Originally Posted by
Andy
I never stated that the graphs were only commercial aviation. Where did you jump to that conclusion? As for the correlation between GA and Commercial aviation, what kind of graphs are you REALLY expecting to see in commercial aviaiton? Almost everyone is over 1500 hours, so you will not see the precipitous drop if you only use commercial statistics. You'll have merely thrown out the trend that I cited.
There are very similar graphs with military personnel. I could dig up the graphs, but it's not really worth my time, since you'll then reply that it's military and has nothing to do with commercial aviation.
Let me clarify. There is an initial steep learning curve in aviation (and many other tasks); are you denying this? Are you saying that the same amount of learning occurs at 5000 hours as 500 hours?
You're right, you didn't claim the study was only commercial aviation...you didn't say it excluded air carrier aviation either. The trend you cited should be thrown out; it's irrelevant for the very reason you stated, as well as others.
http://www.faa.gov/media/Final_Age_6...11_29_2006.pdf will take you to the final ARC report. This report cites a half dozen or more reports relevant to air carrier operation, all of which state decreasing accident rates with age WHEN COUPLED WITH INCREASING EXPERIENCE. You'll also notice the lack of studies finding the opposite. The best the supporters of the age 60 rule as it exists today can come up with is that "y-all shouldn't do it because something might happen."
There's also a brief history of the Age 60 Rule, which is informative.
As for the steep learning curve, you're right there too. I'm not sure where you're trying to go with the question about whether it continues at the same rate...obviously it doesn't. It does however continue at a varying rate and certainly doesn't turn negative at 1500 hours or any other figure. I know I passed 1500 hours a while back, and I haven't stopped learning yet. There have been a couple of times since then that I learned a whole lot really fast....I've made it a policy to avoid that as much as possible:-)