By Erik Holmes - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Apr 21, 2008 6:42:43 EDT
Unmanned aerial vehicle operators are more likely than other aircrews to suffer from chronic fatigue, emotional exhaustion, burnout and impaired domestic relationships, according to a new study by the Naval Postgraduate School.
… Surprisingly, changing to a monthly rather than weekly shift system that was intended to allow operators to adjust to their schedules did not decrease the level of fatigue.
This finding led the authors to conclude that manpower shortages, rather than any particular shift system, are to blame. Modeling of the effects of changing to different shift systems predicted no improvement, the study found.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/04/airforce_uav_fatigue_041808w/
