PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Age 70 for international pilots?
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Old 26th Oct 2011, 18:24
  #651 (permalink)  
Tourist
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
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I think of it as this.

At the start of your career you have all the hand-eye coordination and none of the wisdom.
Not very safe, but hopefully the skills and good captains will see you through till wisdom develops.
In military terms we call this person a "first Tourist"

Somewhere in the middle, the graphs of Skill against age and Wisdom against age cross over, and that is probably as good as you are going to get.

At the end of your career you have none of the hand-eye coordination and all of the wisdom, again not very safe.
I call this a "last Tourist"

The difference is that there is no way of avoiding the early part of a career, and in an airliner there is somebody senior to you to catch your mistakes.
The later part is avoidable by the simple expedient of setting an age limit designed to catch the exponential curve of skill loss/risk of incapacitation with age. The only discussion here is "how late is too late?"

Anybody on here that is trying to suggest that the risk of keeling over in the cockpit is not starting to ramp up as you pass 50 is living in denial. Whether the wisdom they bring is worth the extra risk is the important question.
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