Dozing off

October 10, 2006

Have you heard of the drones?

The drone is the low hum of a C-130’s props churning the air. It's deep and soothing.

And it gets me every time.

There is something about a C-130 that lulls me into a deep sleep that is impossible to fight. I'm not alone on this one. Anyone who spends extended amounts of time in these birds have battled the drones.

It's brutal.

I'm convinced that you could get 12 hours of sleep before you fly and the drone of the props and bounce of the plane would still knock you out cold.

I sit on the bench seat at the back of the flight deck and listen to the crew chatter on the headset. And, for the first few hours, the drones don't touch me. Then, like a baby in a swaying bassinet, I drop out of consciousness.

You can feel it coming.

Slowly, you realize you've lost track of the conversation buzzing in your ears. Seriously, you don't even hear your name being said when the drones are dragging you down.

I shift all my energy to keeping my eyes open. But the drones make your eyelids feel like they have 500-pound weights hanging from the eyelashes.

There's no fighting it. But oh, I try.

Here's the strangest side-effect of my drone sleepiness: I actually dream that my eyes are open. Nope. Not so much.

Every time I dream that I'm awake.

The harsh reality comes when my head bobbles to the side. The other night I woke up as I tumbled off my seat. It was around 4 a.m. Yeah, that was embarrassing.

How do these crews do it? How do they battle the drones?

Posted by editor at October 10, 2006 01:41 PM