Originally Posted by NZbutterfly

The world and indeed the US are pretty diverse so it would be ridiculous to apply one rule to US pilots. Ethnicity needs to be taken into account. Where they live less so unless there are environmental factors in play. Age - well lets say the cut off age is 60 for example. Is a pilot really at an acceptable health risk at say 59 years and 8 months vs suddenly an unacceptable health risk 4 months later at 60 years and 2 months? Has their health risk exploded exponentially just because they passed 60? Logic would tell me no. It just doesn't pass the pub test. So I wouldn't use age alone and I don't think they do but age appears to be weighted fairly heavily in the assessment. I think aviation is pretty risk averse. But we also have to be realistic as well about likely outcomes and how they're mitigated. Can still do that whilst being safe. I mean.. stuff happens. There was a female wide body Air NZ pilot that I think became incapacitated inflight and eventually died I think. No passenger lives were at risk although if they were that may not have been conveyed in the article.

Also, the US is a blimn mixed bag of geniuses and pure nutters. No idea what the FAA makeup is.



I did some googling and found some of Bens articles on research gate. I haven't taken a look at them in any depth at all. I did notice a couple were only 4 months long in their duration. That seems short but obviously they were testing different things. Granted you said he did a presentation... and ten years ago which feels like it should be a bit out of date by now but do you know where to find his study or presentation? Cause I have questions. What tests did they use? How frequently did they test? How many pilots were involved? How long did the study go for? etc .. I'm sure I'll think of some more questions along the way.