APAAD regrouping to challenge age 60

[Falconjet]

SOVT: Try to go on a flight where it doesn't come up in conversation.

Are you even a pilot?

FJ

 

[luckytohaveajob]

4 to 1 SWA pilots want an age 60 change?

SWA is the problem. And SWA can fix the problem.

So is this news article quoting Ike Eichelkraut correct that 80% of the SWA pilots want an age change?


"This particular rule is arbitrary, discriminatory, and it needlessly throws out experienced pilots," said Southwest Airline Pilots Association president Joseph "Ike" Eichelkraut.

While Frontier and United Airlines do not have a position on the rule, Southwest Airlines backs a change to raise the retirement age.

"We just feel that forcing our most experienced pilots to retire because of a rule that as far as we know is not based on any data or medical history is just unfair," said Southwest spokeswoman Paula Berg.
At Southwest Airlines, which doesn't have a pension plan, pilots are 4 to 1 in favor of changing the rule, according to Eichelkraut.

 

[Occam's Razor]

The rule is not in place because of medical data. It's there because of medical certainty and the problematic nature of self-certification.

 

[Bringupthebird]

You're not guilty of anything! Wanting to fly as long as you're "able" is rational. The issues I'm raising are the inherent problems with pushing the limit. There are two that just haven't been satisfactorily addressed by anyone on the Change Age 60 side. 1. What is the minimum standard? 2. How do we self-certify our self-certifier mechanism?



Try to separate the bandit from the chaff.

OR-
Logic is not your strong suit, is it? How can a limit of 60 be safer than any other number only because it's been that way "forever"? Your argument would favor doing away with all age limits and introducing a series of tests that would truly represent the physical and mental health of all medical applicants; a so-called "astronaut physical".

So save your breath defending the status quo and embrace the freedom that medical technology offers. And should you flunk the new physical standards (should any be determined as necessary) then it's been a good run and you've made way for the new generation whose cause you have so tirelessly championed.

 

[Bringupthebird]

The tide of change is at the ankles of the age discrimination advocates and rising, yet they fail to see the need to move.

Do we shed a tear for anybody that lost their job making "Whites Only" drinking fountain signs?

 

[luckytohaveajob]

Bringupthebird's is senile

OR-
Logic is not your strong suit, is it? How can a limit of 60 be safer than any other number only because it's been that way "forever"? Your argument would favor doing away with all age limits and introducing a series of tests that would truly represent the physical and mental health of all medical applicants; a so-called "astronaut physical".

So save your breath defending the status quo and embrace the freedom that medical technology offers. And should you flunk the new physical standards (should any be determined as necessary) then it's been a good run and you've made way for the new generation whose cause you have so tirelessly championed.

You quote O.R. about wanting a minimum medical standard and the inherit problem of the airman daily knowing he meets the standard. And then you put words in his statements saying he wants an "astronaut physical" and then in your next paragraph you want us all to embrace "the freedom that medical technology offers."

Contradictions from one sentence to another sure does not make you look logical.

The tide has not risen to want an age 60 change. The votes are in at ALPA and the MAJORITY are OPPOSED. And soon another vote will occur at SWAPA and now that everyone has recognized the threat you and your cohorts have tried to slip by us, the same results will occur at SWAPA as ALPA.

 

[luckytohaveajob]

Bringupthebird hasn't done much in aviation

Bringupthebird, how is it that a near 60 pilot such as yourself has such little flight time, 12,500? 12,500 indicates you must of started flying as a second career late in life and are selfishly wanting more because you were a late bloomer.

 

[Freight Dog]

O.R.... see what I'm saying?

Gotta say it again:

You're trying to reason with the same people who are suffering from the gray matter paradox.

 

[FlyBoeingJets]

Deleted

 

[Occam's Razor]

OR-
Logic is not your strong suit, is it?

Maybe my cognitive skills are slipping. Oh course, I self-certified today that they were "good to go!".

How can a limit of 60 be safer than any other number only because it's been that way "forever"?

That's not my argument. The logic is in the conservatism of the limit. 60 is just a number, and I accept that.

Given that aircraft are not plummeting to Earth because of cognitive lapses by pilots, the FAA is comfortable with not setting a different age limit, which would lead to the unanswerable paradoxes of empirical minimum standards and self-certification of cognitive ability. The arbitrary limit (60) just happens to be working, since it's conservative enough to preclude (according to safety data) 100% of the age-based cognitive lapses by Pt. 121 pilots.

Your argument would favor doing away with all age limits and introducing a series of tests that would truly represent the physical and mental health of all medical applicants; a so-called "astronaut physical".

That ain't my argument either. My argument is that the rule is a safety issue, and that changes to Age 60 would lead to two requirements that can't be done with any degree of certainty...namely Standards and Self-Certification.

Right now we have an arbitrary age that is grating to some pilots. They seek to change it without concern that it may lead to even more arbitrary numbers (the standards), and subjective tests to ascertain compliance with those numbers.

I don't that's good for our profession.

So save your breath defending the status quo and embrace the freedom that medical technology offers.

What sort of "medical technology" are you advocating? An implantable "cog-tester"? A tin-foil hat with Alpha-wave readouts downlinked to a white-coated technician? A preflight analogies test for all pilots?

The hypocrisy in many of the arguments I've heard from the pro-change crowd has been their desire to change one "arbitrary number" (their term), with another arbitrary number! The rest in that crowd advocate no age limit, but rather the ability to pass the physical and the checkride. When that argument is countered with the gray matter paradox...they start mumbling and staring at their feet.

And should you flunk the new physical standards (should any be determined as necessary) then it's been a good run and you've made way for the new generation whose cause you have so tirelessly championed.

If I were to flunk any new physical (or the current one for that matter), I wouldn't start screaming "discrimination!". I'd throw a retirement party at the O'Club with the theme, "Not All The Little Turtles Make It To The Sea", and take up my fallback career: porn star.