Going for the PPL at 70?

[BackPacker]

My question is, can someone of 70 ever be a truly 'natural' pilot? Will they be able to develop the motor skills so that controlling the aeroplane accurately becomes second nature, not something that needs to be thought about?

Does that really matter?

No, I don't think a 70-year old will be able to develop the motor skills that we generally see in fighter pilots. But I don't think it's going to be necessary. At that age, I can imagine that learning to fly is something someone wants to do before he dies. Or something along those lines. If that means learning to fly, and eventually fly, in benign conditions, in a docile aircraft with plenty time to think about your actions, why not?

At that age, I don't think somebody would be continuing on with fighter training, aerobatics, instrument ratings, tailwheel, commercial flying and so forth anyway.

(Edited: WTF is wrong with PPRuNe today that it puts my answer as #1, with the question as #2???)

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

A friend of a friend (I don't know him myself) is, I'm told, starting PPL training. He is 70 years old. I was in my late 20s when I started and I did it in a year, soloing in 10.5 hours, but compared to the 18 year olds who were learning alongside me I thought I'd left it a bit late. Human motor skills are best developed at the earliest age possible, but I did OK and now in my early 60s still enjoy aeros and bimbling in our Chippy.

My question is, can someone of 70 ever be a truly 'natural' pilot? Will they be able to develop the motor skills so that controlling the aeroplane accurately becomes second nature, not something that needs to be thought about?

I'm not an instructor, and I wondoer if those on here who are have had students of this age (or perhaps even older). Did they make it OK? Did they assimilate the required motor skills?

Just curious (as I say, I don't know this guy, am unlikely to meet him, so will not be trying to influence him one way or the other).

[Say again s l o w l y]

I've had a couple of students who make this chap seem like a spring chicken. They got through just fine.

Obviously they took a bit longer than the average 18 year old hot shot, but there was no difference between older students and one's in their 40's or 50's.

However, like most things, I suppose it all comes down to the individual.

Flying an aeroplane doesn't take that much skill. As long as you aren't a complete imbecile, then I've never had an issue with teaching people to fly properly. Co-ordination is rarely that much of an issue, it's between the ears that matters really.

[IO540]

Pprune does sometimes date/time-stamp posts 10 minutes earlier than they were posted. The only solution is for you to wait more than 10 mins after the post(s) you are replying to.

[Johnm]

I started flying at 52 did my IR at 62 and at 64 fly IFR and VFR all over the place. Charles Strasser flies his Seneca and is over 80.

It might take the guy a wee bit longer to get a PPL than a 20 year old, but he probably doesn't care!

What's a natural pilot anyway???

[avonflyer]

when talking of the older pilot use of the word wee should probably be avoided..

[Crash one]

I started PPL training at the tender age of 66 in June 2006. Passed in 64hrs the following August.
I now have a tailwheel a/c non transponderised, no radio nav etc, on a grass strip.
I am as happy as a pig in ****e.
I have seen "young whipper snappers" demonstrating their total lack of hand/eye co-ordination in all diciplines from flying to hanging a picture.
My opinion on this subject is, Don't kid yourself that us "oldies" are past it.
I know a few extremely competent & perfectly "with it" pilots well over 80 who learned to fly very late.
Whether or not my previous life of enthusiasm, some gliding ~1956 break ~1980, helped I'm not sure. I am no fighter jock nor aerobatt but I have never had a comment from any Instructor that has dissapointed me.
Nor do I need a wee any more regularly than my youthful associates:ugh:

[Sam Rutherford]

Two of the PIC on our last Trans-Africa were eighty years old - now if that's not impressive and humbling then I don't know what is...

Fly safe, for a really long time, Sam.

[B2N2]

For what it's worth, in my experience;
age truly isn't everything.
Same as the teenagers, the elderly are hard to compare.
I was a very young (read immature) 18 year old when I started flying.
Have also met an 19 year old F-16 driver who was at the time the youngest pilot that ever soloed an F-16 at the age of 18.
Huge difference obviously.
On the other side of the age-scale same things apply.
You can be a very old or very young 70-year old.
Very active or vegative state, I've seen and experienced both.
May I remind you that Chuck Norris is currently 71 and can still open a can of whoop-@ss.................

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

I wasn't posting about guys that have been flying for years and are still sh1t hot at 95 years of age; a totally different consideration. It's a guy considering starting the PPL at 70 with zero previous flying experience that interests me.

We learn our motor skills while young (how to walk, how to catch a thrown ball or hit it with a bat etc.... how to hunt when we lived in caves) and the human body has evolved to do that. Hence my interest in someone developing a whole new set of such skills at an advanced age - not someone who already has those skills and reaches that advanced age while still practising them.

Heck, from where I stand in my early 60s and with time accellerating the way it does as you get older, I can clearly see where 70 is... only just over the horizon. :O

[cumulusrider]

At the Lasham regionals gliding competition in may we had pilots aged 84 and 88 sharing a Stemme. mind you one of them was Derek Piggott :).

(In case anyone hasnt heard of him he was instructing on troop carrying gliders in the war, flew stunts in 'Those magnificent men in Their flying Machines' Etc. and was CFI at Lasham for years and has written the most used books in gliding)

[iwrbf]

Hi,

I seriously doubt that a good pilot is made of fast reflexes and motoric skills. Sufficient knowledge and good judgement combined with a non-ego-impaired character are the main ingredients, IMHO :-)

Personally, I wouldn't want to fly solo being older than the average as the risk for temporary impairment because of a sudden health problem is way higher than in younger years. But I'm a fan of (human) redundancy and 2 pairs of Mk 2 Eyeballs up front, but that's just an opinion :-)

Kind regards,
Peter

[XLC]

I do think that with the medicals checks and the required training age is not really issue any more, except that it might indeed take longer.
A friend of mine who is instructor (gliders) at EBZR told me that on average (!) for every year above 25 he needs to teach about 30'~1h in extra flying lessons compared to those of the 18~25 years old bracket. However, he also noted that lately there are more and more exceptions to this.

[vabsie]

We learn our motor skills while young (how to walk, how to catch a thrown ball or hit it with a bat etc.... how to hunt when we lived in caves) and the human body has evolved to do that.



I think you may have answered your own question in the above paragraph - Surely you will use those same motor skills already learnt during your younger life to also fly an aeroplane - Or else there will be this horrible dreaded cut-off line in life where you are not allowed to learn anything new after a certain age.

Granted though - as you get older reflexes may get a little slower but this is for the individual / medical check to assess.

Just my opinion.

Vabsie

[Maoraigh1]

"as you get older reflexes may get a little slower"
Is the slowing of reflexes for fit people that much? Remember the muscle movements in flying are much smaller than in, say tennis.
ISTR studies in the US showing little change with age.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

I wasn't think of 'reflexes', more the aquisition of complex motor skills late in life. Any newly-qualified PPL will still be 'flying by numbers' to a certain extent (just past the motorway throttle back to such and such RPM, lower flap, re-trim to such and such speed.... that sort of thing) and conciously thinking about which flying controls to move and how much to move them, a bit like a novice driver thinking about pressing the clutch to change gear.

After a while, such things become automatic; flying the aeroplane around the circuit requires little or no concious thought about moving the controls - you just do it! You don't think about pressing left rudder with power, or right as you take power off, or constantly chasing heading and speed - the needles wander far less as one gets experienced... etc. This means that if something goes wrong (engine failure, say) one can devote most of one's brainpower to planning and executing the forced landing since actually flying the aeroplane will be or should be semi-automatic.

Will someone learning to fly late in life be able to do this within a reasonable time.... or at all?

[mixture]

I seriously doubt that a good pilot is made of fast reflexes and motoric skills.

Its more ......
the reaction times
the ability to cope with the workload
the ability to understand, correctly read back and swiftly react to what you're being told on the radio without asking the controller to repeat each time
etc.

I would say more, but I won't in public as I've been in the right hand seat of aircraft of a couple of over 70's in the last year or so whose abilities to cope on their own have somewhat worried me (and I unfortunately was not acting in capacity of instructor or examiner !). I fear they may be PPRuNe readers and hence do not want to embarrass them in public.

It's important not to kid yourself that its easy. Remember that unlike driving, or sailing you can't just stop on a whim.... once you've left the tarmac it's up to you to get yourself back in one piece, nobody can do it for you. So great if you want to do it, but perhaps at the very least consider a suitably qualified safety pilot.

[Crash one]

It's important not to kid yourself that its easy. Remember that unlike driving, or sailing you can't just stop on a whim.... once you've left the tarmac it's up to you to get yourself back in one piece, nobody can do it for you. So great if you want to do it, but perhaps at the very least consider a suitably qualified safety pilot.

I am utterly speechless.
What a load of utter rubbish.

Edit: less speechless. I have flown with a couple of under 30s that I would not fly with again.
I cannot stand this generalisation attitude that us old fogies should relinquish our driving licences, stop flying, get help with anything we do, etc. It seems to me that competence at anything has very little to do with age, & younger persons have no business questioning competence solely based on age, certainly not at 70. How do accident figures stack up to age related? How do reported CAS busts stack up? Failed forced landings? Incompetent RT? etc.

:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

[thing]

Bloody hell that's a bit patronising. I'm 55 (OK not 70) but went solo on my sixth flight after 4.30 and did my PPL in the 45 hours. In fact I was ready long before 45 hours. I don't feel the need for a safety pilot and my medical was AOK. I have my own teeth, still enjoy the delights of carnal passion and have a full head of hair.

Get some in, as the old saying goes.

[Say again s l o w l y]

Jeez. You'd think that as soon as you hit 60 your brain fell out and was replaced by over cooked cabbage.

Obviously I don't know what I'm talking about having only put forward 500 ish students forward for their PPL tests and flown with loads of over 70's.

70 is the new 50 and that's coming from someone in their early 30's...

[Crash one]

Must admit my typing skills are a bit slow.
Glad to know there are more than me out there.

& just to push the knife in a bit further,

I wasn't think of 'reflexes',

Shouldn't that be "thinking"?

I am considerably touchy about this since being reffered to, (out of my hearing by 200yds), as a "deaf old git" by a 30yr old relative who fell asleep at the wheel of his car whilst my 68yr old wife was on board!

[thing]

Everything is new to the young Crash. We were just born at the age we are........

[Crash one]

Absolutely, you'd think todays 18yr olds invented sex, where do they think they came from?

[thing]

Under a rock most of them.

[mixture]

Crash one,


I am utterly speechless.
What a load of utter rubbish.


Unfortunatley that's the whole problem.

The over-70s to whom I refer lead a very active life and so it's important to stress I'm not trying to "put them down" in any sense, I think it's great they're constantly taking up new hobbies and keeping active.

The problem remains that they have a high-degree of self-confidence in their abilities, and because of the seniority complex that has been demonstrated in reply to my post (i.e. what can a young whipper snapper possibly teach me) you're never going to be able to convince them to tone down the confidence levels when flying.

The fact remains that fundamental flight safety issues were demonstrated on the two flights to which I refer, and I would not hesitate to putting advanced age down as one of the major contributing factors. And this is not only my opinion, but also of others who were present on the flights concerned who were over the age of 60 !

[UV]

How do accident figures stack up to age related

Well, as you ask, the August AAIB bulletin for (Private Accidents) reads as follows:

Age.............Accidents
Under 20.....1
20-29......... 1
30-39......... 1
40-49..........3
50-59......... 5
60-69..........3
70-77......... 2

[avonflyer]

Interesting but potentially misleading - you would need to know the hours flown (or maybe flights made) per age group to get an accident ratio that could be compared. My guess is that there are a lot more 50 year old PPL holders than 20 year old ones which would slew the figures.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I had a student who started his PPL at age 70 and who was 71 when he passed his flight test (he took around 70 hrs, I do not remember the exact time).

He was one of my all time favorite students. He had wanted to learn to fly his whole life but he sacrificed his desires in favour of his family. A small inheritance and a supportive wife finally allowed him to pursue his dream. He was so excited and happy after ever flight it brightened my whole day and it sure was a pleasure to have a student who did all his homework, always showed up on time and worked his ass off. He used his PPL for 5 years of recreational flying until he decided it was time to stop flying.

[Crash one]

The problem remains that they have a high-degree of self-confidence in their abilities, and because of the seniority complex that has been demonstrated in reply to my post (i.e. what can a young whipper snapper possibly teach me) you're never going to be able to convince them to tone down the confidence levels when flying.


Mixture.
Sorry but I don't buy that either. Maybe I'm speaking for myself but over confidence has never been one of my virtues. My flying instructors were all under 30 & I had every respect for MOST of them.
After the NPPL I went looking for the tailwheel thing, once again a young instructor, no problems.
I ran out of recency (90days=5 months of maintenance in a freezing hangar) I agonised over that for days until finally bit the bullet & took off for 3 nail biting circuits, followed later by some more until I was satisfied. If I tone down the confidence level any further I would become a dribbling vegetable.
My experience of over confidence & the seniority complex is that it comes from a perception of social standing or "I'm invincible" not age.

[vee-tail-1]

What really gets me incandescent is the fact that the op asked the question at all :} It is pure ageism in its obscene naivety.

Whether a person is capable of learning to fly is dependent on that persons physical & mental abilities, and those abilities are hard wired at an early age. To make an assumption about a person purely on the basis of his/her age is vile ageism.

At 73 I have had to sell my aircraft not because of failing piloting ability but a failure of my pension to keep pace with escalating costs. On the trip to the airport for an occasional refresher flight I am frequently endangered by youngsters driving too fast and having zero situational awareness.

Right now I am busy logging for winter wood with my chain saw (perhaps some H&S official should be informed :uhoh:) And now the Sept weather has changed I am doing a lot more windsurfing on my 1990 vintage F2 kit (another H&S issue for the local coastguard perhaps:yuk:)

People are individuals and need to be treated as such.

[GGR]

Vee

Well said, dropped into Haverfordwest recently, club house was full of pilots with lots of time on the clock of life.

The full english/welsh breaky was among the biggest and best I have seen anywhere! lots of old geezers tucking in, me included.

GGR

[Crash one]

vee-tail-1
Thank you, well said. Pity about selling your aircraft. I often wonder how much longer my pension driven flying will last.
I too may be logging today, sliding about on wet grass with the chain saw! how irresponsible.

[P6 Driver]

If it's a legal age to learn to fly, why not?

We are as old as we feel - give it a try, and good luck!

:ok:

[rufus.t.firefly]

Well it's his money , even if it takes ages and he ends up flying with an instructor for quite a while before achieving his ppl , as long as he enjoys the whole experience and its something he wants to do ....... go for it thats what ppl is all about !!!

Flying shouldn't be a closed shop , as long as you are able to do it based on your abilities go for it :ok:

[Crash one]

Why on earth should he take ages? With an instructor for quite a while?
As long as he enjoys the whole experience?
How bloody patronising.:ugh:
Jeez you would think anyone over the age of puberty was senile.

[mixture]

Crash one,

Afraid I'm not going to post any further detail in a public forum for the reasons outlined originally. So we'll have to leave it at that.

[dont overfil]

A freind of mine, sadly no longer with us, had a passion for aviation from childhood. He was unable to afford to learn to fly until well past retiral age.

He struggled with many aspects of flying but persevered to finally solo at around fifty hours. (I am not suggesting his age was an issue) He recognised that he may never have the confidence to actually go anywhere if he did eventually pass.

My point is it did not matter to him! He was flying and that was all that he cared about. (He did eventually qualify.)

D.O.

[rufus.t.firefly]

Crash One - when I say ages , I dont literally mean that as "a long time " , some folk are lucky and can do the ppl in the absolute minimum number of hours specified , some can't ...that's all I meant .... we aren't all the same ,and have different individual abilities ..... I'm not being patronising at all :=.... I'm past the minimum number of hours required in my learning and still heading toward my GST at some point in the future at my ripe old age thanks very much !!! When I feel ready and my instructors feel the same ! Its taking me some time but I enjoy every minute of it ...thats what I meant to convey

[vee-tail-1]

Hmnn... this ageism thing turns up in unexpected places.
My 13 year old son (four flights in total on the ATL, and massive hours on MS Flt Sim) now insists that I am an awkward old git, and he should always fly as safety pilot in case I become suddenly senile.
Cheeky little so & so :)

[Crash one]

I seem to have upset a couple of you. For that I sincerly apologise.:O
I have however come across ageism a lot, perhaps because I am not a "pipe & slippers" type myself & mixing with younger people with similar interests I expect to be treated as just as capable as anyone else. I also find a lot of disrespect for the capabilities & experience of those of us who have been round the block a while. My son in law falls into that slot. And as mentioned earlier this comes across as "no young whipper snapper is going to teach me". Which it really is not. The suggestion of a safety pilot got up my nose considerably.
So I am sorry if I have come across as agressive bull headed but as v-tail pointed out. Why was the original question asked? Yes we are all different. I took 65 hrs total at the age of 66. But if I were to suggest (which I didn't) that I think the navigation bit was a bit "padded out" (25+ hrs of it) & I know the area, ex gliders, what are the instructors among you going to say? I never got lost, but more to the point, I was never "made lost" by an instructor.
Sorry I have such strong views on the subject.

The fact remains that fundamental flight safety issues were demonstrated on the two flights to which I refer, and I would not hesitate to putting advanced age down as one of the major contributing factors. And this is not only my opinion, but also of others who were present on the flights concerned who were over the age of 60 !

Mixture.
I agree with that, but then I can cite at least two incidents of flight safety issues by people in their 20s/30s.

[stickandrudderman]

As Mrs. Stick says, "A man is as old as he feels, and when he stops feeling, he's old!":ooh: