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So is it disqualifying to want to live more than an hour away from base?


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Depends on the company. Some companies provide local housing, and don't care where you live. Some want you to live close. Driving for an hour or more every day gets real old, real fast, but some people do it. It's harder when you work 12 hour shifts than when you work a 9-to-5 job. I lived almost 3 hours from work, but I didn't drive it every day, just once a week, and lived in company-provided housing. Just like the Gulf, but the environment was infinitely better.

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Driving to/from work is considered rest time, so it's not a factor. Even when they post that they want you to live within an hour of your base they don't check/care.

 

That depends on the individual POI's interpretation. I talk to one a while back that said he took drive time into account. Anything more than an hour and he didn't consider it as rest time anymore. I don't necessarily agree with him, but I'm not the one who makes that decision. It's ultimately up to the operator and the POI.

 

 

Either way, we're talking about that commute, right. Let's say you live 2 hours away and you drive home after every shift. 2 hours in, 12 hour shift, 2 hours home. That's a 16 hour day. That's a long day. I can't speak for you, but for me, towards the end of that hitch, I'd be pretty damn well over it. Now if it's a 14/14 schedule?? Forget about it.

 

That's just me though

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What you do on your own time isn't the FAA's business, and I doubt they will pry into it unless someone makes an issue of it. The only time I've ever heard of the feds getting into drive time is when the company requires the drive, such as driving between bases or some such. Then the drive time is duty time, without question. But whether you drive home, or some other place, on your time off isn't their business.

 

I do believe, though, that pilots have a duty to report to work rested and ready to fly, and driving an hour or more each way every day after 12-hour shifts makes that a little iffy, IMO, especially when the 12 hour shift can easily become longer due to a late flight. If you use the legal 14 hours on duty, then drive 2 hours, you'll likely end up getting 6 hours sleep, at most. I know you plan to sleep at work, but that isn't always possible. Flights happen. Personally, I wouldn't do it, but I'm not everyone.

Edited by Gomer Pylot
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  • 5 weeks later...

Because of the EMS 135 rest time requirements will they not consider an applicant who would want to live more than an hour away? I've heard this but I wasn't sure if it was true or how much of a factor it is in getting a position with a company.

 

As stated by Azhigher and Gomer Pylot above, by FAA Chief Counsel interpretation (see below), the time a pilot spends in traveling between his residence and an airport out of which he is to operate, or from that airport to his residence, is time spent in "local transportation" and is counted as part of a pilot’s rest period. However, there is a responsibility, both pilot and employer, with respect to adequate rest.

 

There is no explicit regulatory prohibition to the length of commute time; however, the FAA has previously stated that under §91.13[a], a person who is too fatigued to safely operate an aircraft may not operate that aircraft but must instead immediately notify his or her employer, wherein the employer is required to honor the request for addition rest.

 

§135.263 Flight time limitations and rest requirements: All certificate holders.

 

[c] Time spent in transportation, not local in character, that a certificate holder requires of a flight crewmember and provides to transport the crewmember to an airport at which he is to serve on a flight as a crewmember, or from an airport at which he was relieved from duty to return to his home station, is not considered part of a rest period.

 

Section 135.263 [c] contains an identical provision. Under both FARs, three qualifications must be met before the regulation applies. First, the transportation cannot be local in character; second, it must be required of a flight crew member by the air carrier; and third, it must be provided by the air carrier.

 

The second and third qualifier is met under your facts. The transportation is obviously required of a flight crewmember by the carrier. During a phone conversation on July 1, 1992, you confirmed that the ground transportation was provided by the air carrier from Baltimore-Washington International Airport to Washington Dulles International Airport. The first qualifier however, that the transportation be "not local in character", requires further discussion.

 

The FAA previously has taken the position that "local transportation" is travel to and from one's residence to one's place of business, or from a hotel or motel to an airport. The time a pilot spends in traveling between his residence and an airport out of which he is to operate, or from that airport to his residence, is time spent in "local transportation" and is counted as part of a rest period. Further, in a previous interpretation request regarding FAR 121.471(f) and 135.263©, the FAA stated that local

 

Ref: .J. Johnson - Legal Interpretation

 

 

Question: Whether deadheading constitutes duty and length of deadhead. "Deadhead Transportation", where a crewmember flies as a passenger on the air carrier's aircraft to a destination where he is to begin service as a flight crewmember, or the reverse. The FAA has consistently interpreted that this provision would apply regardless of whether the crewmembers accomplished the deadhead portion of the trip on a company airplane; an airplane of another carrier, or by ground transportation.

 

For your second question, you again state that the air carrier plans to deadhead the crew back to home base at the conclusion of their duty period. However, this time you ask us to assume that the time spent deadheading would be 15 hours. You ask whether this 15- hour deadhead would be considered duty and whether 15 hours is an acceptable length of time for deadhead transportation.

 

In a 1988 interpretation, the FAA stated that, with some exceptions not applicable here, deadhead time is generally not counted as duty time. We note, however, that, since the 15-hour deadhead would likely consist of transportation that is not local in character, the time spent in deadhead transportation would also not be part of a rest period

 

In response to your question about whether deadhead transportation that is 15 hours long is permissible, we note that there is no specific limit in§ 135.267 as to the permissible length of a deadhead. However, §91.13[a] prohibits the operation of an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner. The FAA has previously stated that under §91.13[a], a person who is too fatigued to safely operate an aircraft may not operate that aircraft but must instead immediately notify his or her employer.

 

Thus, while there is no explicit regulatory prohibition in § 135.267 on assigning a crewmember to 15 hours of deadhead transportation, we caution that a deadhead of this length that commences at the end of a full duty day may increase the risk that the flightcrew member would be too fatigued to safely operate subsequent flights.

 

REF: Perdue-SP Aviation - (2015) Legal Interpretation

 

See link below, “deadheads” considered transportation that is local in nature.

Wesley C. Converse - (2011) Legal Interpretation

 

Edited by iChris
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In late 1989 I put a deposit on a brand new R22 Mariner that was delivered in May of 1990. I bought tickets for a 3000 hour Robbie pilot to fly out to Torrance and pick up the helicopter and deliver it to Annapolis, Maryland. He changed the tickets so he could get one hour of turbine time and left a day or two later than I original booked. He didn't get the water training that was offered by RHC because he changed the airline tickets and arrived on the weekend after they closed. He didn't read the POH sections specific to the aircraft because he 'didn't have time.' He was flying to the Chesapeake Bay and was thus pushing it the whole 3000 mile way to make up the time and wasn't getting enough sleep. He shows up half a day late for the Saturday event and was very tired. He made a stupid mistake because he was tired (and hadn't gotten the water training or read the special POH section for the pontoon version of the heli) and wrecks the helicopter the first day. I had carefully created the situation that he had plenty of time and would get the special schooling with a factory instructor. He chose to cut his safety margin.

 

All his peers wanted to know what happened so he takes a job overseas so people would stop asking about the accident. He's then flying a Hughes 500 solo at high speed and a blade separates and the rotor hub is found about a mile from the rest of the fuselage. He died, of course. This is an example of unintended consequences which started with lack of sleep. And pursuit of turbine time. Many people's lives were changed. I had started flying R22's in 1986 and scraped for 4 years to put down that downpayment and that was gone, helicopter wrecked and then pilot went overseas and died. I chartered for several more painful years in a recession driving to all these events when my new helicopter was wrecked because of a tired pilot.

 

A baseball pitcher throws with greater accuracy with more sleep. Would make sense that a pilot is more accurate with safety than one that is sleep deprived.

 

I can't tell you how many times I've sent a pilot on a trip over 1000 miles and told them to leave on a particular day. They frequently leave a day later and rarely get there on time as they invariable run into weather and that's why after 30 years I know to expect that. Perhaps it's not macho to get a good nights sleep and leave a day early and perhaps you don't count the time in the car as duty but maybe you should reconsider what is safe as opposed to what is legal?

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In late 1989 I put a deposit on a brand new R22 Mariner that was delivered in May of 1990. I bought tickets for a 3000 hour Robbie pilot to fly out to Torrance and pick up the helicopter and deliver it to Annapolis, Maryland. He changed the tickets so he could get one hour of turbine time and left a day or two later than I original booked. He didn't get the water training that was offered by RHC because he changed the airline tickets and arrived on the weekend after they closed. He didn't read the POH sections specific to the aircraft because he 'didn't have time.' He was flying to the Chesapeake Bay and was thus pushing it the whole 3000 mile way to make up the time and wasn't getting enough sleep. He shows up half a day late for the Saturday event and was very tired. He made a stupid mistake because he was tired (and hadn't gotten the water training or read the special POH section for the pontoon version of the heli) and wrecks the helicopter the first day. I had carefully created the situation that he had plenty of time and would get the special schooling with a factory instructor. He chose to cut his safety margin.

 

All his peers wanted to know what happened so he takes a job overseas so people would stop asking about the accident. He's then flying a Hughes 500 solo at high speed and a blade separates and the rotor hub is found about a mile from the rest of the fuselage. He died, of course. This is an example of unintended consequences which started with lack of sleep. And pursuit of turbine time. Many people's lives were changed. I had started flying R22's in 1986 and scraped for 4 years to put down that downpayment and that was gone, helicopter wrecked and then pilot went overseas and died. I chartered for several more painful years in a recession driving to all these events when my new helicopter was wrecked because of a tired pilot.

 

A baseball pitcher throws with greater accuracy with more sleep. Would make sense that a pilot is more accurate with safety than one that is sleep deprived.

 

I can't tell you how many times I've sent a pilot on a trip over 1000 miles and told them to leave on a particular day. They frequently leave a day later and rarely get there on time as they invariable run into weather and that's why after 30 years I know to expect that. Perhaps it's not macho to get a good nights sleep and leave a day early and perhaps you don't count the time in the car as duty but maybe you should reconsider what is safe as opposed to what is legal?

 

From your mouth to His ears. Adequate, efficient and sufficient sleep is at least as important as staying hydrated, fit and fed. My experience (and prejudice) is that pilots, operators, whoever, who don't deal with that responsibly are also slack in everything else professionally, and I mean everything.

Edited by Wally
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