The TravelBuzz board seems to be the most appropriate spot for my crazy question.

I live in a somewhat rural area of North Carolina. Every night a what sounds-to-be relatively small prop plane flies over my house at almost exactly 3 a.m. It's fairly low because I guess the engine noise wakes me. It might be in the range of a few minutes before 3 until a few minutes after, but it's just as regular as can be. I glance at the clock and sure enough, it's the 3 a.m. plane! I also think it's "trained" my body to wake at this time, because I'll often wake by myself about 5-10 minutes before 3 a.m., and find that's a good time to get up and use the restroom. Without fail, the plane is overhead in no time.

What is the plane doing? I understand commerical travel and am in tune with all the early morning take-offs at RDU, which start about 6 a.m. Who is flying at 3 a.m. with such regularity? Why do people fly in the middle of the night? Is someone commuting to someplace every day? Are they delivering something? Is it less expensive to take flying lessons at night?

Hope someone can settle my curiousity!

It may be airmail...

could be a plane being ferried in. DCA has a lot of arrivals between 2300 and 0100. i presume they are lining up for 0600 and 0700 flights.

That was my thought... FedEx.... or something like that.

I'm absolutely positive it's not a jet. I hear the jets out of RDU and even smaller jets landing at our local airport (Chapel Hill NC) and I know what they sound like. This is clearly a prop plane. And, it's flying pretty low.

Keep the ideas coming....this has been going on for about a year.

Does fedex fly props?

You mention that it is flying low . . . If possible the most useful thing to do would be if you can spot the registration number on the plane. I do understand that this may involve standing out in your yard at 0245 with a pair of binoculars, but given the registration number, the ownership and flight info can be discovered

I can't spot anything on plane because it's around 3 a.m. in morning! And, I live in the woods!

Please keep thinking and giving ideas.

Cessna Caravans.

There are tons of reason why there might be a 3 am departure.
First off....do you live near an airport?
It could be an aerial survey, could be a freighter, could be training.

What do you define low as. The general public has huge problems determing the real altitude of aircraft.

FedEx doesn't directly fly prop aircraft but they do employee sub-contractors that do.

As far as seeing the N number at night.....good luck. Its not like that number is lit up.

Fokker 50's. I have followed them in at night in more than one airport.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SKQ301

http://discussions.flightaware.com/v...9d68c419df8ea5

The Fedex Air Fleet includes a dozen active ATRs (42s and 72s).

Returning from MBJ a couple weeks ago we saw two FedEx painted prop planes on the tarmac...but haven't seen any domesticly.

How do you think that FedEx, DHL, UPS, etc. can pick up a package at 5pm and deliver it across the country at 10am the next morning? Those packages, and the trucks and airplanes which carry them, stay busy all night long.

The prop airplanes are "feeders" which carry the packages between the smaller cities and the somewhat larger cities which have jet service.

We've got a few Cessna 208's flying around the Pacific NW operated by Empire Airlines contracted out by Fed Ex Express, and they are indeed painted in Fed Ex livery...