A Specialist in Aviation Medicine, based in London, conducted a study of pilots between the ages of sixty and sixty five. The study was spread over a considerable period and came to the conclusion that there was no discernible difference between the sixty year old's health and the sixty five year old's, nor any perceivable increase in the risk of heart attack. Bearing in mind the extent to which a pilot's health is monitored throughout their career and the requirement to maintain a reasonable level of fitness it is inappropriate to include statistics from all walks of life as only those from professions similar to that of pilot that require the same level of fitness and monitoring are relevant.

Lets us be honest, the resistance to moving the age back to sixty five after it was arbitrarily moved to sixty has no safety ramifications whatsoever, it tends to come from the under forty years of age pilots who, in the main, are well established with a major carrier and have their pension and future career all mapped out without much risk of layoff/retrenchment/redundancy or the company going broke and putting them all on welfare.;)

akada

Yes, I'm approaching 60.

However in all your rantings the one reason that you failed to give as a reason for continuing in the job is quite simply the love of flying.

Even after 37 years in the business, I still get a buzz from going to work in order to do what I love - namely fly aeroplanes. It sure as hell beats painting the garden and mowing the house! (Thinks! :confused: Have I got that right?)

Packs

:ok:

Two comments;

Packsonflite. Good luck with the DGAC but expect a LONG wait. Even getting a 'Carte de Sejoure' to work in France, which is valid for one year (renewable) takes about 10 months to process ! So when you get it there's about two months left on it before you have to go through the whole process again !!!! Applying that to your situation ...... well ...... like I say, Good Luck !

To the 'akada' types out there, from my experience in this industry, the number of early retirements that benefit F/O career advancement for reasons of 'career change', 'failed medical', etc etc far outweigh the few who wish to stay past 60 for whatever reason. So the balance is still well infavour of the upcomming F/O's, but I guess this little obsevation is irellivant to a closed mind eh ?

How about to start with a inter-European movement PRO65?

The heart attack argument against age60+ pilots is irrelevent to flight safety when there are two fully qualified-on-type pilots on board. The chances of both pilots having medical problems on the same sector are zero. All european airlines insist on both pilots qualified as P1, so the remaining pilot (whatever his age) could cope with virtually anything that comes his way on the remainder of the flight.

Is AKADA a japanese word for idiot?

Take up professional Football. They usually retire at 35! That should keep you happy.

In a (probably doomed) attempt to give you some perspective, akada, myself and several of my colleagues have spent seriously large sums of money getting retrained for a new career in professional aviation in our 30's and 40's.

Several of us spent years as Instructors on tiny salaries with no pension available before managing to find Airline jobs.

Are you saying that after all that struggle to achieve what we have, we should then step aside at 60 on a pittance pension so that arrogant young guys like you can achieve an early promotion? I don't think so.

If you stopped to exercise your brain for a minute or two, you should be able to work out that this whole debate does not really affect the younger Pilot.

Most career pilots in the major carriers will have achieved excellent pensions by 55 or 60, and generally have no wish to keep on working. Only a small number of people like myself may need to consider that option, plus those that really do live for their work - and why shouldn't they continue to do that if they want?

Get a life laddie!!

Bigscotdaddy! You wrote that several of us spent years on tiny salaries. That’s a correct statement. That does not mean though that you are allowed to steal the pension from younger colleagues, preventing upgrades, endangering the whole pensionsystem, preventing young pilots from getting into the airlines from their low income instructorjobs.
You are also saying that your struggle gives you the right to continue working beyond 60. That statement shows the egoistic thinking I’m talking about. Don’t even try to make us believe that your financial situation is that bad that you would starve if you were to retire at 60.

Packsonflite! You are the only one that gives a reasonable explanation to why you want to continue beyond 60 and that’s you passion for flying. I fully understand your reasons and I appreciate that you are not using the stupid excuse for a bad financial situation. If circumstances were different and there was a shortage of pilots it would be more understandable. If you love flying why don’t you go to the flyingclubs and share your lifelong experience where it would be appreciated?

I suppose and hope that all of you have and are supporting the pilot unions. For those who insist on working beyond 60 I suggest you take a look at Allied Pilots page: http://www.alliedpilots.org/Public/t...ge_60_rule.pdf

No matter how much you are screaming for pity there will still be a majority of pilots that don’t want your presence on flightdeck

Screaming for pity??? what a joke you are my boy.

Really ? A majority of my union mates voted in favour of 65 years as forced retirement age !

With regard to the heart attack argument, back in the eighties, when the CAA Doctors would pull your medical very swiftly at the slightest abnormality on the ECG, the airlines protested that they were losing too many experienced pilots. The Authority therefore introduced the conditional medical certificate, allowing an "at risk" pilot to fly as long as his co-pilot had a full medical. As is the way of these things, the "at risk" group was carefully monitored. Over the succeeding years, the only pilots to suffer heart problems at the controls were those with clean medical certificates - the supposedly risky guys went on to collect their pensions. Red faces all round in the medical fraternity.

Today's aviation doctors, in the UK at least, are prepared to admit that they don't know as much about the heart as the old guard used to think. This has resulted in a much more proactive stance in getting medically grounded pilots back in the air, which has to be a good thing all round.

For what it's worth, my GP believes that if you pass 60 without any cardiac problems, you're most unlikely to have a heart attack in the future.

There are arguments for and against retirement at 60 but a dicky ticker isn't one of them.

confundemus

I think we may have missed Akada's point. He wants us all out at sixty, regardless of pension state, financial status etc. just so that he can continue, fat dumb and happy, with his unbroken, structured career that he considers his God given right. From his posts I think it is not unfair to conclude that Akada is very young and still has a lot to learn.

(Oh yes Akada, if you or anyone else demonstrated to me that you resented my presence on the flight deck you would be off-loaded in very short order for an interview with the management who, if your lucky, would send you off on multiple CRM courses and if you are not would fire you as a flight safety hazard and your union would see you roasted).

Correct me if i´m wrong.
I heard the French rule excempted French pilots in domestic flights. We can´t overfly when over 60 but they themselves may operate locally at that age.

:confused:

Dear readers!

I have now reached my goal in showing you all the egoistic motives the pilots over 60 have. Most of these pensioners have showed this in their own words. You just have to read the replies on my opinions. Some will probably feel great relief when I now announce that there will be no further comments from my side in this matter unless something extraordinary turns up.

To the rest of you! Keep up the good work and keep the vultures away!

Akada

Thank you for appreciating that I may hold sincere views, however I cannot afford to fly privately, and neither do I have any wish to pound the circuit in a Cessna 150 teaching someone else to do what I prefer to do myself.

I get my enjoyment flying aircraft with two or more engines and weighing in excess of 50 tonnes.

Sadly the one thing that I lack is the financial accuity and good fortune that you assume all of us are blessed with.

In response to your final post I have but one thing to say:

Whooppee!!!

Akada is clearly a troll (is that the term for a disinterested troublemaker?) usu people of low achievement/self esteem/no outgoing activities.
Pitiable but not worth acknowledging.

Let me get this straight. The French aren't going to allow overflights by pilots over sixty?
What're they gonna do, shoot the guy down?

Last year I heard of the case of an over-60 captain being ramp-checked in France. Only after he had removed every single item of payload from his 4-engined turbo-prop was he was allowed to depart - as a private flight.

Leaving the freight behind makes it difficult to make a profit!

Is France the country where the pilots are still fighting to retain their glass of wine with their inflight meal? Surely not. Just a malicious rumour I am sure.

Sums - and the Future
 

As a bit of a backward boy when it comes to statistical mathematics - am I being very slow when I say I don't see that extending the career chances for everybody will disadvantage young pilots?

It seems to me, that they too would have the chance to fly on after sixty, so that the deal is fair for all:

Taking an average pilot career of Age 25yrs to Age 58yrs for argument's sake - that's 32yrs of flying - so expect 16 in the RHS and the rest in the left.

Taking a career from Age 25yrs to Age 65yrs also for argument's sake - you have a career of 40 yrs, so expect 20 in the LHS and 20 in the RHS.

So the only (on the face of it) unfair thing about extending Captains beyond 60 would be that at the moment of introduction the present FOs who see an upgrading round the corner would have to wait longer than they anticipate. In the course of time, however, this evens itself out, when they themselves are able to extend.

Now this all supposes a zero growth in air travel. When I joined a big carrier a century or so back, the Captains flying with me had flown only six or five years as copilots, because this airline was expanding fast at that time. I then waited fifteen years for a command, because the thing slowed down again. Later it sped up again - luck of the draw!

The example above also supposes that all pilots will want to take advantage of the extension possibilities. That is very unlikely as many pilots wish to retire at an earlier age, so the whole "problem" is likely to have even less of an impact than the vitriolic would have us believe.

Often it is just being forbidden from doing or being allowed to do something which affects the frustration level. I bet if the flexibility were there to extend, all would be happy but few would use it.

French 60 Years rule...
 

...was enforced first, as a company regulation, by Air-France, while Air-Inter (then the biggest in France for domestic flights) was permitting the old ones to continue flying after 60.

Then a law was passed applied to all airlines, and moreover Air-Inter was absorbed by Air-France....so now, after a transitory period, there are no more airline pilots flying after 60 in France.

The main argument for this law (which was promoted by French airline pilot's unions) was to lower the number of unemployed pilots.

For Pirate: your argument about the uncertainty of medical checks can be used in both directions, either when they stop yo or when they give you the right to fly: which one is the most dangerous for the community?

Then, if I believe your GP, the risk of heart attack is diminishing after 60.....Better you try to find epidemiloogic stats than trust this one...