Faa medcial background

[Bill Greenwood]

Most of us know that FAA requires pilots to get a 3rd class medical, or better to fly most airplanes above LSA.

Is there any real factual medical basis for this or only just that it has been done that way in the past?
In 1958 a law was passed setting this up for the FAA. Why?

Using accident reports for 1994 when this article was written we find that only 34 out of the 1989 total general aviation accidents involved any medical or physical incapacitation.
This 34 is 1.7 %. However, 27 out of the 34 were pilots who were impaired by alcohol or drugs, not something that a medical exam is going to change.
Thus only 7 accidents or .33 which is 1/3 of one percent were due to a genuine medical cause.

AOPA years ago(1997?) attempted the get the FAA to move to pilots "self certification" just as one does when flying a glider or LSA or in effect driving a car. There was strong support for this, even from the FAA, but then Sec. of Transportation Fredrico Pena killed it.

I am sad to say that Pena is a U T grad as I am. He was also instrumental in closing Stapelton airport in Denver.

My thanks to Gary Crump for his column in the July "97 AOPA PILOT.

[1600vw]

Just because one goes to school and gets a higher education does not mean this person has any common sense.

Tony

[lnuss]

I am sad to say that Pena is a U T grad as I am. He was also instrumental in closing Stapelton airport in Denver.

And got a Boulevard named after him. Don't get me started on Peña...

[Frank Giger]

A bit of history on the requirement for a medical in order to become a pilot:

The rule for pilots and physicals predates the 1950's by a long shot!

Back in 1916, the USA was looking dead in the face of getting into a modern war - and, as had been our history, was woefully unprepared. Aviation was in abysmal state - between the Wright brothers suing just about anyone building an airplane and few people flying, there wasn't a pool of people to tap from. Those who bothered with credentials at all were an unknown quantity, as there was no real standards for who could be a pilot.

After WWI the government sought to fix this problem. Along with a patent pool to fix the manufacturing problem, they decreed that every pilot undergo a physical exam that mirrored one for induction. They wouldn't need to train and pay for a pool of pilots - they'd have it in a database to pass on to the draft board should there be a war after the one to end all wars.

It worked. When WWII started to rumble, the first thing they did was tap the civilian pilot pool and put them in uniform - mostly as instructors. Remember that initial training for many WWII pilots was in a J-3 Cub, one that the civilian pilot was already familiar with. Transitioning to more powerful aircraft and learning military ways of doing things was just a matter of course. This was key to expanding Army aviation in logarithmic leaps.

Today it doesn't make sense. The pool of civilian pilots is wedded to reciprocating engine aircraft with a propeller in the front, while military pilots can go their whole careers and never sit behind a spinning blade; the notion of drafting a PPL and transitioning him is the long way of doing things - it's easier and more cost effective to start from scratch with a twenty-something year old starting in a T-38.

But government inertia being what it is, they simply changed the reason for the physical from induction pool to "safety." One can reasonably argue that there should be a minimum physical standard for pilots; for Sport Pilots it has been put as the same for a driver's license and then gradually ramped up from PPL to commercial pilots.

What Sport Pilots have shown (and, if they could ever get a handle on how many PPL's fly under SP rules, them as well) is that the driver's license standard is acceptable for medical purposes.

OTOH, we owe a lot to the Class III physical in what it's done for the safety culture of civil aviation. We routinely downcheck ourselves for things that probably wouldn't really impair us, erring to the side of safety - and then get behind the wheel of a car. We do this because we're taught from the first day that our medical fitness is the first item on the pre-flight checklist, and for PPL's is reinforced by medical exams. This bleeds down to us Sport Pilots, btw, as it's a cultural norm established for the whole of the group.

So while I'm in the Self Certification camp for PPL's (for a host of reasons, first of which is that a flight exam is only really representational of the medical fitness of a pilot at the time of the exam), I'm also cognizant of the contribution it's made to our passion. If anything, the Class III physical has become a victim of its own success, rendering it obsolete.

[rwanttaja]

Nice write-up, Frank. Interesting bit of history.

Ron Wanttaja

[MEdwards]

But government inertia being what it is, they simply changed the reason for the physical from induction pool to "safety."

Very interesting history, Frank. When firemen were no longer required to shovel coal in locomotives, the union found something else they were absolutely required for. The FAA medical union, including some AMEs represented by the guy whose letter was discussed in another of Bill's threads, is no different.

The other thread degenerated into economics and how some AMEs charge a lot and others are great guys, but I don't think money is the driving force behind FAA medical requirements at all. I think it's power, the need to believe that what you are doing is important, and the fact that many of these people KNOW they are doing God's Own Work, saving America from pilots dying at the stick and crashing into crowded schoolyards.

Bill's statistics were useful. They might convince me, but they won't convince the union. Anybody with resources can come up with statistics to support any position they want. And the FAA has a bunch. AME Dr. Bruce Chien on the AOPA board, a pretty rational guy, mentioned that the FAA even has (as I recall it) studies of autopsies on the brains of aged pilots showing degradation, to validate their requirements for more frequent physicals and, I would suspect, their honest belief that having us older guys flying around on drivers licenses isn't a good idea.

That's why we need to encourage and support EAA and AOPA, organizations with resources to compile statistics and rational arguments to support our positions. We'll never convince the union, but with enough insistent, objective pressure we (or maybe even Congress) may be able to force them to bend.

[Richard Warner]

When I started flying, you could go to your family doctor for the 3rd class medical and also the 2nd class medical. When I went with the airlines, I had to get a First Class physical and that was from a doctor appointed by the CAA. Then we got the shaft by getting the FAA with Elwood Quesada, who hated pilots, things started downhill. All of a sudden you had to go to an AME for any physical. Then airline pilots were no longer safe to fly after they turned 60. We had several guys on our airline who were in their 70's and were great pilots. One of them fought that rule until he died in his 90's, still taking a first class physical every 6 months to prove his fitness, all to no avail.

[MEdwards]

Here's that union I was talking about. This time a much larger and more influential one. From today's AOPA Aviation eBrief:

AMA aims to defeat driver's license medical
At a meeting this week in Chicago, American Medical Association delegates voted to oppose the Federal Aviation Administration's proposed driver's license medical rule change after testimony from a variety of experts. Only two experts supported the rule change. The group plans to direct lobbying efforts to Washington, D.C., to defeat the FAA's proposal.

[Jeff Boatright]

You seem to be under the impression that the AMA is a union. I'm not entirely sure what the AMA really is, but union it ain't.

[Dana]

It's not a union in the collective bargaining sense, but they certainly lobby for the doctors' interests.