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Age 70 for international pilots?

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Age 70 for international pilots?

Old 25th Aug 2010, 14:58
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Re: Lambourne's attitude

Can a computer wizard please trace this guys real name because his employer really needs to be made aware of the sort of dangerous CRM liability they are employing. Moderator, I think it is your duty to do so in the interests of flight safety. I get the feeling he is wishing for a serious incident to happen so he can point a a very grubby finger.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 15:05
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P51Guy, can you point me to the exact source for your information regarding the WAL DC10 crew?
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 15:44
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Hawker750

No, that's not the way to go. Your age as mentioned makes me wonder if you are an advocate of raising the age to 70.

Maybe lamb... way of putting his point of view across has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way; but do stop and ponder whether your reflexes (mentally,physically) are the same as when you were, let's say in your 30's.

Not all human beings are the same when they cross 60. Some have maintained themselves well and can give a person half their age a run for their money. However, a large percentage of 60+ have a number of physical and mental ailments which make them, if not dangerous at least unfit in today's all glass cockpits.

In the past there were not too many Cat II and Cat III landings being made. Today we regularly fly into such airfields. And remember we expect the pilots to safely get us on the ground at 2 am in the morn.

So be honest and say that you will be comfortable sending your family in the middle of the night in weather with a crew which comprises of 60+ pilots. In previous posts many have talked about the 60+ passing the medical and simulators not exactly on merit. And a Cat II done in the simulator at 10 am when you have a had a comfortable sleep the night before, is quite different from one done at 2 am in the real thing.

Don't shoot the messenger.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 16:05
  #324 (permalink)  
 
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I noticed that not ONE of you advocating for an increase to 70 has responded to the G-3 debacle lambourne posted. Hit a little too close to home did it?
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 16:10
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SS41 what are you talking about?

A cat II or III is the easy part of the sim at any time of the day.

When did you last do a for real, honest to goodness cat IIIB with an RVR at 75m?

I think I have completed around three genuine LVO’s in 21 years of airline flying based in the UK and operating globally. Even then, only one was a genuine 75m. The rest were because it was below cat I minima by a couple of hundred meters. It’s hardly steely eyed heroic stuff of legend.

Modern flight decks with all the situational awareness aids and multiple redundancies built into the aircraft are exactly where older pilots need to be.

A single crew ex war bird with over 1500 horses up front...now that’s a different matter.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 16:54
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Sharpshooter
Always best to aim before you shoot, but I guess you will learn that with a bit of age amd maturity. If you read my post 16:53 yesterday I completely agreed with lambourne's point.70 is too old, and between you and me 65 is pushing it in some cases. I even cited the G111 crash as proof.
It is not lambourne's flying ability that is being questioned, it is his ability to operate as part of a crew safely in an enviroment that he is not happy with. I really feel he is better of flying a single crew aircraft for a while until he grows up.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 17:11
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spooky2, I was googling Western 2605 and dozens of sites showed up, one mentioning the chief talking to each of them about their differences. I can't recall which one showed the conflict. It took a while just to find that. I never could find a final report. MEX never released the tower tapes but the cvr indicated they were cleared to the wrong runway. Pretty typical of Mexico.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 17:22
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hawker 750:

"It is not lambourne's flying ability that is being questioned......."

Can you give us complete reassurance from personal knowledge that this is indeed the case?

I still think he is where he is because he failed to cut the mustard somewhere along the line and that is why he is where he is.

Very bitter and twisted and a danger to aviation.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 17:32
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JW411
Quote: Very bitter and twisted and a danger to aviation.

Perhaps I should have said that there is no evidence of a lack of flying ability but plenty of evidence that he is a danger in a multi crew enviroment. I think we agree with one another.
Perhaps he is a failed command course type; who knows, unless he is brave enough to reveal himself
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 17:39
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If his daddy is a pilot going through what he says he is maybe he is at the teenage maturity level he portrays. No one knows if he even has a pilots license. His daddy might have told him his troubles and the son knows enough to sound like an airline pilot. I have never talked to an airline pilot this immature. Close, but not this bad.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 17:43
  #331 (permalink)  
 
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Wal Dc10

Spooky

Pls try:
Landings: Reviews: The Black Box - The Anatomy of a Crash

Regards
JCM
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 19:24
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I've seen plenty in aviation. And when I see something that could grow into a problem, I am morally obligated to speak up. I wrote one letter to appropriate people some three weeks before a crash , that could have been prevented. happened. My words then would have prevented the crash, but were not heeded.

I sense something in the realm of CRM and lambourne ...and I must speak up. I sense that lambourne would not speak up if something was wrong, to show how addled his gummer captain is. The trouble is some innocent might die.

so, I've spoken up. I've used the Western deal as an example.

no matter which captain I have served, no matter how much I didn't like them, I would speak up if they were going to screw up badly.

Last edited by protectthehornet; 25th Aug 2010 at 19:42.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 19:34
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I noticed that not ONE of you advocating for an increase to 70 has responded to the G-3 debacle lambourne posted.
That is because, it was not a 14CFR121 flight, nor a 14CFR135 flight, but...a ferry flight conducted under 14CFR91 (by a 14CFR135 operator).
No bearing whatsoever to the discussion, here, regarding scheduled airline transport ops.

I expect you fail to notice the difference, poina....no surprise.

And, just for your very limited knowledge, poina, 14CFR135 and 14CFR91 ops are conducted on a regular basis, by Captains seventy years of age, or older, in Gulfstream aircraft.
Just last week I met one, 73 he is, and still sharp as a tack.
The co-pilot seemed sharp as well, about age 35, or so.

I would suggest that you do not comment on what you don't know about, personally.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 20:05
  #334 (permalink)  
 
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If the captain pissed me off I always got even. If it was embarrasing I let him do it, if it was a safety issue I didn't. We were holding for SJC one day and approaching minimum fuel with reserve to alternate with SJC right at minimums. Our alternate was down so it took a lot of coaxing to get him to divert to SMF. All the SFO area airports were below minimums and SMF was decreasing. I said if SJC closes and we miss everybody is going to SMF and we don't have any fuel to hold. I said Lets go now. He did and we had a ton of airliners landing behind us. SJC went below minimums when we could have done the approach. Asshole captains need to be punished but do not compromise safety.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 21:03
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So be honest and say that you will be comfortable sending your family in the middle of the night in weather with a crew which comprises of 60+ pilots.
Yes, I'd be comfortable. No hesitation at all.

Flying a large transport-category aircraft is not the same as a dogfight. I value experience and knowledge more than quick reflexes.

Indeed, while younger people have faster reflexes, they also need faster reflexes. It's not unreasonable to say that anyone who needs fast reflexes to get out of a tight situation probably lacked the experience necessary to avoid that situation in the first place.

I recall a motorcycle instructor once who told me not to bother putting my hand over the brake lever while passing through an intersection. He pointed out that, if I'm so uncertain of the situation that I need to be poised to hit the brakes, I'm already in a dangerous situation that I should have avoided in the first place. Upon reflection, I had to agree with him. The safe motorcyclist/pilot does not depend upon reflexes to help him compensate for his mistakes and oversights—he simply avoids mistakes and oversights to begin with. Prevention is better than cure.

There is evidence to indicate that many airline passengers prefer that the captain have a bit of gray hair. Apparently they recognized that flying an airliner is not physically demanding so much as it is intellectually demanding. There are lots of accidents that never occur because an experienced pilot was fully aware of the situation and avoided ever getting into circumstances that would allow an accident to occur. At the same time, there are lots of dead pilots who tried to compensate for their lack of situational awareness with fast reflexes, and it didn't work.

Oh, and I'm way under 60 years of age, so it's not a matter of personal bias.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 21:27
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I'd like offer the example of a crew with a combined age of 54 the Pinnacle FL410 debacle. Captain age 31 and F/O age 23.

Personally, I'd rather be in the back with a couple of 65 year olds up front. Even a couple of 70 year olds.

I'd like to call everyone's attention to the on-going study on aging pilots are Stanford. It would seem that the top pilots keep on trucking, while the bottom pilots really lose their ability.

However, when I turned 70, I decided I would no longer carry anyone in the airplane unless the right seater could land.

The goldfish
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 21:28
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P51 & Costamaia I agree that the crew was the major contributor to this accident. I have flown with all three of the cockpit crew and in particular my experience with Capt. Gilbert extends through the DC6B, L188 and the B707/720. The other two crew members had flown with me while I was flying Capt. I have also flown with this FA after the accident and it was obvious that it had taken it's toll on the young man. None of this makes me qualified to quantify the cause of the accident other than to say the the FA's imagination overflows in the posting, The Anatomy of a Crash. In addition I know all of the pilots who investigated accident. There is no solid evidence that Capt. Gilbert has created an "atmosphere of henious hostility" on the flight deck and thus the crash ensued. Also just for the record Capt. Gilbert was not a Safety Pilot. I'm not aware of any such position at Western at the time, or since.

As for the F/O being up for 40 hours? If so he should have called in sick. He was a commuter from Seattle so maybe that affected this judgement call just as another recent accident had.

Fatigue was the number one factor in this accident. Errors were made by all crewmembers that would have been caught had they not been awake so long. No excuses for that, but it's the truth in this case. The Captain had been in and out of MEX for years and suspect his familarity with the operations caused him to let his guard down just when in fact there should have been red flags for everyone that morning. They didn't land on the wrong runway. They didn't even land on the runway period as the MLG was off the side in the dirt.

One interesting about Charlie Gilbert is that he learned to fly on the GI Bill after having served in the Marine Corps in Guadalcanal. He took a leave form Western and flew Captain at Japan Airlines. I always wondered how that worked out? Hardly sounds like a guy with a temper problem.

Last edited by Spooky 2; 25th Aug 2010 at 22:25.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 21:30
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Finally we have a pilot who respects grey haired old guys. Thank you. I learned a lot from those guys before I became one. Hated to see them leave at 60 when I was flying. I didn't want them to get out of my way like so many do now to advance. I was happy to wait my turn. Your turn will come so calm down.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 22:02
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... not the guy punching the buttons in the busy TMA
What are you doing heads' down punching buttons in a busy TMA ?

Doesn't anyone FLY the aeroplane anymore ?

Teaching young whizz kids to handle the 747, a colleague remarked that the wheel had come full circle - did I remember those 'old' W.W. II Captains of our youth, some couldn't fly an Instrument Approach to save their lives, literally, but pop out of cloud too high, too fast, not configured, not lined up, and say " the airfields over there, Sir " ( never forget the Sir ! ) and they would straighten up and fly an immaculate visual approach and landing -even with a four engined tail-dragger ! whereas the computer trained youths that we were now training could hand-fly an instrument approach down to minima better than we ever could, or probably ever would ( maybe ! ) but then they had to land a real aircraft on the real earth. Some had major problems.

O.K. - things have moved on and you probably execute more auto-lands than I could shake a stick at, but one dark, dirty night ................... and I know which age group I'd rather be sitting back in row 86Z with now when that occurs.

Flying experience cannot be taught - handling computer controlled machinery can.
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Old 25th Aug 2010, 23:28
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joke to make lambourne feel better

poor lambourne needs a joke to cheer him up.

There was an old man sitting in the park. He had a small alpa pin on his shirt. He was crying and crying.

A police officer (of unknown age) came up to him and said: Old man, what's wrong.?

I just married a beautiful 25 year old flight attendant (female), every night she cooks a wonderful gourmet healthful meal, we enjoy a night of passion and wake up completely wrapped up in each other. We love each other very much. She looks like Raquel Welch.

So, what's the problem old man?

Old Man: I forgot where I live.

But I just brough a 757 in on one engine, with a gear problem, landing on the short runway at KDCA, at night, and held short of runway 1. And we were ahead of schedule.
And under fuel burn.
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