And the obvious degradation of the body's capabilities and its potential failure points (potentially increased by traveling 300mph at 10,000 ft). Commenter is right, 90 year olds shouldn't be driving cars let alone flying. Incredibly irresponsible. Also there's really nothing that cool or heroic about dedicating your life to testing and operating flying death machines on behalf of a military. Get a grip.
If you follow your argument to a logical conclusion it would require that we ban millions of people with mild impairments from operating machines. That is the worst kind of ageism, discrimination, and ableism.
Imagine that you studied and went through pilot training and got your license. Do you really believe that when you start solo flying that you, an inexperienced pilot, would be a safer pilot than someone like Bill Anders at 90? Experience, guile, and cunning count for far more than you can imagine.
When my mother was getting older I looked at age related accident data. I apologize that I don't have the reference handy, but it was quite striking that teenagers are far more likely to have an accident than an elderly driver. I guess we should ban teenagers from driving also? Experience matters a great deal.
How about if we find that recent immigrants are more likely to have an accident due to lack of familiarity with local driving regs? According to your logic we should make a law banning immigrants from driving. And on and on...
As far as your comments about military service, even if we are anti-war (who isn't?), it is still possible to admire the hero who is willing to put their life on the line to defend their community.
Get outta here with this ageist crap. I've know several 90+ year olds who are fully capable of independence and driving. My grandma was one of them. Hell, I watched a 93 year old deadlift 450lbs. While the likelihood of some 90 year old being too old for something is high, that means less when looking at an individual.
TechDebtDevin|1 year ago
dev_tty01|1 year ago
Imagine that you studied and went through pilot training and got your license. Do you really believe that when you start solo flying that you, an inexperienced pilot, would be a safer pilot than someone like Bill Anders at 90? Experience, guile, and cunning count for far more than you can imagine.
When my mother was getting older I looked at age related accident data. I apologize that I don't have the reference handy, but it was quite striking that teenagers are far more likely to have an accident than an elderly driver. I guess we should ban teenagers from driving also? Experience matters a great deal.
How about if we find that recent immigrants are more likely to have an accident due to lack of familiarity with local driving regs? According to your logic we should make a law banning immigrants from driving. And on and on...
As far as your comments about military service, even if we are anti-war (who isn't?), it is still possible to admire the hero who is willing to put their life on the line to defend their community.
sethammons|1 year ago