How do airplane pilots drive the plane for long period of times? Ex: 9 hours.
In: 15
Many long haul flights will have a third and/or fourth flight crew member with them, so that at least one pilot can be on a rest break after takeoff.
They don’t, the autopilot flies the plane for 9 hours the pilots supervise and take control if needed.
Depends on the country and the airline but typically pilots have a duty time limit of 8 hours. So if it’s a 9 hour flight, there will be 3 pilots on board to ensure no one works more than 8 hours.
The same way I can drive a car for ten hours, and they usually have co-pilots and automated systems.
As others have said automation takes the pain out of it. 3rd and 4th pilots help on the very long-range stuff but it’s totally legal to do a 12 hour flight with 2 crew.
A word on the autopilot as it’s so often misunderstood by people: it isn’t magic. The pilots are always flying the aircraft in one way or another. Even in the cruise across an ocean the AFDS (Autopilot Flight Director System) has no idea what to do unless programmed, monitored, and corrected by a human. Aside from that, it often fails in one way or another and is limited in the conditions in which in is permitted to be used.
I have only once had to do a longish flight with no autopilot (flight without autothrust is more common) and it was a genuine pain verging on being unsafe. The level of concentration required to maintain level for a 6 hour cruise is quite high.
Planes are on auto pilot most of the time when just cruising, so pilots aren’t glued to seats steering or anything. And long haul flights have multiple sets of crew on board, special sleep/rest quarters.
Adding to what already was said, pilots can make naps about an hour long. There is even a detailed procedure with its own checklist for that.
Well driving wise only 20 min or so depending on how long it takes to taxi out. Flying though, that’s a different story.
Coffee and autopilot.
Source: Am pilot.
Serious answer is we have strict limits on how long we can fly before we require rest depending on the number of flights to be carried out and the time we reported for work.
I can fly to Egypt and back which is a 12+ hour day and not require rest. Long haul airlines carry a relief crew so the operating crew can take a break.
Airplanes are designed to be trimmed during flight. Trimming the plane makes it dynamically and statically stable so that keeping the same flight profile requires minimal control input. For good flying conditions, you should be able to trim the plane and not touch the controls for an extended period of time (though doing that is not generally advised). Apart from that, big planes like airliners and even some more modern general aviation planes have autopilot that can take care of steering the plane for most of the time.
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