The other day I was flying an approach, looking at the ASI and suddenly thought ‘crikey, I’ve reached a point where my age is higher than Vapp’ 
I’m talking Knots here folks, I’m not that ancient. Yet.
So I guess that’s a nice indicator. With that ratio being >1 you’re aging but still able to do demanding stuff. Actually, if I’m not mistaken there is at least one forum member that has a more impressive ratio. His age is higher than his cruise speed. Long may his ratio increase!
Of course I don’t want insult people with a low Vapp (UL for instance) to be called old..
Long introduction to the topic of flying and becoming, let’s say, more mature. I personally still feel totally confident doing the seat-of-the-pants flying part. Feel fine doing X-wind landings, slow flight, short field stuff and the occasional stall. Helped by a docile aircraft, that’s true. I feel the same level of comfort that I had 25 years ago.
I don’t do this anymore, but when I try to imagine myself in an environment of an advanced cockpit, hand flying an IAP in crappy weather and doing a missed appch or whatever is thrown at you and having to start pushing buttons I would probably no longer be comfortable. Of course staying current would help, but I can’t help wondering. I’m not become senile, or maybe people around me are afraid to tell me that I am, but I do know that I need more time to process information and start forgetting things. Fortunately with all these nice IT gadgets one can mask that nicely..
Plenty of examples of pilots remaining very competent while aging. A friend in his late seventies still enjoys his King Air and works all these controls as if he’s playing a tune on an organ. His cockpit actually has more levers, bells and whistles than that.
How do other oldies here look at this?
One colleague has hung up his headset (professional UPRT) at 89, although I think he still does some flying in the Chipmunk. Ex Lightning and Hunter, and with over 10,000 hours in the Chipmunk.
I will look at my morbidity table quite carefully at 70 plus.
As I approach 77 I am sill hoping to qualify as a member of the Flying Octogenarians
Qualified but haven’t joined.
Depending in the v-app I come up with in that ancient POH I will surpass that figure next year or in the two following years.
I am not really wanting to hang up the hat but whether coming back one final time will.happen is still open. My bucket list is far from empty but realistically I can only think of flying as much as I should after my retirement in 6 years.
We will see. There is a chance I will need to actually have to do another type rating or equivalent as a sim instructor on a jet I have never been very close of. We will see. Might be fun.
aart wrote:
The other day I was flying an approach, looking at the ASI and suddenly thought ‘crikey, I’ve reached a point where my age is higher than Vapp’
😂 Well, I’m hitting this very point September 2022. Flapless approaches can delay the problem for a couple of years at most, though buying some SF260 (or a Falco again?), or similar would buy more time…
Flying the line on the 320 series made the cushion somewhat thicker (typical Vapp lowest 120 to highest 150).
But my guess is that the limitation will be physical iso mental (…) for most of us flying “sport” aircraft, entering my ship is already more arduous than it was a couple of years ago 🤓
I think I am Dan’s age, but I am not sure how this relates to my Vref which is around 80kt
Long introduction to the topic of flying and becoming, let’s say, more mature
Jeez aart, you don’t even fit the description: you don’t fly with RAF flying suit and smell oil, talk whole day in clubhouse about how you flew lions in Africa, how you got married/divorced after a diversion Greenland, or how you flew over Buckingham place NORDO, or DC3 at twice weight over Taj Mahal…
The last picture we saw was a “less mature pilot” in his toy Bristell flying Garmins with shorts, since when that has changed ?
I think you should do approaches at VNE 
https://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/691-random-flying-photos-thread/post/306965#306965
[ link changed to link to the actual post – right-click on the post number, top right ]
You can delay the onset of Vref < age easily: just fly a faster airplane!
At 1.2x Vs in KCAS I am at 2x a lightly loaded 90HP Cub, but around parity on the POH Vapp in the Warrior.
