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Most eloquent, Dr. RB! Thanks for your thoughts. I'd
like to see this in an editorial in one of the flying
magazines.
Spook
--- "Dr. R. B." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "The answer is simple....Where do you draw the line
> ??? There has to be a
> number,.."
> *************
> I guess I'm just a country boy. When I hear a
> statement like the one above,
> my first response is to ask.....WHY?
>
> There has to be a number? If you accept that
> statement, then by the rules
> of logic you MUST ALSO accept the following
> statement:
>
> A committee sitting in a room knows
> more about a pilot's physical ability to fly an
> airplane than the doctor
> examining him. Or her.
>
> My friends, from my heart, when we start believing
> that, no matter how many
> planes are in the air, aviation is dead. And no
> matter how many of us
> are still walking around, we are dead also.
>
> But sure, there have to be SOME numbers.
> There has to be a number for vision: 20/40,
> 20/200,...and so on.
> There has to be a number for heartbeats: 120/70,
> 95/65...and so on.
>
> BUT THERE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A NUMBER FOR AGE.
>
> We Baby Boomers comprise a 40 million person spike
> in American generational
> demographics. America will never produce
> another generation as large as ours. Many of us are
> now entering retirement
> age and ALL OF US ARE OVER 40! Now think about that
> for a moment, and think
> about the POWER we have.
>
> The FAA must confront the question of qualifying
> ageing pilots for two
> reasons:
>
> First, the numbers I just quoted. Many of us now
> have the time, the money,
> and the what-the-hell attitude required to blow
> thousands on this wonderful
> passtime and we're starting to flood into the
> training stream.
>
> Second, the emergence of the Sport Pilot sub-genre
> of aviation will attract
> us by droves. The FAA MUST address this, and we
> MUST make sure they do it
> in an inclusionary way, not in the exclusionary way
> that their regulations
> are now written.
>
> Today, the vision underpinning FAA's entire
> regulatory mechanism is this:
>
> "The Reg Is Made; We Know Best; God Help You If You
> Violate."
>
> We MUST change that attitude to this:
>
> "These Regs Are Made To Keep You Safe And To
> Encourage You To Fly."
>
> We can do this.
>
> Dr. R. Beeman
>
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