Perfecting the art of the long blink during flying

narchee

narchee

Line Up and Wait
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Long Blinker
During a long and boring XC with the AP on it can be tempting to close one's eyelids briefly. Just rest them a bit if you know what I mean.

Besides the danger of falling asleep is there any regulation or rule related to how long a blink can be? Or said another way how often do you need to scan your instruments or outside and what is the maximum allowed time between these scans? Multiple ten second blinks can be quite restful and calming but are they legal?
 
Refer to the MEL if you have one. If any one of those items is on the blink, you cannot fly until you get it fixed.
 
If I need to blink like that, I'm landing at the nearest suitable airport for a nap.
 
Sometimes I wonder how much thought goes into these questions... When I first joined POA, the conversation was more toward the advancement of safety, knowledge, and assisting pilots with real problems. Now I'm not one to stifle a laugh or some satire once in a while. However, lately I've seen questions relating to the Mile High club, and now this one... Really guys, if you don't have something substantial contribute, don't.... IMHO....
 
FlySince9 said:
Sometimes I wonder how much thought goes into these questions... When I first joined POA, the conversation was more toward the advancement of safety, knowledge, and assisting pilots with real problems. Now I'm not one to stifle a laugh or some satire once in a while. However, lately I've seen questions relating to the Mile High club, and now this one... Really guys, if you don't have something substantial contribute, don't.... IMHO....
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Well I did try to be as descriptive in the title as possible so that you wouldn't have to waste your precious time reading the post. I am truly sorry that this failed to stop you from spending the 5 or 10 seconds that are now forever gone to you. :sad: Thank you though for stopping by and for your thoughtful contribution.
 
Disengage the autopilot and fly the plane.
 
FlySince9 said:
Sometimes I wonder how much thought goes into these questions... When I first joined POA, the conversation was more toward the advancement of safety, knowledge, and assisting pilots with real problems. Now I'm not one to stifle a laugh or some satire once in a while. However, lately I've seen questions relating to the Mile High club, and now this one... Really guys, if you don't have something substantial contribute, don't.... IMHO....
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The thing is, most of the serious topics have been discussed and beaten to death.
 
If you are so inclined, I would suggest you get a 'Deadman Switch' alarm. There has been some research done with 2 pilot cockpits that shows some positive benefits behind catching a 10 minute nap on long flights, however beyond 10 minutes can be more fatigue causing than no nap at all.
 
narchee said:
Well I did try to be as descriptive in the title as possible so that you wouldn't have to waste your precious time reading the post. I am truly sorry that this failed to stop you from spending the 5 or 10 seconds that are now forever gone to you. :sad: Thank you though for stopping by and for your thoughtful contribution.
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ooooh...SNAP! :rolleyes:
 
FWIW this is totally not the first go round w/ Mile High Club.
It seems for the most part the forum gets a little wonky around summer time

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Who cares about what the regs say on the subject? The goal is safety. I recommend the IMSAFE checklist. if you're tired, land and sleep or don't fly but do not engage in "long blinks".
 
I have dozed a couple times with my dad or another pilot in the right seat, 5 minutes or so at a time.;) But the danger is when you are solo, the quick 10 second long blink can quickly become a 30 minute, where the hell am I blink!:eek:
I can remember flying on a long trip early in the morning into the sunrise, it was nice and warm and VERY HARD to stay awake! :yikes:
 
To stay alert, not just awake, I try to do things in between the frequency changes.

  • Scan instruments, scan the sky
  • Mental estimations and calculations confirmed by my E6B app (PA,DA, TAS, descent planning, etc.),
  • fiddling with engine management,
  • checking and rechecking various things on FF (METARs, TAFs, radar, winds aloft - are temps and winds matching what I see?, 'mets, Stratus battery remaining, check satellites in view for curiosity, etc),
  • what would I do if my engine quit *right now*? Where would I land? Are there power lines along those straight section roads? etc
  • Which way is the surface wind blowing, how strong?
  • Play spot-the-airliner with ADS-B.
  • Tune the VORs and identify them even if I'm not navigating by them.
  • Tune the ASOS & airports nearby and pick up weather and listen to traffic.
  • Make a PIREP. Etc.
  • Spot surface features listed on the map
  • Oh and... check O2 sats on the pulse ox
Also, sometimes I don oxygen if I feel fatigued. It helps, especially when I'm flying 11-12k feet. Yes I can fly without it and usually do, but of course I also notice that my heart and respiration rates are higher without Ox. That doesn't help if you are already baseline fatigued. I live in Denver so I'm acclimatized to a higher elevation - someone acclimatized to sea level would notice an even greater benefit from a little O2.

There's always something to do and, yes, sometimes I have to consciously remember that fatigue is a risk and make myself do these things.

Now with my family in the plane there are PLENTY of things to keep me awake. Thing #1: kids. They are the most realistic of all distractions. :D
 
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I was not aware there is a legal amount of time needed to look at instruments or outside.

And how would that be enforced? :idea:
 
Eating cole slaw will give you gas. That will keep you awake.
 
Henning said:
If you are so inclined, I would suggest you get a 'Deadman Switch' alarm. There has been some research done with 2 pilot cockpits that shows some positive benefits behind catching a 10 minute nap on long flights, however beyond 10 minutes can be more fatigue causing than no nap at all.
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When I was in Army basic, there was time when there was a guy that got caught asleep in his chair two times in a row. They made him stand against the wall holding a CS grenade, with the pin pulled.

Needless to say, he did not fall asleep again.
 
Read Petrolero's post, above - great advice, echoes my method (except I don't have ADS-B yet).
 
Threads like this are why we can't have nice things...

Really?? Long blinks....just land and don't become another news story.
 
EdFred said:
Disengage the autopilot and fly the plane.
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So this is the biggest reason why I never use cruise control while driving on a long trip. I find I'm more likely to start getting tired and start nodding off when on cruise control.

On the other hand, if you are tired, using the autopilot is probably safer because at least the plane is being flown properly while you're in a diminished state from being tired.
 
So something that I've wondered about on a long five hour XC trip, is if you let yourself doze off, will ATC wake you up when they make a call? I've never tried it myself. On most of my trips probably the longest stretch of silence I've heard is 10 minutes. There will always be someone who says "radio check" or asks the center if they're still there after some amount of time. Is that voice call enough to wake you up if you're asleep? I don't know. My buddy Bob (not the mile high club guy) was telling me about the time he was woken up by ATC. I don't know if that would work for me. I'm thinking the ten second blink is the longest I would go for.

You may ridicule this but multiple ten second blinks really do help. Try it sometime. :D
 
narchee said:
So something that I've wondered about on a long five hour XC trip, is if you let yourself doze off, will ATC wake you up when they make a call? I've never tried it myself. On most of my trips probably the longest stretch of silence I've heard is 10 minutes. There will always be someone who says "radio check" or asks the center if they're still there after some amount of time. Is that voice call enough to wake you up if you're asleep? I don't know. My buddy Bob (not the mile high club guy) was telling me about the time he was woken up by ATC. I don't know if that would work for me. I'm thinking the ten second blink is the longest I would go for.
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There have been times when ATC has forgotten about me, and then I will fly out of their airspace, so there can be long stretches of silence. I will then call up the next freq, I have listed on my flight plan, but if you're asleep, you may just be SOL.
 
A ten-second blink can turn into a ten minute blink. How straight and level will your plane fly while you sleep? Feet on rudders? Hands on yoke? Slump forward with chest on yoke? You could easily wake up dead.
 
narchee said:
So something that I've wondered about on a long five hour XC trip, is if you let yourself doze off, will ATC wake you up when they make a call? I've never tried it myself. On most of my trips probably the longest stretch of silence I've heard is 10 minutes. There will always be someone who says "radio check" or asks the center if they're still there after some amount of time. Is that voice call enough to wake you up if you're asleep? I don't know. My buddy Bob (not the mile high club guy) was telling me about the time he was woken up by ATC. I don't know if that would work for me. I'm thinking the ten second blink is the longest I would go for.

You may ridicule this but multiple ten second blinks really do help. Try it sometime. :D
Click to expand...

ATC isn't always going to wake everyone up. Some are pretty sound sleepers. Many years ago one of the night time couriers was enroute from OAK to BUR and no amount of yelling woke him up. Flew right past BUR into the the final at LAX. It took a Delta 7 something or other to point right at him and fill the cockpit with landing light to wake him up,
 
If you have passengers this is all really easy...

In the preflight pax brief...threaten them to not to ever let you wake up and catch them asleep.
 
I was flying one night (technically morning). That flying day started out at 6am. I had flown to pickup someone 45 minutes from me and go to a meeting 3 hours from there. Meeting ran later than expected and we didn't leave for the first 3 hour return leg until later in the evening. It was about 1:45am that night(technically morning). I thought I felt a little tired before departing my last leg home, but thought I would be ok for the 45 minute flight. I filed IFR knowing there were some low'ish clouds but nothing forecast like it actually was. I was slapping myself about half way into the flight to stay awake and scared to death that I wasn't going to be with it enough to do the tasks at hand. I then entered IMC and had to do an approach close to minimums. That night had I closed my eyes for more than a blink, I would have been in a deep sleep. That night was a big learning experience for me. I think a little harder about my alertness at night before flying. When I landed, I wanted to just taxi into the grass and go to sleep. I would 100% suggest not flying if you cant keep focused the entire flight. I also now, keep an emergency bottle of 5 hour energy drink in the airplane just in case.
 
I like the idea of the push-button "dead man" switch as a backup once you realize you have a problem, to keep you going until you can get down (!).

I couldn't find any of those but did find this as a potential "first alert" solution.

http://tinyurl.com/p7bjj5r

 
My job requires long flights at night or day where ever I am, so flying tired is normal. Now most GA planes do not have this feature but if you do I highly recommend this. Build a holding pattern into your flight plan at some point just prior to top of descent and if you have the capability to input speed, then put in a speed that will cause an overspeed warning. Used to do that all the time heading west towards Oakland on one of our death march trips. Heard another company's flight being called multiple times by ATC, other aircraft (we don't monitor a company frequency in flight) and finally approx 100 miles west of San Fran they were able to wake up the crew (3 people) with an ACARS dinging the message bell.
Yet, despite of human physical needs, ask a passenger if they think it is okay for one of the crewmembers to catch a nap...while on autopilot with another crewember in the cockpit...I ususally ask if they would rather have a crewmember rested for the approach or very tired?
 
I forget if it was NASA, FAA, or NTSB that did the study, but I remember them recommending that crews actually schedule naps to control the problem of both crew nodding off simultaneously.
 
Henning said:
I forget if it was NASA, FAA, or NTSB that did the study, but I remember them recommending that crews actually schedule naps to control the problem of both crew nodding off simultaneously.
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NASA. Headed by Dr. Mark Rosekind

The report was so bad that Fed Ex hired him to keep the report "quiet"!

He presented his findings to the unions of Fed Ex and UPS and then suddenly was working for Fed Ex....next report was almost opposite in its findings....not saying money was involved but.......
 
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