we know and what we can do when we have to. The normal day to day operation isn’t that big of a deal. Working an unaugmented 8 hour Atlantic crossing isn’t exactly the most demanding or exhausting task one can accomplish. 3-4 leg days on the narrow body fleet get pretty long too, but it still isn’t the end of the world. If complaining about monitoring the automation on an oceanic flight, especially with CPDLC, is what we are upset about, life is pretty good.

 

Same job, different plane. I was told “its international, you don’t need rest providing you don’t block over 12 hours of 121 time.” One freight outfit figured out that that the domestic rest requirement of 8 hours didn’t have to be continuous. As long as your breaks added up to 8 hours you were legal, and time spent in local transportation was part of your rest as the hotel van tried aimlessly to find the freight ramp. Oh the memories. Not enough booze in the bottle to wash away some of the past.

 

The contract only paid DH less than flying for a couple of years as part of the concessionairy contract. When the pay snapped back to 100%, CAL continued the DH East/IRO West for years (DH at blended rate was higher than the flying FO If it was a 757 trans-Atlantic trip) which allowed more soft time for senior FO’s who liked the DH stuff. Having worked a ton of these as well as having flown completely unaugmented Ireland/U.K/Portugal trips I’ll say it is rough when delayed and or weather plagued. Having the third set of eyes is a big help. Heck, California to Hawaii is nothing compared to North Atlantic un-augmented flying. I do Hawaii flying in a freaking 737 each month for pete’s sake.

 

Bingo. A delay changes the ballgame on an all nighter thats up to the unaugmented limits. Those Hawaii Denver redeyes are bruuuuuutal... Add a 3 hr delay for inbound aircraft, oh dear God.

 

I can honestly say that I’ve never missed ACMI non sched freight. Not one single time EVER!

 

100% agreed, in fact I’d venture to say that Hawaii Den is one of the most brutal red eyes we fly. It’s right up there with NRT/ SIN or BKK which was always unaugmented. Are we even doing those NRT tags anymore? They SUKKED!