8 ms·

Airline pilots have a legally mandated retirement age of 65. Running the country seems like it's at least as mission-critical as flying a plane.

by lisper 2y ago

foldingmoney 2y ago
iirc the pilot retirement age is at least in part due to radiation exposure.
- lisper 2y ago
  Citation needed. (I'm a (private) pilot and I've never heard this.)
curt15 2y ago
The president has a large support staff to keep the lights on most of the time. Unless the nation is physically under attack, the president's day-to-day job is probably physically less demanding than that of pilots. They have plenty of time for golf.
- wcunning 2y ago
  None of that support staff is constitutionally allowed to make the call to respond to an imminent or ongoing attack. We need a commander in chief and we need to know who that person is -- which was the whole point of the Presidential Succession Act and the 25th amendment. This isn't even a Biden thing -- we had similar issues with Wilson, FDR, Kennedy and Reagan, and I'm sure that some administrations had similar issues that were never reported or written about afterwards.
- nothercastle 2y ago
  Airplane can fly and land themselves for the most part it’s only in case of a emergency does a pilot really need to have quick judgment
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  Economic attacks are a thing.
- runarberg 2y ago
  Isn’t that true of airplanes as well? In theory support staff in the flight control room could instruct e.g. a flight attendant or even a passenger to land an airplane. However it is still not a good idea, chances are it will fail, so you do as much as feasible to prevent both pilots from becoming incapacitated in a large commercial plane.
- Perceval 2y ago
  > Unless the nation is physically under attack, the president's day-to-day job is probably physically less demanding than that of pilots. Having worked in the White House, this is 110% wrong. The Presidency is an extraordinarily demanding job. The cognitive demands and the and physical toll it takes on you is tremendous.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >They have plenty of time for golf. Only the bad ones. The good ones have less downtime than a regular person. Random dudes you work with probably golf more than most presidents do.
dankvectorz 2y ago
Air traffic controller here: we have a mandatory requirement age of 56.
- arcanemachiner 2y ago
  That's gotta be a pretty well-studied number.
  - otterley 2y ago
    It isn't. Whether you're forced to retire should be calibrated to the individual's capabilities, not based on a statistical calculation.
    - account42 2y ago
      Assessments of individuals can be gamed. Hard objective limits cannot.
      - otterley 2y ago
        It's really difficult to game timed and proctored aptitude tests. We've refined these systems pretty well over time. I can't imagine how anyone would game a test like, say, the LSAT unless they had the answers in advance or fraudulently substituted someone to take the test for them. And both cases are pretty easy to detect nowadays.
- standardUser 2y ago
  You have a really strong union.
  - buildsjets 2y ago
    You are joking, right? You cannot seriously claim that NATCA is anything but a paper tiger if you knew anything about the history of ATC unionization in the USA. President Regan fired all 11,000 members of the actual strong ATC union, PATCO, and barred them from government jobs for life. NATCA never bothered to negotiate their rights back. Some REALLY strong union. https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike
standardUser 2y ago
Political jobs require few if any fine motor skills. Why, we once even had a paraplegic president during wartime!
- throw4847285 2y ago
  Ironically, FDR pulled a Biden but succeeded. By early 1944 he was already dying of cancer and hid it, as he hid his disability. He made it through the election, and then died a few months after his inauguration leaving Truman in charge. Of course, FDR was more popular than Biden, but I do believe it was his closest election.
  - garaetjjte 2y ago
    Probably easier to pull that off in era before televised debates.
red-iron-pine 2y ago
airline pilots physically control the plane on a minute to minute basis. they need to be alert, have good eyes and ears, etc. the president has entire staffs, including highly qualified generals, bureaucrats, line workers, etc. to drive the ship.
apwell23 2y ago
They don't run the country. Capitalists do. And thank god for that. Can you imagine AOC, MTG or Trump actually turning the levers power.
philsnow 2y ago
I heard just last night that domestically it’s now 68 years (or somebody is trying to make it 68), but this sucks for pilots who’ve been flying for a long time and are now doing mostly international flights, because the intl age is still 65. The upshot is they have to fly only domestically from 65-68 (and this can require retraining on smaller planes they don’t have currency with).
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  It's still bad, because at that age, close to retirement, they surely don't want to deal with all the nonsense and mayhem that US domestic passengers cause.
heelix 2y ago
Similar for air traffic control. They recently opted to not increase that age for ATC. All of them should have the same standard.
drewcoo 2y ago
And no one past grade 12 is eligible to be a Girl Scout. Running the country seems like it's at least as mission-critical as selling Samosas. That's a silly argument.
- doomemax 2y ago
  That's a false equivalency. Airline pilots have a mandatory retirement age based on health and safety studies associated with the risks and requirements of flying a plane. Girl scout age requirements, as you might imagine, aren't based on the same criteria.
jonp888 2y ago
That's a completely different situation. It's measurable biological certainty that reaction times as measured in milliseconds and fine motor control degrade with age. Vision and hearing also degrade. The nature of hands on control of flying a plane means there are no ways to compensate for this. None of this applies to a politician making decision in a time span of hours, days or months and who can delegate tasks as they wish.
- hnfong 2y ago
  It's a completely different situation for sure. But I think the argument is still valid for other reasons.
- brnt 2y ago
  > That's a completely different situation. Yet Biden (and for some reason not Trump, who's well documented to have the same kind of senior moments but they rarely make it to the news) is raked over the coals for them all the same. Why do we ask the president to be able to walk a stairs, remember pointless ceremony, and all the other things that have nothing to do with performance in office (on which there has been next to zero discussion this cycle)? I can see that age is a risk factor you don't want for a commander in chief, anymore than you want it in fighter pilots. If so, age limits seem reasonable.
  - nativeit 2y ago
    Donald Trump doesn’t need to be nuanced, or even marginally informed, so his cognitive decline is hardly relevant to his role as Head Performatively Outraged Xenophobic Tax Cutter.
Projectiboga 2y ago
A counter argument for no, or better a higher age, limit is experience. I'm talking President. But some kind of limit, maybe 80 or 75, with some kind of fitness check up at Walter read Military hospital required for any over 40, 50, there are cases or 'early dementia'.

Airline pilots have a legally mandated retirement age of 65. Running the country seems like it's at least as mission-critical as flying a plane.

by lisper 2y ago

Airline pilots have a legally mandated retirement age of 65. Running the country seems like it's at least as mission-critical as flying a plane.

foldingmoney 2y ago

iirc the pilot retirement age is at least in part due to radiation exposure.

lisper 2y ago
Citation needed. (I'm a (private) pilot and I've never heard this.)

curt15 2y ago

The president has a large support staff to keep the lights on most of the time. Unless the nation is physically under attack, the president's day-to-day job is probably physically less demanding than that of pilots. They have plenty of time for golf.

wcunning 2y ago
None of that support staff is constitutionally allowed to make the call to respond to an imminent or ongoing attack. We need a commander in chief and we need to know who that person is -- which was the whole point of the Presidential Succession Act and the 25th amendment. This isn't even a Biden thing -- we had similar issues with Wilson, FDR, Kennedy and Reagan, and I'm sure that some administrations had similar issues that were never reported or written about afterwards.
nothercastle 2y ago
Airplane can fly and land themselves for the most part it’s only in case of a emergency does a pilot really need to have quick judgment
mensetmanusman 2y ago
Economic attacks are a thing.
runarberg 2y ago
Isn’t that true of airplanes as well? In theory support staff in the flight control room could instruct e.g. a flight attendant or even a passenger to land an airplane. However it is still not a good idea, chances are it will fail, so you do as much as feasible to prevent both pilots from becoming incapacitated in a large commercial plane.
Perceval 2y ago
> Unless the nation is physically under attack, the president's day-to-day job is probably physically less demanding than that of pilots. Having worked in the White House, this is 110% wrong. The Presidency is an extraordinarily demanding job. The cognitive demands and the and physical toll it takes on you is tremendous.
Suppafly 2y ago
>They have plenty of time for golf. Only the bad ones. The good ones have less downtime than a regular person. Random dudes you work with probably golf more than most presidents do.

dankvectorz 2y ago

Air traffic controller here: we have a mandatory requirement age of 56.

arcanemachiner 2y ago
That's gotta be a pretty well-studied number.
- otterley 2y ago
  It isn't. Whether you're forced to retire should be calibrated to the individual's capabilities, not based on a statistical calculation.
  - account42 2y ago
    Assessments of individuals can be gamed. Hard objective limits cannot.
    - otterley 2y ago
      It's really difficult to game timed and proctored aptitude tests. We've refined these systems pretty well over time. I can't imagine how anyone would game a test like, say, the LSAT unless they had the answers in advance or fraudulently substituted someone to take the test for them. And both cases are pretty easy to detect nowadays.
standardUser 2y ago
You have a really strong union.
- buildsjets 2y ago
  You are joking, right? You cannot seriously claim that NATCA is anything but a paper tiger if you knew anything about the history of ATC unionization in the USA. President Regan fired all 11,000 members of the actual strong ATC union, PATCO, and barred them from government jobs for life. NATCA never bothered to negotiate their rights back. Some REALLY strong union. https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/1981-patco-strike

standardUser 2y ago

Political jobs require few if any fine motor skills. Why, we once even had a paraplegic president during wartime!

throw4847285 2y ago
Ironically, FDR pulled a Biden but succeeded. By early 1944 he was already dying of cancer and hid it, as he hid his disability. He made it through the election, and then died a few months after his inauguration leaving Truman in charge. Of course, FDR was more popular than Biden, but I do believe it was his closest election.
- garaetjjte 2y ago
  Probably easier to pull that off in era before televised debates.

red-iron-pine 2y ago

airline pilots physically control the plane on a minute to minute basis. they need to be alert, have good eyes and ears, etc. the president has entire staffs, including highly qualified generals, bureaucrats, line workers, etc. to drive the ship.

apwell23 2y ago

They don't run the country. Capitalists do. And thank god for that. Can you imagine AOC, MTG or Trump actually turning the levers power.

philsnow 2y ago

I heard just last night that domestically it’s now 68 years (or somebody is trying to make it 68), but this sucks for pilots who’ve been flying for a long time and are now doing mostly international flights, because the intl age is still 65. The upshot is they have to fly only domestically from 65-68 (and this can require retraining on smaller planes they don’t have currency with).

shiroiushi 2y ago
It's still bad, because at that age, close to retirement, they surely don't want to deal with all the nonsense and mayhem that US domestic passengers cause.

heelix 2y ago

Similar for air traffic control. They recently opted to not increase that age for ATC. All of them should have the same standard.

drewcoo 2y ago

And no one past grade 12 is eligible to be a Girl Scout. Running the country seems like it's at least as mission-critical as selling Samosas. That's a silly argument.

doomemax 2y ago
That's a false equivalency. Airline pilots have a mandatory retirement age based on health and safety studies associated with the risks and requirements of flying a plane. Girl scout age requirements, as you might imagine, aren't based on the same criteria.

jonp888 2y ago

That's a completely different situation. It's measurable biological certainty that reaction times as measured in milliseconds and fine motor control degrade with age. Vision and hearing also degrade. The nature of hands on control of flying a plane means there are no ways to compensate for this. None of this applies to a politician making decision in a time span of hours, days or months and who can delegate tasks as they wish.

hnfong 2y ago
It's a completely different situation for sure. But I think the argument is still valid for other reasons.
brnt 2y ago
> That's a completely different situation. Yet Biden (and for some reason not Trump, who's well documented to have the same kind of senior moments but they rarely make it to the news) is raked over the coals for them all the same. Why do we ask the president to be able to walk a stairs, remember pointless ceremony, and all the other things that have nothing to do with performance in office (on which there has been next to zero discussion this cycle)? I can see that age is a risk factor you don't want for a commander in chief, anymore than you want it in fighter pilots. If so, age limits seem reasonable.
- nativeit 2y ago
  Donald Trump doesn’t need to be nuanced, or even marginally informed, so his cognitive decline is hardly relevant to his role as Head Performatively Outraged Xenophobic Tax Cutter.

Projectiboga 2y ago

A counter argument for no, or better a higher age, limit is experience. I'm talking President. But some kind of limit, maybe 80 or 75, with some kind of fitness check up at Walter read Military hospital required for any over 40, 50, there are cases or 'early dementia'.