Pilots make dozens of judgment calls on every flight. And some of the most important happen even before we get to the airport—such as deciding if the weather is good enough to launch and determining whether we are in the right frame of body and mind to fly safely. It's this last consideration—our fitness to fly—that I want to talk about.
The majority of pilots must visit an aviation medical examiner (AME) at least once every couple of years—a little less often if you’re young, considerably more often if you fly for a living.
You’re basically healthy and you want to fly only for recreation. Do you really need to spend the time and money for those routine AME visits? Maybe not. Experience has shown that self-certifying your fitness to fly can be at least as safe as having an AME certify your fitness every couple of years.
Every time you get behind the wheel of a car, you’re making a judgment call that you are fit to drive. Every time you climb into the cockpit of an aircraft, you’re doing the same thing. Yes, you have the stamp of approval from a medical examiner. But the doctor isn’t clearing you for each and every flight. It’s up to you to determine whether or not you are physically and emotionally ready to take the controls. You wouldn’t fly if you’d been drinking alcohol or if you were taking medication that could impair your performance. Nor would you take off if you were too tired to complete your journey safely.
Pilots make those decisions every time they fly—and it’s a system that works well. The driver’s license medical standard for the sport pilot certificate takes the idea even further, cutting out the medical examiner entirely. If you’re healthy enough to have a driver’s license, you’re healthy enough to have a pilot certificate. Pilots who fly under the driver’s license medical standard determine their fitness before each and every takeoff.
In the five-plus years that sport pilots have been using the driver’s license medical, not one of these pilots has had an accident caused by medical factors. Not one.
If these pilots can fly safely without regular visits to the AME, why not you?
AOPA and EAA have joined forces to ask the FAA for an exemption that will expand the driver’s license medical standard. Under our proposal there would be some restrictions: You could only fly in daytime VFR conditions; you would have to fly exclusively for recreation—no business flying allowed; you could carry just one passenger; and you’d have to fly a single-engine piston aircraft with fixed gear, no more than 180 horsepower, and no more than four seats.
Even with these restrictions, our proposal would significantly expand the number of aircraft and pilots that would qualify.
Participating pilots would have to take both initial and recurring education on how to properly evaluate their readiness to fly. The increased awareness of aeromedical factors could do much to improve the judgment calls that pilots make, and the educational course would be available online for your convenience.
I’ve mentioned saving money a couple of times—finding ways to reduce the cost of flying is important. So just how much money could be saved? Conservative estimates show that we could save pilots almost $250 million over 10 years and save the federal government more than $11 million in the same period. Not bad.
We’ll be filing our petition in 2012. I’ll keep you up to date on our progress. In the meantime, make sure you’re using your best judgment every time you fly.
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