Total crap, 100% wrong! When I got my licence the retirement age was
65, OK? Simple facts seem to elude you. I haven't bothered to read the rest of your post as it is probably all crap too. It has occurred to me that you, lambourne, are just too young to even be discussing this subject?
For this exercise I am speaking of the rules in the United States. There is not one person currently flying to 65 here that was not hired when the Age was 60. So I am not too YOUNG to discuss this subject. You are just too ill informed and unable to notice the location from which I post.
Fangio, not sure how you can make the correlation of not being the Flight Deck steward to the over 60 pilot as being unsafe. However, I do believe CRM is a two way street. Much like the over 60 Captain that sat down at the flight planning table recently. Only looked at the landing fuel and said, "I am adding 20,000#" The three other F/O's looked surprised as we had well over 2+ hours of fuel planned on arrival. Before I could ask the obvious question someone said, "Why?". His CRM Response;"Because I can". OK, thanks for letting us in on the deep secret you have in flight planning Cap'n. The fuel was not necessary it just helps him make up for being inept.
As for speaking to the Old Gompers, I do have exchanges with them. It is usually something like this, "That was for us!", "It is Shannon Control, not Shanwick. Shanwick is the over water portion", "The frequency is 132.250", "That is the SLP, do you want to start slowing?", "line up and wait after means they expect you to take the runway when he departs. you don't get a separate clearance", "He is asking for the registration number and destination"...well you get the picture. I am concerned for the safety of the flight. Just not the comfort of the thief sitting next to me. If you can not see the difference then you may just be too old to understand.