O' DARK 30

Lately with all the pro team charters I have been flying, the consensus has been among the brethren that they may as well paint our exteriors brown,or purple for all the back of the clock flying this entails. I personally don't mind the extreme hours (midnite-6AM) ,known collectively as O'dark 30, when I was but a child in cockpit time, this was my learning arena, sheparding a freightdog DC-3 ,through whatever weather God provided,over a dark,and sleeping planet. Night flight, under the stars and moon, is a quiet , contemplative exercise, the red lit cockpit a chapel. In the back my pax doze, the lighting dimmed, there is little conversation up front, no one wants to break the reverie, the stars outside are bright, and seemingly close enough to touch,the earth is so far away,that it seems at times we are in low orbit, transiting the planet,rather than just heading for DTW, or EWR. 2 Nights ago we did a quickie BOS-PHL, only climbed up to 26,000, only a 47 minute sprint between the 2 cities. We popped out of a cloud layer over Long Island, one second it is all grey,and bumpy, the next clear and a million, Montauk passing under my left wing, and the whole island,North Fork,South Fork, Suffolk,Nassau,Queens, and Kings, clearly illuminated, a sodium vapor,and neon frenzy,all the way to NYC central,Manhattan,. Lovely, we coast in over the Jersey shore hard by AC, and we can see Philly glittering in the distance.In less than 20 minutes we will be touching down,but in that moment, that contrast of black star spangled sky,coal black Atlantic, and the neon spangled tangle of Jersey,NY ,and her environs,the stars above,the sleeping towns below, in that moment, we see all the beauty, all the mystery inherent , in night flight. Back to work boys,talk to you later.