I think LHR Rain must just enjoy winding people up with his obstinate defence of the indefensible; it gets him noticed, poor thing!
Meanwhile, back here on Planet Earth, I find myself faced with 'end of contract' at age 58, which is fair enough. I am not asking some court to suddenly overturn what I signed up to many moons ago.
On the other hand, I really would prefer some sort of level playing field so that I could get out there and peddle my wrinkly, grey-haired, semi-hateful, old self in the market place, hoping to sell my 15,000 hours of experience and proven work record to someone else who might otherwise go for one of these junior geniuses with a Bachelor of Arts in Underwater Basket-weaving, a frozen ATPL and 932 hours, including 143 in a Cessna Citation II.
I mean, if you had some airplane that you absolutely, positively wanted to see get to its destination, what would you rather count on, old age and cunning, or youth and quick reflexes? That argument was settled long ago!
Times have changed in terms of the market for pilots, so that I wish the authorities would just knock off this nonsense of age discrimination and take passing a Class I medical as evidence that some old crock of 58-65 is not going to slump over the controls 'just like that!' It made sense back when we had a lot more pilots than seats, but not in today's market.
I wonder if people like LHR Rain have some sneaking fear that grandfathers could get their jobs absent this artificial restriction in the marketplace?
Or perhaps this fellow lost his girlfriend to some old guy once when she jumped out of his clapped-out Ford Sierra at a set of traffic lights, into a BMW M3 never to be seen again. 'Shazza, come back! All is forgiven!' Get over it, fellah! Order in a take-away pizza and go back to playing 'Grand Theft Auto.'