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Ageing Pilots

Does anyone know of any good (academic?) work on ageing pilots at all please? Particularly, competency and accident risk vs age.

To be up front before anyone goes into meltdown, the reason is I am just looking across the organisations I work with / responsible for and see increasingly aged pilots and am looking for some valid data to have a think about this risk. My own perceptions (rightly or wrongly) are that a lot of older pilots are quite current (time and money), aren’t as rushed on the day of flying, have experience to fall back on, handling skills are normally good still, but overall sortie management can decline (noticeably things like RT and situational awareness when it gets busy). I deliberately mention no particular ages as I think it can be very individual variable; the RAF sets the bar at 65 for whatever reason (mainly cardiac risk I think), our club insurers at 80 for the current premiums. I heard someone say recently that accident reports are littered with age 70+ pilots.

Lots of perceptions (prejudice?!) but is there any good analysis? Many thanks!

Now retired from forums best wishes

I think that it’s really important not to mention either particular ages or particular people, as variation is enormous. I know several pilots well into their eighties who are still extremely competent, I know others who are in a decline from their sixties.

But I do agree that there appears to be a disproportionate number of older pilots in accident reports. This is something that I have noticed many times. Without knowing the hours flown, one cannot be sure that it’s disproportionate, but just looking around at the pilots one sees preparing for flight, the average age does seem to be younger that that seen in accident reports.

I would add to your list, though, an unwillingness among older pilots to learn new things. RNAV/PBN seems to be a case in point at the moment. I think that we are suffering from a lot of instructors, particularly IR instructors, being older and unwilling to move beyond the technology, or indeed RT standards, of their relative youth.

EGKB Biggin Hill

At 55, I’m glad to understand we’re talking about pilots 70+!
I hope to fly into my 80’s…. we’ll see

Last Edited by WhiskeyPapa at 26 Oct 16:21
Tököl LHTL

Speak up, I can’t hear you! Now, where did I put my glasses? Ah, I’m wearing them. And my keys?

Biggin Hill

@Cobalt, we both know a surprising old, fit and capable pilot, do we not?

EGKB Biggin Hill

Absolutely! More of a reflection on the effects of ageing I foresee for myself!

Biggin Hill

There was a UK study which got an accident correlation between “Age at which pilot learned to fly”, but not “Age of pilot”.
Somewhere on AAIB site????

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

Yes; we had a thread on it here, I think. Can’t find it though.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

One hangar neighbor forgot where the airport is. He also forgot who I was even though we met dozens of times. At one point his wife managed to take his airplane keys. The other one had a stroke 2 weeks ago but even before that was a danger to public safety. Both of them stopped flying way too late and it’s a miracle nothing terrible happened.

I don’t know whether Peter would object to this going off on a tangent towards cars, but speaking as someone who regularly has to take decisions about what should happen with drivers who are no longer fit for purpose, the parallels are striking.

EGKB Biggin Hill
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