ok so i havent slept at all and i decided to see how it affected my sim flying. as i expected it really hindered it. my reaction time = fail! i crashed every time i attempted anything difficult. How do airline pilots manage to fly almost the entire night? i would kill my passengers :S

The time airline pilots spend flying is severely limited by very stringent rules on how many hours they can spend flying per month, and you'd be genuinely surprised how few hours are actually allowed. Sometimes pilots can find that they are not able to legally complete a flight, because they are 'out of hours' for that week or month, and thus they are forced to either go home or lay over, waiting in a foreign hotel. This sounds glamorous, being able to stay in foreign towns, but anyone who has ever had a job involving travel and working away from home will tell you that the shine soon wears off that kind of thing, leaving you with the tedious prospect of lots of time spent bored ****less in hotels that all end up looking the same after a while. This is why you often find pilots 'jumpseating' home by hitching a ride on a flight, sat in the cockpit with the crew.The hours a pilot is allowed is considerably less than any other other job by a very large margin. To be fair, that doesn't exactly tell the whole story, since the job can involve other duties on the ground when planning and doing other bits and pieces related to the job, but even adding those into the equation it is still generally a lot less hours than most other jobs. This has led to accusations from the uniniated that being an airline pilot is 'the most well paid part time job in the world', but as you probably know, these days it is not that well paid unless you have many years of seniority with an airline. So the downside of that is the job involves a lot of tedious waiting around, both in times of day and years awaiting promotion.To alleviate tiredness on flights, most crew share sectors in short stints throughout their flights, swapping roles to prevent it from being too mundane, and on long haul flights, there is often more than one crew, with the other crew sleeping in bunks behind the cockpit.Al

wow thats really interesting actually! now to find a way to get other crew for my 3 am stints:Pthanks

Pilot's are allowed no more than 8 *flight* hours a day between required rest periods. Of course that means hours flown, not *worked*. Many(All?) airlines do have regulations on crew non flying hours as well, though. When your hours are reached, no more flying. I don't have my FAR in front of me, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but each rest is not prescribed by the FAA. So in theory you could be awake for 40 hours before a flight. Anyway, sleep is very important! As you noticed, fatigue a major factor. Imagine rushing to not time out on your hours. (Tenerife :( )

The time airline pilots spend flying is severely limited by very stringent rules on how many hours they can spend flying per month, and you'd be genuinely surprised how few hours are actually allowed. Sometimes pilots can find that they are not able to legally complete a flight, because they are 'out of hours' for that week or month, and thus they are forced to either go home or lay over, waiting in a foreign hotel. This sounds glamorous, being able to stay in foreign towns, but anyone who has ever had a job involving travel and working away from home will tell you that the shine soon wears off that kind of thing, leaving you with the tedious prospect of lots of time spent bored ****less in hotels that all end up looking the same after a while. This is why you often find pilots 'jumpseating' home by hitching a ride on a flight, sat in the cockpit with the crew.The hours a pilot is allowed is considerably less than any other other job by a very large margin. To be fair, that doesn't exactly tell the whole story, since the job can involve other duties on the ground when planning and doing other bits and pieces related to the job, but even adding those into the equation it is still generally a lot less hours than most other jobs. This has led to accusations from the uniniated that being an airline pilot is 'the most well paid part time job in the world', but as you probably know, these days it is not that well paid unless you have many years of seniority with an airline. So the downside of that is the job involves a lot of tedious waiting around, both in times of day and years awaiting promotion.To alleviate tiredness on flights, most crew share sectors in short stints throughout their flights, swapping roles to prevent it from being too mundane, and on long haul flights, there is often more than one crew, with the other crew sleeping in bunks behind the cockpit.Al

In the US, the actual rules are:1. Maximum of 8 hours scheduled flight time between required rest periods.2. Maximum in a 7 day period is 30 hours of flight time.3. Maximum in a calender month is 100 hours of flight time.4. Maximum in a calender year is 1000 hours of flight time.5. Maximum of 16 hours of duty each day.Required rest periods are:1. If scheduled for 8 or less hours of flight time, then 9 hours normal rest, reducible to 8 hours, with a compensatory 10 hours rest to begin no later than 24 hours after the beginning of the reduced rest.2. If scheduled for 8-9 hours of flight time, then 10 hours normal rest, reducible to 8 hours, with a compensatory 11 hours rest to begin nlt 24 hours after the the beginning of the reduced rest.3. If scheduled for 9 hour or more of flight time, then 11 hours normal rest, reducible to 9 hours, with a comp. 12 hours rest to begin nlt 24 hours after the beginning of the reduced rest.How can these rules say "if scheduled for 9 hours or more of flight time?" when everybody knows pilots can only be scheduled to fly 8 hours a day? Because there are 24 hours in a day. The limit is not 8 hours a day, the limit is 8 hours between rest periods. Rest periods can be as short as 8 hours. That leaves another 8 hours on the 24 hour clock. Another 8 hours that can be spent flying. So a pilot can actually be scheduled for 16 hours of flying in one day. 8 hours of flying, 8 hours rest, then 8 more hours flying. All within a 24 hour period. All within 16 hours of a duty day.Long haul flights are required to have extra crew members so that each crew member can take a scheduled rest during the course of the flight in order to remain within these limits.

after being put on pain pills for a recent surgury i realised something harder then flying tired - flying high - and me doing this is living proof why its illigal :(