Copy of my email:
As a recreational pilot I find your article ill informed, sensationalistic & offensive. I belong to a website that promotes & supports our freedom to fly. We are in general, a very responsible group of pilots numbering in excess of 7000 in Australia.
We receive extensive training, including human factors, before we are granted the privilege of flight. I don't know about the rest of the pilots but I undergo a fairly rigorous annual check up with my GP who has known me for the past 30 years. We fly for pleasure, mainly well away from controlled airspace. If, as has been suggested, we should undergo psychological or psychiatric testing then this ruling should be applied to bus drivers, truck drivers, hell, just ordinary motorists as they have the same opportunity to injure & kill others as we do.
As for Ron Bishop's claim that a third of us would probably lose our licences after these tests, give that the credence it deserves, exactly where did he pull that supposition from.
I have copied & pasted a few of the responses from my fellow aviators on our website:
Rather a stupid argument. The German Wings pilot who killed so many people would have to have gone through all the supposedly efficient at weeding out medical checks. He still committed murder suicide if the reports are to be believed.
Maybe he did it because he knew he was going to fail his next medical.
Sophie Henshaw doen't seem to be very bright, subscribing to the argument she uses.
The comments reported by this Journalist obviously knows bugger all about aviation. It would have been better if the Journalist reported on some issue that they knew something about rather than going off half cocked. According to the Journalists knowledge of aviation ( which is bugger all) then the Journalist could even have suggested the all Pilots be grounded forthwith & of course this is neither logical or practical worldwide.
Oh bugger! Thought I was going to be the first to bring this to everyone's attention. I have just spent the last couple of hours typing out a very angry rebuke to this garbage which also found its way into the Advertiser, (South Australia).
Basically I had a bit of a hissy fit and suggested that the trash pedlar Matthew Benns should be forced to print an apology and correct the fictitious claims which he made. Perhaps everyone should send emails or letters to the editors of any publication that prints this crap.
My C1 medical has had bugger all to do with psychometric testing... Hows also not doing psychometric testing of RA guys going to help? Idiots.
I am sure there will be many more similar responses
Peter