Flying planes is an incredible achievement that very few of us can hope to achieve. There’s a lot of pressure on the shoulders of pilots who lead the way for these giant metal birds filled with hundreds of people and make sure they bring them up in the sky and back to the ground safely. This of course means there are a lot of regulations that go around flying and a lot of duty limitations applied to the many pilots flying around the world. Let’s some of the many pilot restrictions you may not know about and how they can affect these pilots and how they do their jobs.
One of the first and most important limitations comes from all the rules that exist around when and how you can fly. You might wonder why many flights often have many pilots aboard. It’s not to simply have someone assist the main pilot but it is because of the hour limitations. Usually, the maximum limit on a flight is 8 hours. If three pilots are on board the limit of the flight can be extended by 4 hours and another 4 hours if there is a fourth pilot on board. This might seem odd but this is also the reason why many flights have connections rather than direct flights. This is also due to the fuel capacity of certain models, as you can imagine you can fly with an empty plane or a tired pilot, this is just simple logic.
One restriction that’s a little bit more niche and specific is to avoid certain aesthetic modifications that could alter your piloting capabilities. While you wouldn’t expect pilots to be looking up for the best acrylic nail salon near me, pilots come in all shapes, forms, and styles nowadays. Unfortunately for acrylic nail fans, you cannot get nails longer than half an inch. This is obviously to stop you from being unable to press certain buttons or turn certain small knobs. While it may feel restrictive it is for the best as it is a security rule applied to keep both the pilot and the passengers safe by allowing the pilot to do their job unrestricted. While they may seem odd, acrylic nails are sadly excluded by many dress codes from both service work the way up to piloting airliners.
When it comes to hours the rules make it so pilots cannot under any circumstance go above 60 hours within 168 hours. This means that within a month pilots cannot exceed 290 hours of work and within those 290 hours only 100 can be dedicated to flight time, no more. Following these rules, if you extend the period to 365 days or a full year, pilots cannot fly for more than 1400 hours respecting the previously mentioned rules. This is of course to prevent flying while fatigued and to keep the pilots working when they are most efficient since flying these massive planes can get extremely dangerous with only a slight mistake. Meaning you need your pilots to be fully alert and ready to deal with any possible issue that can come up during a commercial flight.
Despite it becoming legal recently more and more around many western countries, as you can imagine pilots cannot take the helm of a plane under the influence same as with alcohol. While the impairment is different the danger remains, so it is ideal for pilots to keep their consumption to a minimum and during their own time to avoid any potential impairment during their flights.
As you can see being a pilot is not always fun as there are a lot of restrictions on top of the massive amount of stress that comes with this type of job. Of course, as a passenger, you should be glad that these restrictions exist because not only are they in place to make sure you stay safe when you fly but also to make sure your pilot is well and rested before taking off. This is why these essential people must have fair working conditions so they can be in the best shape to serve as your pilot when you get ready to travel around the world. This way you know you are in good hands when flying.