High school reunion

Just attended my 60th HS graduation reunion. One of my classmates runs a helicopter service and offered us rides in his 4-seater chopper. The rides went off nicely and without issue. I took a photo of the chopper and pilot and realized I had just been airborne with a 78-year-old pilot with a pronounced tremor and lived to tell the tale.

Dave Bair wrote:

Just attended my 60th HS graduation reunion. One of my classmates runs a helicopter service and offered us rides in his 4-seater chopper. The rides went off nicely and without issue. I took a photo of the chopper and pilot and realized I had just been airborne with a 78-year-old pilot with a pronounced tremor and lived to tell the tale.

hopefully, the fly by wire stuff eliminated the tremor!

When I was in HS, my best friend could barely outlast the fumes in a lawn more tank as far as doing work, and he constantly would say things like "i forgot to wear socks" right before the wave of smell hit you, or "I think I forgot to wear deodorant today".  His coordination level was probably about the same as a 78 year old with tremor. 

The only thing I've ever seen him do well (which he does professionally now, including dignitaries) is fly planes. Guessing your former classmate wouldn't be able to get a medical if he wasn't fit to fly.

He is accredited for training and testing. He does the 5-yr. reevaluation of pilots, which includes a flight test. I had no worries, but I'm sure he has aged-out of a commercial license.

Commercial, he's probably still fine. i don't know if there's an age limit if you can pass a medical, but you probably mean ATP /airline, which I can't recall the limit on, but I think it used to be 60. (just looked it up - it's 65 now)

I've forgotten what commercial gives you, but it may just mean you can fly for pay. ATP with the age cutoff would be larger transport and perhaps with airlines (not sure anyone else could transport groups of people). 

A flight doc would clear everyone medical. I recall a local united pilot retiring when I was young, having a mild heart attack, and my PCP was one of the docs the FAA would allow people to go to to keep their medical certification current. that pilot lived another 20 years but the local doc deemed him unfit to fly and either his wife and sons or just sons ended up getting a license and medical so he could put them in the plane and still fly occasionally. 

I thought a lot of was interesting when I was about 18 or 19 and wanted to get a pilot's license and used plane later in life. Later in life brought more money sense for someone of normal means and that desire died really quickly. 30 years ago, the ability to just leisure fly on any kind of budget was already getting squeezed - it must be ungodly now. When gasoline was $2 a gallon, 100 low lead back then was something like 5 and a small airplane burns gas like a really big car. The helicopters must burn enormous amounts.