I’m standing on the edge of 65. For 36 years, I’ve made a living in the cockpit, carrying passengers over oceans and continents, watching sunsets from thirty-five thousand feet. I’m not a genius. I’ve never been courted by NASA or handed a golden ticket to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I’m just a regular guy who’s done his job well, year after year, and maybe—if I’m being honest—gotten pretty good at being humble.

For the last quarter of a century, I flew the Boeing 767. She was like an old friend—straightforward, dependable, familiar. My hands knew her switches by feel. My mind knew her quirks before they appeared. Then, at age 64, just one year shy of mandatory retirement, my airline made a decision that would change everything: I would learn to fly the Airbus A350, the most advanced, complex airliner in service today.

The Airbus is not just another airplane—it’s a completely different language. Everything, from the way the controls respond to the logic of its systems, contrasts sharply with the Boeings I’d known all my life. And I had never flown an Airbus. Not once.

When I signed up for Delta’s A350 Initial Qualification program, the whispers started. I was the oldest pilot ever to attempt it. “Even the younger guys are struggling,” some said. “At your age, the brain just doesn’t adapt as fast.” A few didn’t sugarcoat it: “You probably won’t make it through. It’s too much.”

I could have walked away. After all, no one would have blamed me for sticking to the 767 until retirement. But something in me bristled at the suggestion that my age was now the limit of my ability.

Then I saw the scope of what I’d signed up for. The training manual was seven thousand pages thick—a small mountain of engineering, systems theory, and procedural checklists. There were endless hours of training videos, six grueling weeks in simulators, and both electronic and oral exams that could rattle even the sharpest pilots. This was, without exaggeration, the most demanding training of my career.

And here’s the thing: I sailed through it.

It wasn’t that it was easy—it was just that I discovered my mind was every bit as capable as it had been when I first tackled the MD-11 at age 34. The A350 training was harder, yes. The technology was more complex, the concepts denser. But my ability to absorb and apply new knowledge? Untouched. I aced the program. And to my quiet satisfaction, I proved a lot of doubters wrong.

That experience left me with a message I wish I could shout from the cockpit at cruising altitude: there is no single age when your ability to learn and excel simply “switches off.” For some, the changes may come at 30, 50, or 70. For others, the mind stays sharp well into their 80s and beyond. We are not all on the same timer.

So don’t count yourself—or anyone else—out just because of the candles on a birthday cake. Don’t assume. Don’t tell an older person they “can’t,” because some of them are still quicker, sharper, and more adaptable than you.

And when you meet someone older, treat them with respect. Not just because it’s right, but because one day, in what will feel like the blink of an eye, you’ll be standing where they stand. And when that day comes, you’ll appreciate it when someone sees you for what you still are—not the number on your medical chart, but the sum of your skills, your knowledge, and the years you’ve spent proving yourself.

Because age doesn’t define the runway ahead. And sometimes, the last flight you take in your career can be the one that proves you were capable all along.