Night Freight

[KeroseneSnorter]

Im just trying to get an insight into night flying so that I CAN see if its managable for me.

Um, it is just like day flying, except you do not need sunglasses.

12 to 14 hours a day for an airline.....or 12 to 14 hours a night for a freighter.

Buy some thick dark drapes for the bedroom window and other than looking all pasty white like Count Dracula after a couple of years it is about the same. Done both, only really becomes a factor if you have kids. At least with a freighter in the check hauling market you are home every ni....er....I mean day. More than you can say for every other flying job out there.

 

[labbats]

Sun: Up all day (off), bed around 2330 or so.
Mon: Wake up at 1000, up all day (on call). Get paged at 1900 for a trip.
Tue: Return from trip at 0800. Sleep from 1000 until 2000, then sit around awaiting the pager to go off.
Wed: Finally go back to sleep at 0200. Get paged out for a trip at 0500. Gone until 1900. Bed at 2300.
Thu: Back on call at 0600. Wake up at 0930. Sit around all day waiting to go out. Nothing happening apparently, so try to go to sleep at 2200. Pager goes off at 2230. Out all night.
Fri: Return at 1300 looking like a zombie. Bed at 1400. Wake at 2200.
Sat: Back on call at 0000. Try to go back to sleep at 0200. On call until around 1700 on Saturday, so can't get more than 20 minutes from airport.
Sun: Back on call at either 2100 or midnight, depending on the week.

If the above schedule doesn't look too appealing to you, don't fly on-demand freight, go somewhere with scheduled runs. Not trying to be discouraging, but I think the above schedule is pretty typical of on-demand flying.

If the above schedule does appeal to you, might I suggest you run, not walk, to the nearest head shrinker.

There's too many variables to pin down whether or not you'd like night freight. Try it and see, it's the best experience you can get. But it's not easy.

 

[zuka]

One thing I like about night freight is you never need to use an alarm clock. You can sleep as long as you want because by the time you wake up naturally it's late afternoon and you don't fly until evening. Although sometimes I would use alarm clock on layover... I would sleep from 3:00am - 4:00am and would need an alarm clock in case i doze off. But being able to wake up whenever you want is great... it's like you go flying instead of going to bed.

 

[FN FAL]

Why does it have to be night freight? I'm off the clock by 8:30 pm usually and I only fly mon/wed/fri...no pager, no cell phone, no calls at home, no standby, no ad-hocs.

As for holidays, any holiday that falls on a friday or monday, turns my weekend into a 4 day weekend...and these are paid holidays on top of salary.

There are some good freight jobs out there, you just have to understand that the ones that time builders jump on are not going to have the best work conditions, schedules, pay, mx or aircraft.

I coun't my blessings that I chose this job over the other two that offered to me at the time; one was a Citation 560XL 135/91 FO position and the other was a 135 Shorts CA position.

 

[Big Duke Six]

I was fortunate and got hooked up with a scheduled 135 freight operator. WE also did a small amount of on-demand, but it didn't throw us off our regualr schedules very often. If you aren't afraid to work it is a great job!


We kept to our own routes for the most part, but towards the end of my 2.5 years there I was doing a fair amount of filling in for vacations, sicks etc. That was a little more challenging flying-wise, but also QOL went down. As others have said, bouncing around the countryside living out of your flightbag and a suitcase kind of sucks. You have to eat out more (we had apartments (with cable) and a vehicle at each outstation, and it really became "home" since you spent more time there than you did next to your wife) as opposed to being able to cook your meals. Having your own route also means you get your timing down to the gnats arse, ie you always knew to the minute when you had to actually leave the apartment to meet the truck at the plane etc. Not that I ever cut it that close...

We also had our "own" airplanes on our routes for the most part, which meant safety went up due to greater familiarity with the aircraft. Out of all the Metros we had, every cockpit was different. Not just things in different places, which was bad, but you never knew what different types of equipment you'd get if your regular bird was in for MX or whatever. Some had panel-mounted GPS, some didn't. If it had one, you may or may not have ever used one like it in the past. I flew one once for the first time on a DARK night. To my chagrin, it had TWO transponders with a small unmarked switch to select one or the other. Of course, the switch was set to use the xpndr that was buried way UNDER the panel so I didn't even know it was there, etc etc etc.

I loved the job though, and gained MUCH valuable experience. I'd recommend it highly!!