"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...
Gezellig wrote:
On Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:30:50 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote:

Ben Jeffrey wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
...
Orval Fairbairn wrote:

I know quite a few pilots flying well into their 70s -- some in
high-performance planes.

Hell Orval, it took that long for some of us to get proficient :-)))

--
Dudley Henriques
I have a friend in our soaring club who flew Corsairs as a USMC pilot
in WW2 and still flys regularly in our club - usually the first to
launch and the last to land. To top it off, most of the time he flys
his Pitts to the club from his home field.

Ben Jeffrey

Some of the "older" pilots are in phenomenally good health. I deal with
a lot of them on a daily basis. They're amazing!

And some aren't Dudley neither of which is the point. The point is that
Fed/FAA gets aggressive, age could come into question regardless. For
that matter, why not a local port like Vegas throwing up their own
rules?

The one's that aren't should fail the medical. THAT is the point. The
"system" is supposed to discover and weed out those not medically fit to
fly.
As long as you can pass the medical, you fly. It's THAT simple!
Nobody says the system is perfect. There will always be those pilots who
slip through a medical check and then have a heart attack while flying.
Personally, I would be an advocate of more frequent medical checks for
pilots of a specific age determined by accident stats and medical
histories.
Of course if they went that route, you'd have the ACLU on their ass
screaming about "rights".
There is only one additional safety gap in the present system; that being
the individual choice of a pilot to voluntarily stop flying after having a
medical issue during the period between medicals.
As I said, it "ain't " a perfect system by a long shot!


--
Dudley Henriques
Hell, I'm 72 and fly an experimental helicopter which, because of my
modifications involve a bit of "Test Flying". More than that, I recently
soloed an ultralight helicopter where the only check out possible was to get
the numbers for rpm and egt.
If they are going to put age limits on flying, they better start with age
limits for people driving and especially driving those huge motor homes just
a few feet from my car at closing velocities around 150mph and better.
Did you know that those motor homes have a refrigerator that can store cold
beer just a couple of feet behind the driver? It is obvious that you can
legally have an open container in your motor home.