A little Paris, a little Venice

[Doug Taylor]

That went roundy-round in NYC a couple days ago.

[coa787]

Originally Posted by Doug Taylor

Ice!

I just noticed this, but if this is a shot of Lake Erie, then this was taken while Doug was on airway J545 between YXU and DJB.

How do I know?

I live down there (on the land, not in the lake!) and I see Delta 767's all the time. On a good day, I would see pretty much all of the international Delta flights inbound to KATL and KCVG.

[t-cart]

Doug, How do you keep your "internal clock" from being screwed up all the time from so many crossings. I guess you get used to it. My wife and I went to Zurich,Rome, and Venice a while back and I was screwed up the whole time. How many of these trips in a month? How much time in between trips?

[Doug Taylor]

Originally Posted by t-cart

Doug, How do you keep your "internal clock" from being screwed up all the time from so many crossings. I guess you get used to it. My wife and I went to Zurich,Rome, and Venice a while back and I was screwed up the whole time. How many of these trips in a month? How much time in between trips?

You neeeeever get used to it.

Well, for starters, I already have a flexible body clock. My brain will pretty much perform the way my watch reads.

It's like this. Once I pushback, my watch is on GMT time. Fly/eat/sleep on the way over. Watch goes to local time. Hit the hotel, take a 3 hour nap, max, so I stay a little tired. You're going to be dog tired, but force yourself up.

Get up, work out/massive walk, meet the crew for debauchery and try to stay up until at least midnight local time so I go to bed dead tired. Then I'll easily sleep 6 to 8 hours and my body clock has been reset to local time. But then it's time for the flight back! )

I just got in from NYC after a MAD trip. I got up at about 0700 GMT this morning, took a 2 hr 17 minute nap after the top-of-climb (I flew relief so I had the first break), flew another 4-ish hours, took a two hour nap on the flight home to PHX now I'll probably be up until at least midnight so I'll be dog tired and will sleep until about 9-ish tomorrow morning.

The keys that I've discovered.

Cut the caffeine WAY down. If I'm tired at the top-of-descent, I won't have that morning cup of joe because that's going to affect my ability to nap on arrival. Also, the pre-flight cup of coffee is gone too because that affects my ability to nap, even when tired, on the rest seat/crew bunk.

If I do drink coffee, it's usually after I wake up from my short nap in Europe or early evening so I can stay relatively awake until midnight-ish.

Lots of water. We get 'crew bottles' which are those big 1.5L bottles. I'll usually drink two of those for every crossing. Once you're dehydrated, it's game over with fatigue.

Plus, I've actually started eating a lot less and have taken off about 10 pounds in the last month by changing my eating and drinking habits. Half of an entree and soup or salad flying east, skip the breakfast coasting in... Soup and a salad flying west with no coast-in snack.