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Age 65 Retirement? No Way!

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There's plenty of gray hair among the pilots in their 50's and 40's.
Changing the age 60 rule in a profession that is designed around an age 60 retirement will only clog up the advancement and drive up costs of salaries.

Maybe we can make exceptions for those who can manage their money or personal life and have 4 ex-wives to support plus their two mansions, Caddie's and Lexus', all on borrowed money.

Flying is a good profession, but not good enough to want to do it past retirement age. RETIRE, get the heck out of the way and give someone else a chance.
 
TurboS7 said:
Thanks I will call them and tell them to vote for the amendment. I have no desire to stop flying at age 60, it is discrimination, if a pilot passes the medical they should have the right to fly. Besides the customer wants to see some gray hair in the left seat and not some young hotshot.:D

You're right, it is discrimination. The world is full of discrimation. Society is about the good of the many outweighting the good of the few. This is what entails age 60. Like it or not, the vast majority of pilots have a health deterioration as they near 60. Some drop dead at 45. Some pilots are still in their prime at 60. The only solution, without affecting safety, to changing the age 60 rule is to make the medical a REAL medical. I'm talking a complete overhaul of the flight physical system. Blood work, treadmill, catscans, the "finger", coughing--the whole 9 yards. An enormous expense every six months so that we may fly past 60. This is the only way to ensure we have healthy pilots flying the airplanes. The days of old doc whats-his-name, who will mail you your medical if you can't make it in, would have to come to ann end. I daresay this would take care of the attrition problem everyone is describing. Take a look at your carrier's seniority list sometime and see where all of the sick leaves of abscence are occuring.

Then we need to abolish the drinking age, class seniority no longer can go by age, minimum ages for certificates no more, minimum age for presidency--gone. If we aren't going to discriminate, we need to go all of the way. Speed limits, drinking while driving, operating under the influence are all forms of discrimination depending on your point of view

As somebody who has liberal thoughts on many issues, this society is getting rediculous with its WIIFM.
 
csmith said:
You're right, it is discrimination. The world is full of discrimation. Society is about the good of the many outweighting the good of the few.

I always marvel at how those who find themselves among the many are willing to espouse this viewpoint until they themselves are numbered among the few. At that point, their perspective remarkably seems to adjust itself.

This is the only way to ensure we have healthy pilots flying the airplanes.

It's just amazing the vast number of aged pilots who endagered the world by dying at the controls prior to the time that Ellwood Quesada established this unnecessary and stupid rule.

Oh well, It was new so it must have been progress.
 
Personally, I hope the government raises the retirement age. Maybe by then I'll finally have enough hours to meet the minimums to qualify :) !
 
Here's where I am in regard to this thread (apologies in advance to the posters who think I have to have some 121 time in order to be relevant...):

ATP at age 21. Like it or not, you're a legal adult for all purposes. How they picked 23 is a mystery.

Increase the medical requirement for the First Class from "alive" to "vital". I go to a doc who already subjects me to a very high standard, short of a stress test. (He's also a cardiologist) Since the electrocardiagram only shows the electrical waves of the heart's neural nodes as they polarize and de-polarize, the EKG is a poor determinant of heart health. A yearly stress test is a good idea after 60.

When "age 60" was established as a rule, 60 was truly "OLD". Now we have folks who are 70 and 75 who are healthier than those 60 year olds back when the reg was written. Every time I think about Al Haines, I think this rule is a bad idea. His long life of experience is what saved many people in that airplane. If the rule had been age 55, he would have been retired.

I like the idea of a healthy, experienced captain at the controls, as opposed to a guy who is there because he was born five years later. Sooner or later, this rule will fall. It may take another 15 years, but it will fall.
 
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Personally I don't have an axe to grind about whether they change the rule or not. What bugs me is the phony statements about why we have the rule and why we can''t change it.

The FAA says they can't change it because the have no evidence to prove that over 60 is safe. That's BS. They had no evidence to prove that over 60 was unsafe, when they made the rule in the first place and since they wont let you fly over 60, they will never have evidence to prove anything. Double speak

The truth is this rule had nothing to do with safety when it was established and it has nothing to do with safety now. Sixty was an arbitraty number picked by Quesada and the normal procedures for establishing rules were not followed.

Originally, the rule was opposed by ALPA. That didn''t work so ALPA lobbied for and got some special legislation passed and then changed "spots" and started supporting the rule.

Today, this rule is about money, not safety. If they would just say that and stop the safety BS I'd be happy. It's just amazing that a guy in perfect health is forced to stop flying at age 60, but another guy at age 55 can get a quadruple bypass, get his medical back and fly for 4 more years.

Typical government and union hypocrisy. Politics and major airline pension plans. By the way, don't buy any tickets on European airlines. Most of them have pilots over 60 so this must all be unsafe.
 
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Today, this rule is about money, not safety. If they would just say that and stop the safety BS I'd be happy. It's just amazing that a guy in perfect health is forced to stop flying at age 60, but another guy at age 55 can get a quadruple bypass, get his medical back and fly for 4 more years.


The really funny thing is the person "without an axe to grind", who digs the axe out of the shed anyway. Regardless, it IS about money, on both sides of the fence. It is about selfishness, on both sides of the fence. It is about greed, on both sides of the fence. Yes, there is a concern for sefety, but on only one side of the fence. Once again, on yet another issue, we see people claiming the high road for their own agenda.



CSmith

Doubts he will be on his death bed wishing he had worked more
 
Once again, on yet another issue, we see people claiming the high road for their own agenda.

I'll be up front about it. My agenda:

The ability to fly if medically capable.

It has already been decided that age discrimination is against the law. As always, some powerful people think that we have to obey the laws, and they don't. For another example, because it suits the whim of Big Government, the military and several agencies (FBI, Air Marshalls, etc), can set an arbitrary cutoff age for hiring.

You can't have it both ways.
 
I'll be up front about it. My agenda:
The ability to fly if medically capable.

You need to be a bit more specific. There is no restriction to fly if you are medically fit. You just can't do it under 121. If this is what you meant, then my previous post stands.
 

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