Originally Posted by
FlyingKat
You need to get a clue. Mandatory retirement for pilots has had much more to do with getting rid of senior pilots at the top of the pay scale than it ever did with safety. I'd rather fly with Hoot Gibson any day than some of these cheesesteak eating goobers in their mid 30s and 40s that are overweight, big as a house and one step from a coronary. Whether you can fly should have more to do with how well you take care of yourself and perform on flight checks than an arbitrary limit. The examples you cited are an agency or company placing limits on its employees, not an industry wide limit. And more and more of these are falling due to age discrimination lawsuits. Comparing what an FBI agent does to what we do in the cockpit is very different. Last time I checked there were some Supreme court judges will into their 80s, so I don't know what you are talking about. All the judges where I live are pretty old, and they keep forcing them out of retirement to cover for younger Judges for whatever reason.
The only business of the FAA is how I perform on flight checks and my flight physical. Anything else is none of their business. When you give a government agency an inch, they'll try and take a mile. Just look at the TSA.
Nice try. Obviously FBI agents do a different job than we do. But if I want to be one, I am forced out at 57. So in that sense, it is exactly the same. An arbitrary retirement age is an arbitrary retirement age. As for Justices, I said "some state" Supreme Court Justices, and I know that in Florida, they are forced out at a certain age (I think 70). Your notion of airline pilots being the only professionals that are forced out because of age is ignorant. Period. Whether you agree or disagree with that policy is another matter.
And you decry the injustice of being forced to retire because of age discrimination, yet argue that a guy who FALSIFIES documents should be lauded? Yeah...
And while I have no problem with senior citizens, I'll let you fly with the 70+ crowd on a gusty, nasty, winter day, where good hand-eye coordination, and good reaction time, is important.