Growing my fangs. . .

[Cheechako]

Take a look at my June "vampire" schedule:



Flew to Denver night-before, then back last night. Seemed to go okay. I got about four good hours plus three fitful hours of sleep yesterday. Got home at 3am (helped a fellow pilot with car troubles in the parking lot) and slept till 10am. The wife and kids are out of town. It won't be that easy to sleep in when they get back. . .
Third week is my 6-month recurrent class and sim.

I sure hope I can get used to these all-nighters. . . anybody got some experience in this?

[ASpilot2be]

Wow, looks like you will be seeing Denver alot this month.

[MQAAord]

I used to do all-nighters (east-bound overnight transcons) all the time when I was based in LGA in the summer of '02. It wasn't working the flight that was the hard part, when we'd land in JFK at 7-ish am, I was actually okay. It was the commute back home that kicked my butt. I'd usually end up walking in my front door around noon. Mercifully, this was before kids, so I'd just go to bed and pass out for a few hours. When I'd come to, I'd stay up til my usual bedtime (11/12-ish) and then it was back on sched

I used to do gobs of standups at Eagle (CDOs, whatever you call 'em) and I never really dealt with those well. Getting 2-3 hours of sleep and then having to deal with the rest of the day was just hard for me. If I fell asleep when I got back from a standup, I'd feel like garbage for the rest of the day.

I loved the allnighters, but hated standups.

[seagull]

Always amazed to look at the all night stuff the pax guys do, as it is generally way harder schedules than our (or UPS's) night schedules.

[NickH]

Back when I had an actual job, I worked many shifts of 7pm to 7am. I would good blackout curtains made a huge difference to my ability to sleep during the day, and also how well I slept. With the light streaming in, I'd be tossing and turning...

[EDUC8-or]

I've done what we call highspeeds, other companies call them naps, stand ups, and continous duty overnights. Generally you report anywhere from 1800 to 2100 and you're done the next morning by 0700-0900. Some of the highspeeds in our system allow for decent rest, maybe 7 hours or so. On the others, you're lucky if you get 3 hours. I think the worst one we have is CLE or CAK where you get to the hotel around midnite or so and the van time the next morning is 4am.

I don't mind doing them, it's nice being home every day. Our contract only allows us to do 3 in a row and then we are off for a day or two. Usually I try not to sleep during the day because I won't get any rest at night. I definitely get pretty run down after a month of highspeeds.

[ERfly]

Originally Posted by seagull

Always amazed to look at the all night stuff the pax guys do, as it is generally way harder schedules than our (or UPS's) night schedules.

The big problem with the red-eyes my company does (or did) was that it was on the last day of a 4-day. You'd fly a somewhat normal schedule, then on day 3, get to the overnight at 11:00 am and have to go right to sleep. No thanks. If I'm going to do them, I'd like to do them all as 1 pairing, like you freight guys do.

[Stone Cold]

I think a few freight dawgs should hop in on this one...I'll leave it to them who are still doing it to give some hints, but there was a thread on being tired during flights a long time ago that I provided some input and was shot down with some of my freight dawg tricks.

Good luck...your body will HATE you!!!

[B767Driver]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Take a look at my June "vampire" schedule:



Flew to Denver night-before, then back last night. Seemed to go okay. I got about four good hours plus three fitful hours of sleep yesterday. Got home at 3am (helped a fellow pilot with car troubles in the parking lot) and slept till 10am. The wife and kids are out of town. It won't be that easy to sleep in when they get back. . .
Third week is my 6-month recurrent class and sim.

I sure hope I can get used to these all-nighters. . . anybody got some experience in this?

I don't mind all nighters. For sleep...I go to bed around 1700, get up around 2200, for a 2245 van ride to the airport and a departure at 2355. One leg home.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by EDUC8-or

I've done what we call highspeeds, other companies call them naps, stand ups, and continous duty overnights. Generally you report anywhere from 1800 to 2100 and you're done the next morning by 0700-0900. Some of the highspeeds in our system allow for decent rest, maybe 7 hours or so. On the others, you're lucky if you get 3 hours. I think the worst one we have is CLE or CAK where you get to the hotel around midnite or so and the van time the next morning is 4am.

I don't mind doing them, it's nice being home every day. Our contract only allows us to do 3 in a row and then we are off for a day or two. Usually I try not to sleep during the day because I won't get any rest at night. I definitely get pretty run down after a month of highspeeds.

I did a ton of stand-ups at Skywest. The key for me was to get a nap in during the day. Before we had kids I'd get home around 7-8am and crawl back in bed with my wife a sleep a couple hours.

I'm in SFO right now and the Westin right next to the airport is a nice day-sleep layover. Good heavy curtains and extra sound-proofing. The airport is on one side of the hotel and the freeway is on the other. All I hear is the fridge in the cabinet! Got a good six hours of sleep this morning!