The 'Twilight Zone'

This is your letter from the FAA about your airman medical that resulted from it being deferred by your AME, you reporting a new medical problem, or you being the subject of an anonymous tip on the FAA’s tattletale line. You are now in the FAA’s ballpark, also known as the “Twilight Zone.” They make the rules. They are the umpires, and they are the scorekeepers. You must play their game if you want to keep or get your medical.

Do not file this letter away somewhere and hope that it will simply go away. It will not. You must read the letter in detail.

It does not make any difference to the FAA whether you are a student, a 10,000-hour pilot, a graduate of the Navy Top Gun school, an astronaut, a test pilot, or a movie star. It does not make any difference that you know members of Congress or senators (the FAA administrator gets 100 letters a month from those guys) or that you are a combat veteran. It might make a difference if the president knows you on a first-name basis or you live next door to the FAA administrator—but I doubt it.

The letter usually starts out by saying the FAA cannot determine if you are qualified to hold a medical certificate. Then, the letter will have a specific list of what the FAA wants to see to make that determination. Follow the list in detail. If you need help understanding what they are asking, you can try calling the FAA, but it would be more expedient to call AOPA’s medical line or Pilot Protection Services (PPS) at 800-872-2672. Your AME could also be a great resource if he or she is willing to put in the time.

Most of these give the pilot a 60-day time limit from the date of the letter to respond. The most important thing is not to let the 60-day limit lapse without writing the FAA well in advance and saying you need more time. The FAA understands that it could be very difficult to get appointments for required evaluations with certain types of physicians, such as a neurologist or cardiologist. The FAA is generally lenient about granting additional time to obtain tests and/or consultations, but the medical department has its limits.

The FAA makes mistakes, as hard as that might be to believe. Sometimes they already have the requested information, but the letter was written to you before they received the information. If you believe this is the case, you can call and check with the FAA to see if they have the information that was sent. When the FAA receives written information, it is scanned into your electronic file. This process can take up two weeks or more, depending on the department’s backlog, so this delay may precipitate a duplicate request.

It is always important to send everything to the FAA by courier, which requires a signature from the FAA’s medical department. That way, if something is lost, you have documentation that the FAA has received it. It is also best to respond to the request letter by sending all the information in one packet, which reduces potential loss, plus gives the FAA “notice” that it is a complete response.

One way to slightly expedite the process is to have your AME upload the information electronically. Unfortunately, there are size limits on how many pages can be uploaded at a time, which is incredibly frustrating for AMEs. This limit has been scheduled to be corrected, but we have been hearing that message for quite some time. If your AME is good with Adobe, they can downsize the files electronically, but it makes them harder to read on the receiving end.

The important point is your medical is not dead. This is the FAA’s documentation mode. Don’t let deadlines pass without responding. Incomplete responses will cause more delays, so completeness wins over speed.

The most important fact is that 99 percent of pilots who complete requests for information will be successful in being granted a medical certificate. But you must play by the FAA’s rules.

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