Gezellig wrote:
On Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:36:28 -0400, Dudley Henriques wrote:

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.

You and I are on opposites sides when considering the quality of the
medical check and its real abilities to flag relevant health problems
for pilots. That would be my point, that the quality level of the check
is a gaping hole in the qualification process and one that can be
successfully exploited by those who would argue in favor of a mandatory
age cutoff for a PPL

We're not that far into disagreement really. I totally agree that in
many cases that I've witnessed over time, including my own physicals,
the "quality" of that physical was less than I would have expected from
a dedicated medical program in use by specialized medical examiners.

--
Dudley Henriques