Viewing page 55 of 91

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Captain Harry Orlady

-3-

without real probability that employment rights could later be resurrected, regardless of the outcome of the pending studies.

I am not fully convinced that the approach reflected in the pending petition will adversely affect the progress of these other pending activities, or otherwise reduce the prospect of their success. Nor am I convinced that the current approach will, if pursued with care and deliberation, harden the opposition of our adversaries to our point of view.

I would not, at this point in time, dismiss the very real possibility that, as a result of the current approach, effective measures for the prompt completion of the current approach, effective measures for the prompt completion of an intensive study could well be expedited. We have, at the stage of the matter, an opportunity to shape its further development by means of the matter, an opportunity to shape its development by means of consultation and even negotiation with FAA should that be deemed desirable; indeed, a principal intended purpose of this new approach was to provide the Association with the kind of bargaining power with FAA in the age 60 matter which we have not enjoyed in previous stages of that matter. It has been my experience that FAA is sometimes more responsive to such measures than it might be to the results of a pure and objective study transmitted without accompanying elements of persuasion.

If I ever grave the impression that I placed little emphasis on the need for such a study, or on the value of the hard evidence which might be its results, it was certainly not my intention to do so. It has simply been my view, in this matter, that an approach to FAA from a position of strength and of frim advocacy would more nearly insure that the operational and other evidence to be produced in support of our position will receive the weight and respect to which it is entitled.

If I were to suggest a next step for our program, it would be one which would involve intensive Committee consideration of the interrelationship between this effort and the other ALPA and non-ALPA studies and programs which you have cited, together with such consultation as the Committee may deem appropriate, for the purpose of determining, as promptly as possible, what for our follow-up approach to FAA (if any) should now take. While the theoretical next-step belongs to FAA, I nevertheless consider it a possibility deserving of the committee's consideration that FAA might now be receptive to suggestions for a program of joint FAA-ALPA action leading to a mutually acceptable resolution of the matter, with, of course, appropriate interim protection for the employment rights of affected pilots. If, on the other hand, FAA is now left to the difficult process of responding publicly to our pending petition, as it presumably will do in due course, an open adversary situation, possibly ill-advised at this point, could well result.

cc: O.H. Ruby
Age 60 Committee 
Aeromedical Coordinating Committee
James E. Meals
Don Medole

Sincerely,
Herb