rather than considering the question from retirement plan and seniority only; it gives another light to this question
Q: What do you think of the mandatory age 60 retirement law?
H: I get that every time. Well, this is kind of not the way to answer
your question, but since I'm going to be sixty, this is great. This is
not United, this is not ALPA, this is not even a lot of my friends,
this is just me. My feeling. As we get older, we hate to admit it,
but things happen to us. We forget things, we react slowly to things.
A young pilot can react a lot faster than an older pilot. He may react
wrong. The senior pilot, the experienced pilot may wait a second and
do the right thing, so they kind of balance each other out. But we do
things as we get older that I'm not so sure our physicals can pick up.
A very dear friend of mine was having trouble remembering things. The
crews he was flying with accused him of early senility, or drinking on
layovers. When they finally diagnosed him, after about a year, they
found a tumor the size of an orange in the back of his brain. So all
this is going on, anytime this is happening in this year, he could have
had a very serious situation at a very critical time, and we could have
had problems. This doesn't just happen to 55 year olds, this happens
to 30 year olds, I know. Until we come up with a very definite way to
check the medical aspects of a person as he gets older, and until we
find a way to check the ability of a pilot--as you get older, you might
lose some of your abilities, rather than gain some. And you can also
fake it. Any pilot, on any given day, can pass a a checkride. And the
best pilot in the world in a given day can flunk a checkride. When you
get into that situation, you get into an extended program of trying to
test his competency. SO until we have a better way to test the
competency, and a better way to test the mental and physical aspects of
an individual, I think we need an age to stop. I think that's the best
way to do it, just pick an age. We're going to hurt some people. I
just met the other day, or a couple of months ago, a guy down in CA,
he's 82 years old, he just decided it was time to retire as a teacher
of acrobatic flying. And he was sharp as a tack. He didn't wear
glasses, could hear, didn't wear a hearing aid, and everything else.
But he's a freak of nature [laughter]. Well, he's like Nolan Ryan.
Nolan Ryan, if you're a baseball fan, is a freak of nature. Nobody 42
years old should be able to throw as hard as he does, and last as long
as he does, and most pitchers don't. Yeager is another one. Most his
age don't have the eyesight Yeager has, and the hearing Yeager has, and
all this sort of thing. But they're exceptions to the rule. The rule
is, somewhere along the line you should stop. Now, I don't care if
it's sixty. Right after I retire, they can make it 65, it's ok with
me. But somewhere along the line, we have to have a place to stop. If
they can come up with good medicals, and good things, then go ahead.
But I think the cost, and everything else--we're all looking at the
bottom line, and it's just not worth it. Anybody else?
medicals
