At 59, His Career Is Up in the Air : Aging: Lockheed says safety considerations dictate that Kenneth Weir stop test flights when he turns 60. The veteran flier believes the rule is wrong and is fighting it in court.

Kenneth Weir has flown 235 different types of aircraft since he took up flying at 18. He piloted fighter jets for the Navy and Marines Corps, trained with “The Right Stuff” legend Chuck Yeager and tested state-of-the art aircraft for Lockheed Corp.

Now Lockheed says his piloting days are over. On Oct. 20, the day the Santa Ana man turns 60, he must hang up his pilot’s wings and begin working behind a desk.

Older pilots, Lockheed contends, are more accident-prone.

Weir disagrees, and for the last year has been fighting an industrywide policy of grounding pilots when they hit a certain age.

“There’s a mystique attached to test piloting, and once you get it in your blood you want to stick with it,” Weir said. “I don’t believe age 60 is the witching hour when you should quit this. If you’re still good at it at age 65, why fine, you should keep flying.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit on Weir’s behalf to stop Lockheed from forcing Weir to retire from flight activity. On Oct. 22, a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles is scheduled to hear a request for a preliminary injunction that would allow Weir to continue working as a test pilot until a determination can be made on whether Lockheed is violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

The case, said EEOC attorney Karen Baker, could help pave the way for other challenges to what she calls outmoded age restrictions common throughout the airline and aircraft industry. Because the Supreme Court has steered clear of making a blanket ruling on mandatory retirement, she said, age discrimination disputes have been settled on a case-by-case basis by different industries.

“We don’t think 60 is old anymore for most things,” she said. “But Lockheed is telling Mr. Weir, ‘This year you’re fine. But two weeks from now you can’t do it anymore; you’re not qualified and you can’t convince us that you are qualified.’

“It’s devastating, and it’s wrong,” Baker said. “It’s not just morally wrong, but I believe it’s also illegal.”

A spokesman for Calabasas-based Lockheed said its policy is based on a Federal Aviation Administration rule requiring commercial pilots to retire from flying at age 60.

“The physical and psychological demands on test pilots are even greater than among commercial pilots,” said Bob Slayman, Lockheed director of public information. “Our policy is a prudent safety practice. Mr. Weir is being removed from flying, but he is not being laid off and he’s not being fired.

“He’s been offered a non-flying position . . . where his flight skills and experience could continue to make important contributions to our airplane program.”

Baker said a court challenge to the FAA policy is pending.

Weir, a Lockheed employee for 24 years, included in his suit statements from several doctors who examined him and found him in good health.

“I am an extremely healthy individual,” Weir wrote in his declaration. “I have never smoked and I exercise regularly. I bicycle three to five miles a day, play golf and do all the maintenance on an orchard.

“I am the same person on the eve of my 60th birthday that I was when I turned 59, only a little better,” he wrote.

When a Lockheed vice president informed him last year that he would have to leave his piloting job and transfer to a desk job, Weir said he began an internal challenge to the company policy.

He was encouraged to continue his fight when test pilots at Boeing won a $4.4-million settlement in August on a similar lawsuit filed on their behalf by the EEOC. Boeing also had a rule that test pilots must give up flying at age 60.

Baker, who was the lead attorney in that case, said Boeing agreed to change its flight retirement age to 63 for the next five years. During that time, Boeing will conduct tests on its pilots and other flight crew members to determine how aging affects flight performance. Boeing will then base its retirement policy on the findings.

Baker said those exams will provide the first major data on test pilots, who fly under different conditions than commercial pilots. Most of the medical evidence currently used to make retirement recommendations in the industry, she said, is based on outdated research.

Baker also hopes Weir’s case will force Lockheed and others in the industry to conduct better studies about the relationship between aging and flying.

“Breaking that age barrier is very important, but we also need to have data to show other people that the sky won’t fall if you let your pilots fly after age 60,” Baker said. “We are kind of pioneers in that.”