You aren't kidding. We just aren't engineered to be up at night. Fatigue is very real, both acute as well as chronic. I can attest to that as I work graves pretty much exclusively. For me, added to the night time, there is the fatigue generated from the strain of looking through NVGs the whole time, in a fatigue producing aircraft like a helicopter (noise/vibe), flying low level and in difficult terrain and conditions/situations. I can feel myself mentally worn out from the middle of the mission on, especially when nothing is really going on. And that's regardless of how much sleep I got during the day or before the shift. The return leg of the flight, when I can climb to altitude and raise the NVGs, the sheer relief felt from the hours of constant eye strain, and the added fatigue that produces, is noticably appparent. Have had numerous missions where the other crewmember and I just try to talk about anything or sometimes try to find something to do, just to keep each other awake.
In my agency, we've already had one takeoff accident at KNZY about 6 years ago of a fixed wing, with chronic fatigue of the 3-person crew as a primary causal factor, what with the things they missed during taxi out, lineup, and takeoff; they were so fatigued during the second launch of the grave shift, they were literally zombies operating on a "mental autopilot" of sorts, going through the rote motions of the checklists, but missing huge things happening around them. Was very interesting, enlightening, and sobering, all at the same time, as the onion of that accident was peeled back, and the findings brought to light.
Back in my old airframe, the F-117, fatigue....along with spatial disorientation.....was the primary killer there too, suspected as causal factors in 3 fatal accidents. All night, all back side of the clock, which is where we primarily flew operationally.
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