I remain as perplexed now as I was 28 years ago every time a lucid, healthy, wise and experienced fellow airman turns into a pumpkin on the stroke of midnight heralding his/her 60th birthday.
Your editorial comment "Rights and Duties" (Flight International, 24-30 September) was long on rhetoric, nearly void of scholarly supporting evidence and unworthy of publication in so esteemed a medium. Recent challenge to the age 60 "no fly" statute on the basis that it was illegally enacted is soon to be tested.
Notwithstanding the outcome of this effort, the traditional arguments for its abolishment remain hostage to selfish expediency demanded nowhere else in industry. To reasonably support the status quo, one must assume that in 1959 the first US FAA administrator had at his disposal validated scientific data of at least the quality now available on which to base his decision. He did not. If laws exist to establish parameters for the orderly working of a society, they ought to be revisited from time to time and if necessary struck down and replaced if found to be tyrannical, irrelevant or foolish.
I submit that the current law satisfies all three criteria. Consequent on exhaustive research, the Joint Aviation Authorities have accepted 65 to be the new limiting age. Overwhelmingly, this position is supported by evidence garnered from a broad cross section of the medical community that have no apparent axe to grind. Conversely, the Airline Pilots Association clings to its endorsement of the law ostensibly in the interest of safety, citing inadequate empirical evidence to support a change.
The structure of pension plans and the eagerness of the young for the old to vacate the left seat wouldn't have anything to do with such motivation, would it?
Winston ReynoldsPembroke Pines, Florida, USA
Source: Flight International
