Originally Posted by
M40Shooter
My biggest fear is what the job would do to me physically and mentally. I am a young guy in pretty good shape...
I'll just skip to the spoiler alert.
Night freight will destroy you. Crossing multiple time zones on a repeating basis will destroy you.
You're young. Now. Tomorrow less so. Even less the next day.
The human body did not spend the last 100,000+ years evolving into a daytime machine with nighttime circadian rhythms for it to successfully transition into an effective long term nighttime machine.
And it only gets harder as you grow older. Stuff breaks. Stuff slows down. You don't rebound as quickly as you once did.
If memory serves I remember reading the statistic that an overwhelming amount of pilots kick the bucket within just two to three years of retirement from nighttime freight.
Nighttime hub turns are hard on the body. Long haul east-west is equally hard on the body. Perhaps even more so. You've got 25 years of this left, give or take.
Family ties are a hard thing to break. I totally understand that. But this ain't your daddy's UPS.
Sincerely,
A reformed Freight Dog (who still has trouble sleeping)