I'd agree with the above advantages.

The downside is trying to sleep during the day. Some people have no problem. Heck, some people get three hours during the sort in a lounge chair. Others can't sleep worth a darn and fall asleep in the plane. I'm kinda in between. I seem to function just fine on the night side with four or five hours of sleep during the day. While I say I function okay, that doesn't mean I'm gung ho and not feeling somewhat tired all the time. I do find that each night of work and each day I sleep, in a row, the better I sleep during the day and the less tired I am.

The worst is switching back and forth. That should be illegal. I have a pairing coming up where I do IAH-RFD-IAH, hit the hotel around 5am. Do that four nights in a row. Then, end up in OAK. 24 hours off and a 5am show to RFD. With nothing more than a 24 hour break, I'll be showing close to when I've been going to bed all week. That's one of those things some computer program came up as efficient but doesn't work well in real life.

 

Yes. The trick for me is to do as little of it as possible. For me flying nights does not get easier the more I do it. I much prefer flying during the day, but thats not the gig I signed up for.

As other have mentioned some night schedules are far superior to others. When you start doing the circadian rhythm flip flops every few days it gets real tough.

At UPS, with a bit of bidding horsepower you can avoid many of the nasty night trips. However the daytime lines tend to have less days off and are not as clean as the week on week off night schedules.

It affects different people in different ways. Some folks can adapt rather well while others cannot, and you really dont know what catagory you will be in until you do a bit of night flying.

 

You are correct, Sir!

Night flying- harder on the body but easier to drive to work, get airborne, enroute, approach and landing, and (unless late) get to the hotel/house and get to bed!

Day Flying- The opposite of the above comment!

 

Ya, but the nice thing about that one is that you get to "recover" in OAK to get back to days instead of wasting a day at home recovering. At least that's the way I look at it.

To answer the original question.....not really.

 

yea, It sucks. But you do get used to feeling like you have a hangover everyday.

 

Mike, Simple answer; no.
I love looking at the stars out over the North Pacific on a moonless night.
I can still remember seeing a "moon rise" over the Rockies about 20 years ago. It was beautiful.
fbh

 

Front row seat for the lunar eclipse the other night too.

 

that must have been a sight!
fbh

 

Nope, love it.

 

Front row seats for Comets Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp at FL390 was mind blowing as well.