Sky marshals

Merrion

The flight from Tokyo to Washington is something like 10 hours - Jo'burg to Washington is even longer. This means that by the time they get there there's either a very sleep deprived person with a gun or at some point there has been a person asleep with a gun.
How does this improve security?

Syth

Or they have one gun and share...

Sand

Youve never worked a 10 hour shift?

Christ now that you mention it, Im getting worried about the pilots - theyve been flying for 10 hours straight and were supposed to trust them with our lives landing?

therecklessone

Originally posted by Sand
Youve never worked a 10 hour shift?

Christ now that you mention it, Im getting worried about the pilots - theyve been flying for 10 hours straight and were supposed to trust them with our lives landing?

They have relief crews Sand. Some even have bunks provided to get a bit of kip during their rest period.

projectmayhem

pilots don't fly for 10 hours.. they take off, stick it on autopilot, and land.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Victor

Do what the US Navy does, they give their pilots speed.

Also http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61282-2002Jun16&notFound=true

PhoenixRising

Originally posted by daveirl
They could do even less if people were happy letting the computer do the whole lot!

Sometimes they do just that and let the aircraft autoland ! They have to do it once a month for practice !