Matt Fallshaw’s 2012 presentation to minicamp on polyphasic said that it trades flexibility for time—you sleep less, but you must follow a rigid schedule. It’s possible that the military need too much flexibility to make it practical.
There are lots of situations where “it’s been 4 hours, I need to take a nap” would be a critical handicap, but there are others where it wouldn’t. Having only two shifts on a submarine (2 on 2 off) rather than three (6 on 12 off) seems like it would be useful.
I would have thought a submarine could sometimes hit a crisis that required all hands. But a stronger example might be drone pilots.
Possible, but that’s when you pop your caffeine gum (or your speed) and skip a nap. I know that submarines are space-limited, and so dropping the crew requirements might be helpful- I’m not sure what the limitations are for drone pilots. (The flexibility that means they don’t have crises might also mean there’s no real gain from having pilots that can be awake for more of the day.)
Matt Fallshaw’s 2012 presentation to minicamp on polyphasic said that it trades flexibility for time—you sleep less, but you must follow a rigid schedule. It’s possible that the military need too much flexibility to make it practical.
There are lots of situations where “it’s been 4 hours, I need to take a nap” would be a critical handicap, but there are others where it wouldn’t. Having only two shifts on a submarine (2 on 2 off) rather than three (6 on 12 off) seems like it would be useful.
I would have thought a submarine could sometimes hit a crisis that required all hands. But a stronger example might be drone pilots.
Possible, but that’s when you pop your caffeine gum (or your speed) and skip a nap. I know that submarines are space-limited, and so dropping the crew requirements might be helpful- I’m not sure what the limitations are for drone pilots. (The flexibility that means they don’t have crises might also mean there’s no real gain from having pilots that can be awake for more of the day.)