4 ms·

In many airplanes, there are legitimate restrictions on how tall you can be as a pilot -- there simply isn't enough room up there for taller pilots to fit. As

In many airplanes, there are legitimate restrictions on how tall you can be as a pilot -- there simply isn't enough room up there for taller pilots to fit. As for eyesight, I'd imagine it's for the case when the pilot loses/breaks/forgets their glasses. You don't want a pilot who suddenly can't see in midair.

Dylan16807 3y ago
That's not a legitimate reason for airlines. They keep ordering cockpits without an extra couple inches on purpose. And there's a ton of ways a pilot can become incapacitated. Having an extra pair of glasses is one of the easiest mitigations around, if the odds are actually that bad.
- kortilla 3y ago
  They don’t order cockpits. That’s not how the industry works. It’s also not about “enough space” in the entire cockpit, it’s about the layouts of all of the controls and being able to reach them. “Extra pair of glasses” is not a solution in severe turbulence where the plane drops 100ft in 1 second.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Planes can be customized, and the baseline design is based on what the majority of airlines want. It's the fault of airlines. Nitpicking is fine if you want to add more details but doesn't change that. And taller people on average can reach more controls, not less. For glasses, how often does that make them come off compared to any other random reason for incapacitation? And what if there's a strap trying to keep them on? Acting like this is the only risk factor in isolation is bad.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      There's plenty of scope for customization, but generally not in changing the shape of the cockpit. Airliners are good at fitting 99%+ of the population well. But, in the end, airliner cockpits have switches and indicators up "high" and stuff down low that has to be easily within reach, but also not crowd your movement. There's a lot of adjustability, but adjustability (seat rails, etc) has been causes of accidents. If you're within 5'2 to 6'3, odds are you can easily clamber in, fit, reach all the controls. That's all that's required. Even if you're outside of that range it might be OK (there is a 4'11 787 captain out there...) As to glasses, there's no problem with having poor vision if it can be corrected with lenses. Aviation is not perfectly inclusive or accommodating of every disability, but it's not needlessly restrictive, either.
hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
Just because it was built that way doesn’t mean it’s not discriminatory. An aircraft being half a foot larger wouldn’t have been a big deal if they were built to accomodate tall people in the first place. 6’2 is not an uncommon height.
- schmidp 3y ago
  I am 6’4 and I am baffled by that argument. Not being “discriminatory” against pilot height is not the most important design choice in an airplane. What about a 7 feet tall person? Would it also be “discriminatory” if they can’t be a pilot?
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    How difficult is an extra foot? People only get so tall. But there is a pretty big difference between accommodating 93 percentile for men and 99.96 percentile, and that's only 5 inches in height between 6'1" and 6'6".
    - dividedbyzero 3y ago
      I think if you're in the 99.96 percentile for low height in women, that additional foot would be pretty difficult. You'd have a very hard time reaching all of the controls, and it's not like you can stand up to do so.
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        It's definitely harder to compensate for having a shorter reach. But it's not a competition. You don't need to put controls further apart to allow a taller person to fit, you can make it happen with chair adjustments.
        ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > need to put controls further apart to allow a taller You know that how exactly? Maybe that the case but if it’s not maximizing safety and minimizing failure risk (so by extension any unnecessary complexity) should be prioritized over any accessibility concerns under any circumstances
lolinder 3y ago
> there simply isn't enough room up there for taller pilots to fit. Under the ADA "there simply isn't a wheelchair ramp up to our building" isn't a legitimate restriction on hiring someone who uses a wheelchair—you put a wheelchair ramp in. OP's point is that arguably the same should apply to other traits like height. The space constraints are somewhat arbitrary and could be remedied.
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  That's not correct. The ADA requires reasonable accommodation, not accommodation at all costs. So yes, "there simply isn't a wheelchair ramp up to our building" is not legitimate, but "there simply isn't a wheelchair ramp up to our building and it would be prohibitively expensive or impossible to change that" does work.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    But if you keep getting new buildings made for you where it would be straightforward to build in but prohibitively expensive after the fact...
    - genocidicbunny 3y ago
      Which is irrelevant to the discussion for the most part.
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        It doesn't seem irrelevant to me. It means there's a broken system and the regulations aren't hitting the right spot. Responsibility is being split in a way that allows the accomodation to never happen.
        genocidicbunny 3y ago
        It's irrelevant because it has no relation to what ADA says about accommodations being made. Even if the ADA proscribed that new constructions had to have reasonable accommodations, it wouldn't really change anything about the fact that the ADA doesn't mandate accommodations in all circumstances, reasonable or not.
everforward 3y ago
> In many airplanes, there are legitimate restrictions on how tall you can be as a pilot -- there simply isn't enough room up there for taller pilots to fit. Right, but they were designed that way. It was likely known at design time that there was a maximum height. Standard bathroom stalls won't fit wheelchairs, but that doesn't absolve companies from a duty to provide ones that are. There are obviously different physical constraints here than bathrooms, but I'd be surprised if there was a physical constraint limiting this. As for the eyesight, this strikes me as the kind of things copilots and backup glasses are for. Require every pilot with glasses to carry a backup pair in their shirt pocket. Or maybe contacts in and a pair of glasses (turbulence may be an issue with glasses). I'd be curious if they're equally cautious with people who are diabetic or have cardiac risk factors.
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  > Right, but they were designed that way. It was likely known at design time that there was a maximum height. Airplane cockpits aren't built the way they are for shiggles. Pilots need to be able to reach controls, and if you design a cockpit for fitting people over 6ft tall, it might become unergonomic, if not downright dangerous for shorter pilots. There are actual safety issues at play here. Similar for eyesight -- yes they can carry a backup, until they forget it. The safest thing is to require pilots to have adequate uncorrected vision, though some are loosening that to allow lenses. Do you want to fly on an airplane where there's a nonzero chance the pilot is effectively incapacitated because he forgot his glasses? > I'd be curious if they're equally cautious with people who are diabetic or have cardiac risk factors. To different degrees, but yes, they are. Some airlines will require their pilots to get regular medical checkups.
  - everforward 3y ago
    > Airplane cockpits aren't built the way they are for shiggles. Pilots need to be able to reach controls, and if you design a cockpit for fitting people over 6ft tall, it might become unergonomic, if not downright dangerous for shorter pilots. There are actual safety issues at play here. If they can build a thin metal tube that can safely ascend and descend 30k feet, I'm pretty sure they can build controls that are ergonomic for people outside of a 6" height span. Of all the issues airplane engineers face, I refuse to believe that adjustable controls are the one hill they can't conquer. > Similar for eyesight -- yes they can carry a backup, until they forget it. This is how practically every part of the plane is. There are redundant parts, until maintenance forgets about it. Except here there's a redundancy of a redundancy; the copilot can take over if the other pilot forgot their backup glasses and their contacts broke or whatever. Just put it on the pre-flight checklist. If it's good enough for the mechanical parts, it should be good enough for an already-redundant piece of human equipment. > Do you want to fly on an airplane where there's a nonzero chance the pilot is effectively incapacitated because he forgot his glasses? Every flight you get on has a non-zero chance of a pilot being incapacitated. That's why there are two. Heart attacks, sudden onset of a seizure disorder, bad medication interactions, etc, etc. There are dozens of reasons why a pilot could be incapacitated mid-air. If my options are a pilot with glasses or a pilot with high blood pressure, I'm taking the glasses. An effectively blind pilot doesn't cause a distraction, and could be helpful to their copilot (doing radio comms, talking to passengers, maybe watching a gauge or two if they squint). A pilot in cardiac arrest is both incapable of helping and distracting. I wouldn't worry that much about a pilot with glasses. The glasses are unlikely to spontaneously break, if they do they should have backups, if they don't have backups then the copilot takes over like anything else that incapacitates a pilot. Hell, if it really came down to the wire, there's probably a decent chance that one of the passengers on the plane has a prescription close enough to make a shoddy landing.

Dylan16807 3y ago

That's not a legitimate reason for airlines. They keep ordering cockpits without an extra couple inches on purpose. And there's a ton of ways a pilot can become incapacitated. Having an extra pair of glasses is one of the easiest mitigations around, if the odds are actually that bad.

kortilla 3y ago
They don’t order cockpits. That’s not how the industry works. It’s also not about “enough space” in the entire cockpit, it’s about the layouts of all of the controls and being able to reach them. “Extra pair of glasses” is not a solution in severe turbulence where the plane drops 100ft in 1 second.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Planes can be customized, and the baseline design is based on what the majority of airlines want. It's the fault of airlines. Nitpicking is fine if you want to add more details but doesn't change that. And taller people on average can reach more controls, not less. For glasses, how often does that make them come off compared to any other random reason for incapacitation? And what if there's a strap trying to keep them on? Acting like this is the only risk factor in isolation is bad.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    There's plenty of scope for customization, but generally not in changing the shape of the cockpit. Airliners are good at fitting 99%+ of the population well. But, in the end, airliner cockpits have switches and indicators up "high" and stuff down low that has to be easily within reach, but also not crowd your movement. There's a lot of adjustability, but adjustability (seat rails, etc) has been causes of accidents. If you're within 5'2 to 6'3, odds are you can easily clamber in, fit, reach all the controls. That's all that's required. Even if you're outside of that range it might be OK (there is a 4'11 787 captain out there...) As to glasses, there's no problem with having poor vision if it can be corrected with lenses. Aviation is not perfectly inclusive or accommodating of every disability, but it's not needlessly restrictive, either.

hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago

Just because it was built that way doesn’t mean it’s not discriminatory. An aircraft being half a foot larger wouldn’t have been a big deal if they were built to accomodate tall people in the first place. 6’2 is not an uncommon height.

schmidp 3y ago
I am 6’4 and I am baffled by that argument. Not being “discriminatory” against pilot height is not the most important design choice in an airplane. What about a 7 feet tall person? Would it also be “discriminatory” if they can’t be a pilot?
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  How difficult is an extra foot? People only get so tall. But there is a pretty big difference between accommodating 93 percentile for men and 99.96 percentile, and that's only 5 inches in height between 6'1" and 6'6".
  - dividedbyzero 3y ago
    I think if you're in the 99.96 percentile for low height in women, that additional foot would be pretty difficult. You'd have a very hard time reaching all of the controls, and it's not like you can stand up to do so.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      It's definitely harder to compensate for having a shorter reach. But it's not a competition. You don't need to put controls further apart to allow a taller person to fit, you can make it happen with chair adjustments.
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > need to put controls further apart to allow a taller You know that how exactly? Maybe that the case but if it’s not maximizing safety and minimizing failure risk (so by extension any unnecessary complexity) should be prioritized over any accessibility concerns under any circumstances

lolinder 3y ago

> there simply isn't enough room up there for taller pilots to fit. Under the ADA "there simply isn't a wheelchair ramp up to our building" isn't a legitimate restriction on hiring someone who uses a wheelchair—you put a wheelchair ramp in. OP's point is that arguably the same should apply to other traits like height. The space constraints are somewhat arbitrary and could be remedied.

genocidicbunny 3y ago
That's not correct. The ADA requires reasonable accommodation, not accommodation at all costs. So yes, "there simply isn't a wheelchair ramp up to our building" is not legitimate, but "there simply isn't a wheelchair ramp up to our building and it would be prohibitively expensive or impossible to change that" does work.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  But if you keep getting new buildings made for you where it would be straightforward to build in but prohibitively expensive after the fact...
  - genocidicbunny 3y ago
    Which is irrelevant to the discussion for the most part.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      It doesn't seem irrelevant to me. It means there's a broken system and the regulations aren't hitting the right spot. Responsibility is being split in a way that allows the accomodation to never happen.
      - genocidicbunny 3y ago
        It's irrelevant because it has no relation to what ADA says about accommodations being made. Even if the ADA proscribed that new constructions had to have reasonable accommodations, it wouldn't really change anything about the fact that the ADA doesn't mandate accommodations in all circumstances, reasonable or not.

everforward 3y ago

> In many airplanes, there are legitimate restrictions on how tall you can be as a pilot -- there simply isn't enough room up there for taller pilots to fit. Right, but they were designed that way. It was likely known at design time that there was a maximum height. Standard bathroom stalls won't fit wheelchairs, but that doesn't absolve companies from a duty to provide ones that are. There are obviously different physical constraints here than bathrooms, but I'd be surprised if there was a physical constraint limiting this. As for the eyesight, this strikes me as the kind of things copilots and backup glasses are for. Require every pilot with glasses to carry a backup pair in their shirt pocket. Or maybe contacts in and a pair of glasses (turbulence may be an issue with glasses). I'd be curious if they're equally cautious with people who are diabetic or have cardiac risk factors.

genocidicbunny 3y ago
> Right, but they were designed that way. It was likely known at design time that there was a maximum height. Airplane cockpits aren't built the way they are for shiggles. Pilots need to be able to reach controls, and if you design a cockpit for fitting people over 6ft tall, it might become unergonomic, if not downright dangerous for shorter pilots. There are actual safety issues at play here. Similar for eyesight -- yes they can carry a backup, until they forget it. The safest thing is to require pilots to have adequate uncorrected vision, though some are loosening that to allow lenses. Do you want to fly on an airplane where there's a nonzero chance the pilot is effectively incapacitated because he forgot his glasses? > I'd be curious if they're equally cautious with people who are diabetic or have cardiac risk factors. To different degrees, but yes, they are. Some airlines will require their pilots to get regular medical checkups.
- everforward 3y ago
  > Airplane cockpits aren't built the way they are for shiggles. Pilots need to be able to reach controls, and if you design a cockpit for fitting people over 6ft tall, it might become unergonomic, if not downright dangerous for shorter pilots. There are actual safety issues at play here. If they can build a thin metal tube that can safely ascend and descend 30k feet, I'm pretty sure they can build controls that are ergonomic for people outside of a 6" height span. Of all the issues airplane engineers face, I refuse to believe that adjustable controls are the one hill they can't conquer. > Similar for eyesight -- yes they can carry a backup, until they forget it. This is how practically every part of the plane is. There are redundant parts, until maintenance forgets about it. Except here there's a redundancy of a redundancy; the copilot can take over if the other pilot forgot their backup glasses and their contacts broke or whatever. Just put it on the pre-flight checklist. If it's good enough for the mechanical parts, it should be good enough for an already-redundant piece of human equipment. > Do you want to fly on an airplane where there's a nonzero chance the pilot is effectively incapacitated because he forgot his glasses? Every flight you get on has a non-zero chance of a pilot being incapacitated. That's why there are two. Heart attacks, sudden onset of a seizure disorder, bad medication interactions, etc, etc. There are dozens of reasons why a pilot could be incapacitated mid-air. If my options are a pilot with glasses or a pilot with high blood pressure, I'm taking the glasses. An effectively blind pilot doesn't cause a distraction, and could be helpful to their copilot (doing radio comms, talking to passengers, maybe watching a gauge or two if they squint). A pilot in cardiac arrest is both incapable of helping and distracting. I wouldn't worry that much about a pilot with glasses. The glasses are unlikely to spontaneously break, if they do they should have backups, if they don't have backups then the copilot takes over like anything else that incapacitates a pilot. Hell, if it really came down to the wire, there's probably a decent chance that one of the passengers on the plane has a prescription close enough to make a shoddy landing.