Where do pilots sleep on the plane?

The pilot rest area on the Qantas A380. Picture: Alison Godfrey / news.com.au

PILOTS need to sleep too. But where do they do it? And are the beds better than first class?

The photo above shows exactly where they rest on an A380. Look comfy?

Richard Woodward was the first Qantas pilot to fly the A380. He told news.com.au pilots get a maximun of four hours sleep at a time.

The pilot rest rooms on the A380 are located inside the first cockpit door adjacent to the business class lounge. On one side of the staircase up to the cockpit is a toilet, on the other side there are two sleep pods.

They're not flash like first class. But they do have a flat bed, a seat, an in-flight entertainment unit and their own air conditioning control.

"The bed is relatively wide. It's built for the 95th percentile adult male, some tall pilots do have problems though," Cap Woodward said.

"The mattress is made from foam and is three inches thick. Most pilots sleep with a blanket over and under them and then they strap themselves in with a seatbelt in case of turbulence."

"In the A380 the crew cabins are almost black when you turn the lights out. Each room has an individual air conditioning control so pilots can adjust the temperature. There's just enough space to stand up and get changed."

"It's reasonably quiet but I tend to sleep with ear plugs because you can hear the passengers in the business class lounge if they are chatting and laughing. You can hear the cabin crew shutting the cockpit door because it is bullet proof and takes quite a force to shut.

Pilots can also hear tone signals sent up to the aircraft from ground control along the flight path.

"That can be pretty annoying."

Most pilots develop a little routine for going to bed during the flight. They change out of their uniform into shorts and T-shirt or first class pyjamas.

"You need a routine to force your body to relax. You have to put work you have just done out of your mind."

It's kind of like completing a deadline and then going to the cubicle next door and going to sleep. But it's much more noisy than a normal office.

"The noise level at home would be around 45 decibels, a conversation would be 55-65 decibels on the A380 it would be 72-73 decibels."

To increase the restoration provided by in-flight sleep, the study authors recommended airlines "take measures to improve the quality, or increase the amount, of sleep obtained by pilots during flights."

Captain Woodward was involved with the study. He said pilots never get restorative sleep on flights. The sleep they do get is just enough to fight off fatigue.

"The main thing is because we fly such long distances and stay such a short time we never really get over the jet lag so the sleep in the bunk is definitely appreciated."