Shouldn't Forget About the Little Ones

by Ray Oyung

December 19, 2001

There's quite a bit of research going on with sleep, fatigue, and concern for how tired airline pilots are getting in the big commercial airplanes, but what about the pilots who fly the smaller airplanes?

There are lots of pilots who fly smaller airplanes. These airplanes are powered by propeller and carry anywhere from 20-50 passengers. They usually fly to smaller airports around the country, but does that really mean they'e working less? A Boeing 767 can fly from San Francisco to New York in about 5 hours without stopping. The pilots in the smaller airplanes who fly for smaller companies (also called regional airlines) are not flying as far. These pilots are flying anywhere from 20 to 90 minutes for each flight, but they're usually flying many flights (also called legs, segments or trips) in a day or night. Sometimes a pilot may fly as many as 9 trips in a day. Now that's a lot of flying!

Also, what about the pilots who fly even smaller airplanes? These airplanes are also powered by propellers and carry anywhere from 1-8 passengers. These pilots fly airplanes carrying banners, helicopters, and many are flying just for fun. They're called General Aviation pilots. These folks are definitely not flying as much or as far as the other pilots described above, but can't they get tired too? The differences are great in the type of airplanes, the distances traveled in a day, and the number of trips flown each day. The one thing that is the same for all the pilots described above is that they're all human, and as humans, we all need sleep.

For the last 7 years, our group at NASA has been providing workshops with information to pilots, management and mechanics, air traffic controllers, and aviation policy makers on the basics of sleep and how to use this information to help them make flying a safe environment. The workshops have expanded to include lots of people other than aviation people like nuclear power plant workers, ship and train drivers, military aviators, doctors, nurses, firefighters, and law enforcement officials. All these folks come to learn about sleep and how to use the information to make the place we live a safer place.

Now we're just finishing up the reports that can be given to regional airline pilots and general aviation pilots to help them make their flying environment a safer place. Also, the information from the general aviation report has been developed into an interactive web based tool. Pilots can log onto the web site to learn more about sleep and fatigue, how these things may affect their flying, and how to use the information to help them make better decisions about whether to fly or maybe wait to fly another day.