Aging pilots and aging airplanes were the focus of a recent meeting of Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 534 at Leesburg International Airport in Florida.
The meeting featured Mark Laughridge, a spokesman for the FAA’s FAAST Safety Team, who pointed out that both pilots and aircraft suffer from aging problems. If these issues are not addressed, they can result in accidents.
It’s no secret that the reaction times of younger pilots tends to be faster than older pilots. However, the past experiences in flight that the older pilot can draw on can be a compensating factor, according to the FAA official.
It’s important that pilots of all ages continue to learn, he added. Earning your private pilot’s certificate doesn’t signify the end of your flying education — actually, he said, it is just the beginning.
Pilots can continue to stay current by flying, undergoing periodic flight reviews, and utilizing many of the online courses the FAA offers, including the WINGs program. Many of these courses can be found at FAASafety.gov.
One of the problems some pilots have is complacency, according to Laughridge. For example, he said that some become so sure of the condition of their airplane that they either short-cut the pre-flight or skip it entirely. He added that 60% of general aircraft accidents can be attributed to this.
As the pilot population continues to age, so do the airplanes. In fact, the average age of a general aviation aircraft is 50 years old, he said.
They have been flown for years, overhauled several times, and may have changed ownership many times, with some owners taking better care of them than others, he noted. Planes are subject to annual inspections, but — again — some of these may be better than others.
One of the big problems with these older aircraft is corrosion, he continued. This is a problem that all aluminum aircraft have and it’s important to inspect the airplane carefully to make sure this insidious issue is not occurring.
“Just because you see shiny aluminum in one place does not mean there won’t be corrosion somewhere else,” he said, noting this tends to be more of a problem in those states that border oceans or in airplanes that spent much of their lives in these areas.