Chipjockey, are you for real or a wind-up merchant? Either way, let's not let you sabotage what is turning out to be an interesting thread.
I was in my late 40s when I started flying (OK, I finally admitted it; Whirly is not the sweet young thing she pretends to be. For the record, I'm not tall and blonde as a lot of people seem to think either, but that's irrelevant here.
) It never occurred to me at first that my age was supposed to make a difference. Having not had kids, I guess I missed the whole generation pigeon-holing thing that many people seem to pick up naturally. Anyway, when I started to struggle, everyone else came out with comments like: "Well, you're no spring chicken are you?" "You're not used to learning at your age" etc. Never mind that (a) I'd struggled with anything involved distance/depth perception or co-ordiantion since I was a kid, and (b) learning wasn't new for me; I'd got A level Welsh a couple of years earlier, and then improved enough to be mistaken for a native speaker. No, I had just reached that point where it HAD to be my age. So much so that I almost started to believe it myself. But not enough to stop me deciding to learn to fly helicopters, getting a CPL(H), flying in the US and Russia, etc etc etc. And you know what? If I ignore the fact that getting older is supposed to make things difficult, then it doesn't. And then everyone else starts ignoring it too. No-one's mentioned it to me now for ages. If I start to say that I'm unlikely to live long enough to earn enough through flying to ever recoup what I've paid out, they look at me in amazement. So either flying makes you look younger, or...
Come on people, what is all this age cr@p anyhow? Polly Vacher is about to start a second flight solo around the world, and she's at least in her 50s. Jennifer Murray became the first woman to fly a piston engined helicopter around the world at the age of 60, having learned to fly helos at the age of 54. I know of several people doing CPLs in their late 40s and 50s. At the microlight club where I battled with a flexwing, loads of people seem to be, and have learned, in their 50s and older, and no-one there seems to even notice. As I said earlier, on average it might, just might, take a few hours longer in the early stages. Dunno why, but it seems to. But that's about all.
The rest, kids, is just so much hot air and prejudice!