The issue of medical certification for private pilots is a deeply personal one for me, which makes the creating of this column even more self-reflective than most of the writing I do—and those of you who follow this space know that much of what I publish has involved looking deeply into the mirror over the years.
It’s been so personal because I have never had a “normal” third-class medical. From the day in the 1980s that I first soloed, even my student pilot certificate had a Special Issuance Medical associated with it. Therefore I have some real-world experience about the FAA’s medical certification process garnered over several decades of flying—legally—after jumping through the various hoops established by the Aerospace Medical Certification Division in Oklahoma City.
Back then, pre-solo, it came as quite a shock to me when I discovered that a drug prescribed by my doctor was on the FAA’s proscribed list of medications and that I could not just be issued a Third Class Medical after a cursory visit to the medical examiner and the writing of a check. Some months before I had experienced a circulatory problem in my left leg and was put on a blood thinner that the FAA required more information about. When I gave FAA the letter from my doctor and some lab test results, it sent me the first of my many Special Issuance Medicals.
In the decades since, instead of seeing the medical examiner every two years like you are probably used to (or every three years, when the rules changed) I had to be processed each year, with lab reports and letters from my physician sent to Oklahoma City. I’d see the flight surgeon one year, and do the lab/paperwork shuffle the next.
And each year I’d face the stressful wait to see if the docs in Oklahoma City would once again approve my Special Issuance Medical.
Then after 20 years on the blood thinner, new diagnostic technologies emerged that showed that my initial diagnosis was incorrect and I didn’t have to take the blood thinner drug at all anymore. I was excited to communicate that news to the FAA, but somewhat disappointed that the fact that I had been subsequently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes—controlled by oral medications—also precluded a normal medical. I was back to the same pattern of providing information to support the Special Issuance of my Third Class Medical.
I was puzzled all those years by the fact that the alphabet groups constantly complained about the extra costs, delays and difficulty of the Special Issuance process. I never experienced any of that.
The cost for the lab work required by the FAA was not extra, they were all tests that my doctors recommended yearly—tests I would have paid for even if I was not a pilot. As to difficulty and delay, if I got my paperwork in on time, FAA always responded in a timely fashion and my medical arrived. The stress I felt, in retrospect, was just the normal anxiety related to the uncertainty of waiting for the mail from Oklahoma City.
What’s this all about?
By now, you may be asking why I am telling you all this.
It’s because Congress has finally taken up the issue of medical certification for pilots with something nicknamed the Driver’s License Medical, and think as I might, I don’t quite know how I feel about it. But more on that later.
The General Aviation Pilot Protection Act of 2013 was introduced in the House of Representatives a few weeks before 2013 ended by Reps. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.), of the House General Aviation Caucus, and GA Caucus Co-Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.).
If sometime this year the bill is passed by the House and the Senate, and any differences ironed out in conference between the two chambers, and if it is then signed into law by president, the General Aviation Pilot Protection Act of 2013 (GAPPA) would apply to pilots who fly VFR at speeds under 250 knots and altitudes below 14,000 feet MSL. The pilot would also be restricted from flying for compensation or hire, and could only fly in airplanes with six or fewer seats and a gross weight of 6,000 pounds or less.
If GAPPA passes, the FAA would have six months to revise the medical certification regulations, and FAA would be ordered to send a report to Congress five years after the implementation of the new rule about its effect.
In short, if the law is passed, and you meet the standards for a driver’s license issued in your state, you will no longer need a Third Class Medical. Period.
In addition to Rokita and Graves, the bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Bill Flores (R-Texas), Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) and Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.). All four co-sponsors are members of the GA Caucus.
Proponents of the legislation include the AOPA and EAA, which originally promoted the driver’s license medical back in 2012 via a petition to the FAA. AOPA says that, if passed, the law would “expand the number of pilots who could fly without going through the expensive and time-consuming third-class medical certification process.”
Rep. Rokita said, “As a pilot, I am pleased to introduce this important legislation with my colleagues and fellow pilots. This bill eliminates a duplicative and therefore unnecessary medical certification regulation that drives up costs for pilots and prevents the General Aviation industry from fulfilling its economic potential.”
And Rep. Graves added, “For many recreational pilots, the FAA’s third-class medical certification process is nothing more than a bureaucratic hoop to jump through. It discourages new pilots and does not truly improve safety. As a pilot, I have gone through this process several times. However, like all pilots, I am responsible for determining whether I am medically fit to fly during the time between my mandated medical certifications. Expanding the current exemption makes sense and will promote greater recreational aviation activity across the U.S. without an impact on safety.”
EAA Chairman Jack Pelton chimed in with this: “This legislation addresses two goals EAA has long advocated: eliminating excess red tape in the medical certification process while maintaining a safe way to keep pilots flying. Our members and the General Aviation community have long supported a change in the medical certification process. This proposal will maintain safety, reduce costs for pilots and the federal government, and allow people to pursue the unique freedom of flight in the same way they can pursue other powered recreational activities.”
The House Bill, Resolution 3708, would significantly expand the parameters for flying under the driver’s license medical standard beyond those used under sport pilot rules. In general, it would mean that if your state of residence issues you a driver’s license, that would stand instead of the current Third Class Medical.
GAPPA differs from the AOPA/EAA 2012 petition in that it would allow more passengers. That petition asked the FAA to expand the driver’s license medical standard already used by sport pilots since about 2002 to allow pilots to operate noncommercial VFR flights in single-engine aircraft with 180 hp or less, four or fewer seats, fixed gear, and a maximum of one passenger. To participate, pilots would have needed a valid driver’s license and would have been required to take recurrent safety training to help them accurately assess their fitness to fly.
According to EAA, which invented and lobbied sport pilot certification into existence, sport pilots are allowed to use their state driver’s license to establish medical fitness. They must also follow any restrictions or limitations listed on their driver’s license.
Under the sport pilot rules, according to EAA, existing pilots who’ve had their FAA medical certificate or most recent application denied, revoked, withdrawn or suspended by the FAA “are not allowed to operate using their driver’s license until they clear the denial from their airman record by having a valid Third Class Medical certificate issued.”
It is as yet unclear how the GAPPA bill would address pilots whose medicals have been suspended, revoked or denied (or have special issuances, like mine) because the text of the bill makes no mention of such situations. It only addresses type of aircraft, passengers, etc., as noted above. You can read the entire text of the bill on the web at www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr3708/text.
Since its introduction, GAPPA has been referred the House Aviation Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, where at the time of this writing its prospects were uncertain. According to Govtrack.US, the bill had only a 14 percent chance of getting past the committee stage and only a 4 percent chance of eventually being enacted. However, those estimates were made prior to a promise from aviation’s alphabet groups for a lobbying push behind the bill.
I am certainly not a proponent of government bureaucracy and know full well that organizations have trouble giving up power, and the FAA is no exception. But the claims by AOPA, EAA and others that a driver’s license medical would somehow boost pilot numbers seems to me to need further scrutiny. That, and the assertion that the current Third Class Medical is burdensome may need further thought as well.
It may be unnecessary; that’s a matter of opinion—but in my experience, even with the addition of the Special Issuance process, it wasn’t that big a deal. Others may have had different experiences.
In my view the requirements of the Third Class Medical are relatively lenient, but as the pilot population ages, higher blood pressures and vision problems may become more likely. And here is where I begin to wonder about the necessity for medical review or regulation.
Why? Because as any honest pilot will recognize, flying an airplane, even VFR on the nicest, calmest day, is much more taxing on the human body than driving a car.
I am in my early 60s and despite my FAA special issuance—or maybe because of it, as I was forced to be more cognizant of my health if I wanted to continue to legally fly—I am today in very good health, with circulatory issues in my legs controlled, blood pressure controlled and my type 2 diabetes closely monitored and controlled.
But I personally know at least a half a dozen people or more who regularly fly without any medical at all (yes, it’s illegal) even though they know they have medical issues that would cause them to be revoked if they revealed them. (How many pilots do you know who do that?) Oh, and they all have current, valid driver’s licenses. There are medical conditions that won’t affect your ability to drive that would make me think twice about getting into an airplane with you.
Will this GAPPA bill, if passed, create more pilots? I don’t think so, because healthy young people don’t seem to be troubled by an FAA medical review. And boy oh boy, I see lines of young men and women just banging down the doors of flight schools and badgering CFIs to teach them to fly all over the nation, don’t you?
I wonder if passed whether GAPPA would just make some older folks who have at best been scofflaws, and at worst irresponsible, sleep a bit better at night knowing that they are at least legal because their states still issue them driver’s licenses?
As a reminder, as we learned in the beginning of our flight training, each of us—whether sport pilot or airline transport pilot, or even if we get to use our driver’s licenses instead of FAA medicals—must determine before each flight that we are medically fit to operate our aircraft in a safe manner.
Even though a driver’s license medical would make my life easier, I am still troubled by a total lack of medical review. Many states have no rules requiring any medical disclosure to drive; and we’ll have 50 different systems.
My personal measure of risk assessment was encapsulated in a conversation I once had with a brilliant and warm-hearted FBO manager and mechanic named Russ Bargo at KPCZ. We were talking about how I wanted him to approach the mechanical maintenance of my airplane. “My young daughter Katie likes to fly with me in this airplane,” I told him. “I wouldn’t want to live if something happened to her because I was a cheapskate.”
How would I feel if something happened to one of my passengers because I didn’t have the highest possible ethical standards concerning my health and fitness to fly?
David Hipschman is a private pilot, a lapsed newspaper editor and retired police detective. He teaches journalism at the University of Florida, once served as the director of publications at EAA, and is the editor the National Association of Flight Instructors’ publications. He lives in Fort Myers, Fla. in order to be near his sailboat, which is named Piper. Send questions and comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
