It’s pure human nature to rationalize one’s own decisions. When I was in military and moved a bunch, when I moved to new area and asked anyone about a church/school and almost always their church/school was better than any others and the ones down the street were all messed up.

Not sure why you think you have to work until 65. You are only 20 years from maxing out your pension. At that point, you can retire (at 54!!!), defer your pension until age 60, and live off of savings and your 401k until the pension kicks in. Sounds awful. :rolleyes:

Where do you find those statistics?

Its based on an OLD statistic/study. One from when cargo TRULY was all night flying. Vs the shift that happened 20+ years ago where a huge portion is day time flying.

People now just like to spout it off to pretend like they know more than everyone else/justify where their choice was better, etc.

I know junior guys at both purple/brown that can hold mostly day, PM, or non circadian rhythm swap schedules.

Our days at the regionals could be more punishing than what they fly.

Yeah it’s so crazy, I’ve never met a cargo pilot that flies at night. Y’all must park all the jets at 22:00 local

Cargo flying, like pax flying, is only hard on your health if you do it a lot. Smart money says getting paid to not fly is better for your health.:cool:

EXACTLY.

And as an SLF pilot, we never fly nights either.

At my SLF my shop, ALL flying is day time. No circadian swaps or redeyes.

Hell, even our king China/India/SA stuff ALL takes place in the day time with rest periods timed to our domicile/acclimated time.

OP asked for comparisons…

Yes sir! The few days of flying, the better. Shorter legs, lower altitudes also help.

My guess would be that international night flying in theater is the healthiest cargo option (CGN, or intra asia). You’re on body clock, short legs, low block, and low radiation. There are usually better food options, you have more time to eat, and you often have a high quality gym to yourself. You can definitely screw it up with brats and Kölsch but thats a personal choice.

Having done most types of flying in the 121 world I would say the it comes down to one and done type widebody pax flying and intra theater cargo flying. Of the two I prefer the cargo option.

This is just my personal opinion. I don’t have statistics like rickair777 says he does.

You’ll hear some people describing their ACMI experiences as an indicator of life at Purple/Brown and the reason for choosing pax. That is a mistake. It is very different. We do fly at night domestically. However, between the domestic day time and the international night time flying there are plenty of palatable options. You used to be able to bid those relatively quickly. Things have slowed down now.

That being said, with the rapid movement at legacies and the slowing pace of the aforementioned two I’d advise most aspirants to choose a legacy right now and stick with it. I would not leave a top two cargo slot unless I had little to no time invested and the reasons for leaving were overwhelming.