Rocket Racing League

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

:In article ,
:Bruce Hoult wrote:
: I don't see how you can possibly have a jetlag problem until you've got
: to the point where you would normally have gotten to your sleep period
: in your originating timezone. If you can leave Auckland at 8am, get to
: New York an hour later at 3pm, do a couple of hours of business, head
: home at 6 pm, arrive an hour later at 1 pm, do an afternoon's work, and
: then head home to wife and kids ... where is the possibility for jetlag?
: So, the person has been up since 6am(ish - probably earlier) Auckland
: time?
:
:Two hours before the flight? Why?
:
:In North America, for an international flight you're typically supposed to
:be *at the airport* two hours ahead. ("Supposed to" means "you probably
:won't need that long, but if you cut it closer and something goes wrong,
:it's your fault, not ours".)
:
:Even in these times off paranoid
:security I wouldn't get up more than an hour before a flight here in
:Wellington. That's 20 minutes to get ready, 20 minutes to drive across
:town to the airport, check in 20 minutes before departure. All very
:standard.
:
:Maybe standard there, but not at a major North American airport. At
:T-20min, they've started boarding and any still-unclaimed seats are being
:assigned to standby passengers. Even assuming no major snags, arriving at
:the airport later than maybe T-60min is risky, because 10-15min waits can
ccur at several points even when all is basically well.

It's also risky because they apparently don't have to let you through
the security checkpoint if you cut it closer than that, even for
domestic flights. I once (but only once) had an airline ticket desk
get rather shirty about this.

:Remember also that on arrival in New York, you can easily need 30-60min to
:clear Customs & Immigration -- long waits in line are common -- and
robably another 30-60min to get to where your business is waiting for
:you, unless it's at an airport hotel.
:
:The theory is good, but it would take considerable streamlining of the
:airport bureaucracy and ground transportation to make it work reliably.

Add to the problem that most US airports are NOT built to have
security checkpoints in the terminals for domestic flights. The lines
can get quite long in some places.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

Henry Spencer wrote:
Two hours before the flight? Why?

In North America, for an international flight you're typically supposed to
be *at the airport* two hours ahead. ("Supposed to" means "you probably
won't need that long, but if you cut it closer and something goes wrong,
it's your fault, not ours".)

I don't know if airlines publicize different required arrival times for
first class passengers and economy passengers, but they do go to great
lengths to make you wait far less in the higher classes of service.
It's part of what you pay for.

If you're paying ten grand for a "rocket class" flight, I have to
believe that they're going to have at the very least one person to show
up, take your bags, give you a security screening, and drive you to
your gate in a golf cart.

[ snip ]

The theory is good, but it would take considerable streamlining of the
airport bureaucracy and ground transportation to make it work reliably.

Any more streamlined than building a rocket terminal separate from the
main terminal with it's own security/customs checkpoints that have much
higher staffing ratios? Airliner development is a pretty small part of
air transport, so it's unreasonable to expect someone to spend ten
times as much on one and leave the other completely untouched.

Getting back to the topic at hand, I'm not aware of any research
dealing with the effect that the rate of time zone change has on jet
lag. It's not unreasonable to expect that an instantaneous shift will
have a different effect that being in an artificially lit environment
for twenty hours; one could experiment by flying between Bodo and
Thule, and then between Miami and Casablanca, or I suppose you could
procure a basement and some full-spectrum lights.

- jake

Bruce Hoult wrote:


So, the person has been up since 6am(ish - probably earlier) Auckland
time?

Two hours before the flight? Why?

Because that's what all the airports I use demand. If you turn up 20
minutes before departure for an international flight in the US or
Europe you'd better have a damn expensive ticket and a lot of luck.

Even in these times off paranoid
security I wouldn't get up more than an hour before a flight here in
Wellington. That's 20 minutes to get ready, 20 minutes to drive across
town to the airport, check in 20 minutes before departure. All very
standard.

Auckland would appear to be a pretty bad example to pick. I wouldn't
turn up at Heathrow, LAX or similar with that little time. I've done
55 minutes and been running for my gate, anything tighter and you'd
miss a flight.

You have them arriving back at the office after being awake 12
hours

By my reckoning, 1 pm is 6 hours after 7 am. Even if I allow your 6 am
start it's still only 7 hours after waking up, not 12.

How many hours are you in New York then? 1pm is 6 hours after 7am, but
that assumes you haven't "spent a couple of hours" doing business in
NYC.

As it is, I challenge any non-US passport holder to clear US
immigration and customs at a major airport in less than 45 minutes.

I've done it in Seattle if I've been at the front of the plane, but
they only have 1 747 coming in an hour from parts foreign. I've waited
up to 3 hours in other major US airports before now.

You'd need some kind of special deal.

(although they'd not be back in the office for another couple of
hours probably

Why?

I'm assuming that most airports aren't as easy to get to as Auckland
seems to be.

, you then have them doing another 4+ hours work, then home and
family, maybe an early night at 10pm? So that's a 21+ hour day?

Assuming an early night at 10 pm, I get 15 hours. Even counting from
your 6 am to 10 pm is still only 16 hours, allowing 8 hours sleep even
if you have to do it all over again.


Regardless of what the clock says at that point, you've a person with a
pretty screwed up body clock which will be screaming foul.

Looks like a pretty standard business day to me. I've certainly done
exactly the same sort of thing on business many times, simply taking a 1
hour flight from Wellington to Auckland or Christchurch on a 737 instead
of a 1 hour flight to New York on a ballistic rocket. And, yes, I've
gotten up at 7 am, been on a plane at 8, in Auckland at 9, in someone's
office by 9:30, back in Wellington at 1 pm after spending several hours
in meeetings/installing a program I'd just written/solving a technical
problem.

shrug

Flying domestic in New Zealand sounds enchanting then. I wouldn't want
to try that flying in the UK, or US. I've turned up at Check In in
some US airports with an hour to go and barely made the flight. I've
been refused boarding in the UK at 30 minutes.

It also depends on how close you are to a sane airport to use. There's
an airport 45 minutes away which would involve changes in places like
Schipol to get me anywhere sensible. Alternatively it's 2 hours to
Heathrow, so, while your proposal sounds nice, it only works in benign
circumstances.

Even from the City of London, Heathrow or Stanstead (where this sort of
thing could run from) is probably going to take the best part of an
hour from leaving work to being at Check In.

Dave

Dave O'Neill wrote:

Bruce Hoult wrote:

So, the person has been up since 6am(ish - probably earlier) Auckland
time?

Two hours before the flight? Why?

Because that's what all the airports I use demand. If you turn up 20
minutes before departure for an international flight in the US or
Europe you'd better have a damn expensive ticket and a lot of luck.

Even in these times off paranoid
security I wouldn't get up more than an hour before a flight here in
Wellington. That's 20 minutes to get ready, 20 minutes to drive across
town to the airport, check in 20 minutes before departure. All very
standard.

What happens to business jet passengers? Can you just walk out to the plane,
or are they trying to change that, too.
At the small northern airport of Iqaluit, there are two gates and the
planes are parked on the apron. Gate 1 is for larger planes to the south, and
has the usual checks and waits and finally a guard escorts you to the plane.
Gate 2, for local flights, is just a door you walk through to go and find your
own plane.
Early rocketplanes will be small and expensive, and possibly much like gate
2.

John Halpenny

If you are what you eat...
I'd rather be a pig than a vegetable.

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

Jet lag *is* timezone
synchronization, by definition; the added problems associated with poor
traveling conditions are secondary.

This week I flew from US east to west coast and back -- and in between
had a long talk with someone who's been on the Opportunity engineering
team, with its 39+ minute per day "shift shift," for almost 500 sols.

I will never complain about jet lag again. *Never*.

In article ,
Pete Lynn wrote:
At the end of the day jet lag is a luxury, this is not a reasonable
objection. Many people can and do adapt to sporadic sleeping patterns...

For a loose definition of "adapt". Typically, even if they *think*
they're handling it okay, they are not functioning nearly as well as they
would on a regular sleep schedule.

And while many people can more or less cope with a disrupted schedule,
many others -- especially older people -- can't.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Pete Lynn wrote:
At the end of the day jet lag is a luxury, this is not a
reasonable objection. Many people can and do
adapt to sporadic sleeping patterns...

For a loose definition of "adapt". Typically, even if
they *think* they're handling it okay, they are not
functioning nearly as well as they would on a regular
sleep schedule.

And while many people can more or less cope with a
disrupted schedule, many others -- especially older
people -- can't.

Yes, welcome to the twenty first century.

My father lives in New Zealand and has crossed the equator 130+ times.

Pete.