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Because the FAA’s airline pilot fa- tigue rules cover many scenarios for crew rest, travel across multiple time zones, and back-to-back work days, it is much more complex than we need to be concerned about in personal avia- tion. The underlying concept, how- ever, is extremely relevant:
Your flight should be planned to conclude no more than 16 hours af- ter you awoke from an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep. This includes the time to fly to any alternates. Once you are airborne, constantly evaluate your level of fatigue. If you are getting tired (yawning, find yourself missing radio calls, etc.) land right away. If your flight is delayed and you will reach the end of your 16-hour duty day, divert to land before reaching that limit.
The National Business Aviation As- sociation (NBAA) publishes recom- mended guidance for business aviation crews. NBAA recommends no more than a 14-hour duty day, including no more than 10 hours of flight time in
any 24-hour period. Not explicitly stat- ed in NBAA’s guidance, this assumes a two-person professional f light crew in turbine airplanes. Taking airline regulations and NBAA best practices into account, here’s what I suggest for single-pilot business or personal aviation operators:
• 12-hour maximum duty day. This is 12 hours “alarm clock to engine shutdown,” recognizing that while most single-pilot operators will not log multiple flight legs in a single day, they tend to fly later in the day after having expended some of their day on non-aviation but still demanding duties.
• No more than three f light segments in a duty day together totaling no more than eight flight hours.
• No more than two f light segments in a duty day together totaling no more than five flight hours, if the final segment will be flown at night and/or in instrument mereo- logical conditions.
We need to get real about fatigue and learn to account for pilot fatigue as part of f light planning. Your “fatigue state” is as critical to the safe outcome of a flight as the airplane’s fuel state. It’s fairly easy to judge whether you feel rested enough to begin a trip, but far harder to predict how fatigued you’ll feel at the end of a flight. Although the rules and suggestions for duty day limits are somewhat arbitrary, they are the starting point for a pilot not used to active fatigue management, until he or she is more experience determining how they respond to pilot fatigue.
8 • TWIN & TURBINE / October 2020
AeroLeds
Thomas P. Turner is an ATP CFII/MEI, holds a master's Degree in Aviation Safety, and was the 2010 National FAA Safety Team Repre- sentative of the Year.Subscribe to Tom’s free FLYING LESSONS Weekly e-newsletter at www.mastery- flight-training.com.