Airbus A350

After 36 years in the cockpit, I was just one year from retirement when my airline told me I’d be training on the Airbus A350 — the most advanced airliner in service. I’d spent decades on the Boeing 767. The Airbus was a different language entirely, and at 64, I’d never flown one.

The whispers came quickly: “Even younger pilots struggle.” “At your age, it’s too much.” Some even said I wouldn’t make it through.

The training was a mountain — 7,000 pages of manuals, weeks in simulators, relentless exams. It was the hardest program of my career. And I passed with ease. Not because it was easy, but because my mind was every bit as capable as it had been 30 years earlier.

That experience taught me this: age is not an expiration date for learning, adapting, or excelling. We don’t all run on the same clock, and capability doesn’t vanish just because the candles on the cake increase.

Don’t count yourself — or anyone else — out too soon. Sometimes, the final stretch of your runway is where you prove you were flying at your best all along.

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