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principles, the adoption and implementation of which would take us a long way toward the achievement of a large measure of retirement security for pilots in the air line transportation industry: 

1. A lack of some better assurance of retirement protection is having an adverse effect on the ability of the air transport industry to recruit and retain qualified pilot personnel. 

2. Whatever the development of the years may bring, at the present time the occupation of an air line pilot is one which qualified men cannot follow beyond a period probably 15 to 20 years shorter than in other industries. 

3. Air line pilots ought not to be called upon to be the subject of experiments to see how long they can work in the hope that medical and technical progress will find some way for them to go beyond the relatively short working life which they now have. 

4. The existing air line pilot retirement plans, while they recognize the special problem of pilots, do not extend recognition far enough; even if the operation of these plans is continued in their present form, they will fall far short of meeting the full problem.

5. Data on the ability of pilots to adjust themselves to new occupations, in a period when that adjustment is easier than at any other time in the last two generations, suggest that in periods when the national economic activity is at a lower level than at present, pilots will have very great difficulties in readjusting themselves; those who must cease to be pilots after 40, or even younger, are likely to face semi-permanent unemployment. Any re-employment of pilots in such periods will necessitate very large sacrifices of earnings. 

6. A uniform retirement system for all air line pilots in the country is a desirable measure of security not only for the air line pilots themselves but for the employers and for the nation. Means to hold capable pilots in the air transport industry are essential not only for the orderly development of the industry itself, but as a highly important measure of national defense. 

7. Under a nation-wide system the pilots are prepared to pay for half the cost. We believe that any pilot who, after 5 or 10 years of service, is so disabled as to be unable to continue in his occupation ought to be entitled to an annuity not less than say, one-third of the average compensation of pilots, or alternatively, one-fourth of the average pay of captains. We think it would be reasonable to reduce this amount, at 65, by the amount of any annuity payable under Social Security. And those exceptional