Expanding Drivers License Medical

I'd feel more comfortable if they limited to two to four place under 160 mph Vne.... maybe they said six passenger to give themselves room to
negotiate down. It's a pretty big leap that they are proposing and there is a lot of what ifs that Congress can ask. If they would start with the
Cessna 150-152 types up to 1950 lbs. gross and then write in a five year review with something like "if there is no increase beyond 3% in
total accidents" then it would automatically expand to six seaters I would give it more of a chance to pass.
 
No we don't need anymore laws. But they should add a bmi cutoff to the medical exception. I'm joking but it would be sound policy.
 
skyking3286 said:
I'd feel more comfortable if they limited to two to four place under 160 mph Vne...QUOTE]

That would count out my Socata Tampico. It maxes out at 105 knots, but is so overbuilt that the Vne is 165. I can't get anywhere NEAR 165 knots in it!

A Vne limit would have the unintended consequence of excluding extremely durable aircraft in favor of an aircraft design that has the cruising speed closer to the Vne, such as a Cessna 172.

No matter what you pick there are going to be aircraft that are right on the line that get excluded.

Jim
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dans2992 said:
I am thinking they need to remove the VFR restriction
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I agree. If a pilot is medically incapacitated, visibility makes little difference. I suppose the risk to other nearby aircraft is increased slightly if they can't see the aircraft in distress. But ATC is still watching, and anyway the chance of hitting another aircraft is negligible compare to the chance of hitting people on the ground (even though that itself is unlikely).
 
skyking3286 said:
I'd feel more comfortable
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Cessna 150-152 types
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Trying to figure out how your comfort has anything to do with it?

Ever flown a 152? I have, in fact, I flight instructed in one. At 6' 4", it's not very comfortable. Not sure what size has to do with it, either...?



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Comfortable with the chances of it passing.... not the airplane itself.

It sounds like too much of a jump for the first time at this.

Size has to do with politics and the ability to get this thing passed by people who don't know anything about general aviation. They see airplanes as a risk to the public, small planes can be a small risk due to reduced inertia and mass.

If this had been before 9-11 we would have a good chance at this. Post 9-11, it's all about public risk and the ability of people to get re-elected if there is one well publicized crash that does damage to the public.
 
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I'm going to be really interested in what Dr. Bruce has to say about this.
 
It that how we judge how productive our congress is? By how many laws are passed???

Believe me, too many laws and regulations are stifling this economy. If you own any kind of business, you know.
 
acrophile said:
I agree. If a pilot is medically incapacitated, visibility makes little difference. I suppose the risk to other nearby aircraft is increased slightly if they can't see the aircraft in distress. But ATC is still watching, and anyway the chance of hitting another aircraft is negligible compare to the chance of hitting people on the ground (even though that itself is unlikely).
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Yes, but it probably takes less to sufficiently incapacitate a pilot in IMC.
 
Believe me, too many laws and regulations are stifling this economy. If you own any kind of business, you know.
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I agree. My opinion is that the administrative branch has set up too many agencies and regulations and we need congress people with the hutzpah to pass laws to rein some of this in. Read Martha Lunken's article in the most recent issue of "Flying," and Martha knows whereof she speaks. This is at least an attempt at a start.
 
Hey if there is going to be "CHANGE", it HAS GOT to come from Congress.
Just be aware, the O-administration is very pro-regulatory ("think of the children") and is bound to oppose it; we have to "HOPE" for something better.....
 
In my professional opinion as an expert internet commentator, I think it's all going to come down to how much momentum it can gather in the GA caucus then in Congress as a body. I highly doubt it'll become a political issue because the public neither knows about nor cares about the FAA's medical requirements.

That said, I hate to rain on every one's parade, but there are only three days left in this session of Congress. For this to pass it would have to be taken up, debated, voted on, passed and signed by the President in those three days. Although it's unclear from AOPA's press release if this bill has even been introduced yet and I can't find anything at Thomas.gov regarding it. So more than likely this will be taken up in the next session of Congress, which unfortunately being an election year means even less will probably get done. But what that does mean is Congress will (probably) be doing a lot of small things for constituencies. Of which this could be one (the GA caucus has a very big membership).

So if this bill ever does get introduced and gets a bill number that would be a mighty fine time to start writing your congress critter.
 
mrdavedpg said:
In my professional opinion as an expert internet commentator, I think it's all going to come down to how much momentum it can gather in the GA caucus then in Congress as a body. I highly doubt it'll become a political issue because the public neither knows about nor cares about the FAA's medical requirements.
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In my useless opinion, nobody expected a divided congress to pass the Pilot's Bill of Rights, for them to pass a bill directing changes to Part 23, or the Spanish Inquisition, so I see no reason why the next congress couldn't get this passed.
 
First, yes!
Second, I just read someone in another thread say he'd immediately sign up for a sleep study if this passed. HAHAHAHA! I love Internet commentators.
 
Family physicians would be covered up with pilots that put off going unless it is life or death. I know a few.
 
F01LA said:
Isn't it congress who holds hearings and demands that "This must never happen again!" Will they now let this through which may allow a pilot with major medical issues to knock out and crash his plane into Johnny's playground?

What will happen when the first medical incapacitation crash causes deaths? (I know, this can still occur under the current system)
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Guys die on airliner flight decks, with recent Class I medicals in their wallets.
 
What I find interesting is from the more philosophical POV. The AOPA and EAA have been asking the FAA for years to relax regulations already in place. Sadly, the result of this cap-in-hand approach is for the FAA to just blow off the reps which supposedly represent the GA flying public.

In this case, since the HR has acted, it is the congress telling a bureaucracy that they must not do something. The bill could have been re-written such that it was worded: "The FAA shall make no law...." Where the pertinent details of the medical restriction are removed, and having the effect of returning some of our losing battle on the civil rights front back to the public.

This is a nice thing to see. However, since the FAA works for the exec, and the exec has shown little regard for what comes out of the HR, my first estimate is that this bill as it stands has zero chance of passage. Of course, the horse trading will begin, and maybe, possibly with some mods, and some monetization along the way this bill might sneak through in a you-scratch-my-back(etc) fashion for support on some other more powerful legislation.

It's a start, and it's a move in the right direction for the GA population. But - don't forget that if the non-flying public gets wind of this - it's curtains. (OH MY GOD!!! a person with NO MEDICAL is going to fly a 6000 pound plane and be in MY Boeing's way?!?! NOOOOOOOOOOO! (sorry for the shouting, but you get the gist)
 
I actually heard IT managers say, TODAY... "Well this maintenance window isn't that risky. I mean, our data center is in the landing path of one of the busiest small airplane airports in the country!" on a conference call today. As if that was a much bigger risk than human error.

I piped up, "Yeah and they let your Senior Linux Engineer land his airplane that he keeps at that airport right over the top of the server farm too!"

Utterly clueless. LOL. They had no idea what to say. They thought real hard about me crashing into their server farm and that they'd probably need my help to rebuild it. Heh. The awkward silence was hilarious.

But I like joking around. At one point they were polling engineers for a go/no-go and our Sr. Architect said, "I'd stake my job on this procedure."

When it got back to me, I said, "I'd stake [insert Architect's name here]'s job on the procedure, too!" Laughter.

Sometimes the meetings are just a bit too serious for a bunch of computers doing phone calls. Really. There I sn't anyone going to be bleeding out on the operating room floor and not going home to family if we screw up. Sheesh. ;)

But the "flight path of little planes" dumbassery was really over the top. Brain dead.
 
Lindberg said:
Yes, but it probably takes less to sufficiently incapacitate a pilot in IMC.
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Conceivably. The more challenging conditions are, the greater the likely vulnerability to partial incapacitation.

Still, since in-flight incapacitation of any kind is rare, I'd guess there's negligible chance of just enough incapacitation to crash a plane in IMC but not in VMC. But admittedly, I don't have any data to confirm that guess.
 
acrophile said:
Conceivably. The more challenging conditions are, the greater the likely vulnerability to partial incapacitation.

Still, since in-flight incapacitation of any kind is rare, I'd guess there's negligible chance of just enough incapacitation to crash a plane in IMC but not in VMC. But admittedly, I don't have any data to confirm that guess.
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People become incapacitated and crash cars every day, they die too. Do we ban people from driving? It is mind numbing to me what a nanny state we have become.
 
I'm hopeful we'll get something out of this. I can't see it changing what I do. I'm perfectly happy with my Exp/AB Sonex which fits under SP rules. That meets my mission now.
I can't afford a bigger Exp and won't go back to TC'd aircraft.

Will this new one still say you can't have failed a medical to exercise this privelege? If
so it's still going to leave a bunch of people fighting the SI battle to get to where they
can do it.

The resistance may be to the 6000lb 6 seat part. The number of incapacitations for medical reasons is pretty small .. so it sure makes sense. And the savings to the FAA in processing expense is real dollars.

RT
 
RV10flyer said:
Family physicians would be covered up with pilots that put off going unless it is life or death. I know a few.
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denverpilot said:
Best comment ever. LMAO. So true.
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You really think Congress makes money on their salaries? That is so cute. :rofl::lol:

It has nothing to do with the insider trading they can legally do, or kickbacks, or side deals, or...
 
jkgoblue said:
It that how we judge how productive our congress is? By how many laws are passed???

Believe me, too many laws and regulations are stifling this economy. If you own any kind of business, you know.
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Sort of like judging the productiveness of a programmer by the number of lines of code written. I always felt I was most productive when my line count was going down. -- and when my bug count went down, too. But if my output was less than 50 lines of code a month, that would also be awful.

Actually, I think that we employ Congress to be proactive in forming a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. I think they were not very productive in these efforts this past year.
 
AuntPeggy said:
Actually, I think that we employ Congress to be proactive in forming a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. I think they were not very productive in these efforts this past year.
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This has got to be the understatement of the year. :yes:
 
Geico266 said:
People become incapacitated and crash cars every day, they die too. Do we ban people from driving?
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Yes, we often do.

But the standard is rightly more strict for aviation, because the vulnerability to incapacitation is much greater there. Instant total incapacitation is dangerous for both drivers and pilots. But partial or gradual incapacitation--such as a heart attack, stroke, or diabetic alteration that comes on over a period of minutes--is vastly safer for drivers, who need only a few seconds to pull over or stop before they lose their ability to control their vehicle.
 
skyking3286 said:
Comfortable with the chances of it passing.... not the airplane itself.

It sounds like too much of a jump for the first time at this.

Size has to do with politics and the ability to get this thing passed by people who don't know anything about general aviation.
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Those statements don't go together. The non-pilot congresscritters won't understand Vne, knots, gross weight, etc. They won't really care. All they need to know is it reduces regulation for small non-comercial private pilots, and will allow the FAA to focus more on the commerical carriers where the real headlines are. So don't worry about asking for too much this go-round. They won't know the difference.
 
The strange thing is, I can understand the idea, and original concept of a regular check of an airmans health. We age, we don't always live the healthy life style, we don't see cataracts forming instantly, we don't realize our hearing is getting slowly worse, we don't always 'feel' weak. Any or all of these things are impairments that can seriously affect our ability to fly safely. So, the concept of a regular checkup is good, but the implementation of that concept has gone horribly wrong.

The recent discussion about OSA and BMI is a good example. I'm sure there are people out there suffering from it right now, and barely know they have it. So in this case, a guy with some serious OSA gets his student cert, takes a bunch of lessons, gets is PPL, and is flying out there with an impairment. The question then becomes what we all are worried about and that is how much nanny state do we want in OUR lives? How much govt interference for the protection of society(school buses full of kids driving under us) can we accept?

So, having said this, I will mea my culpa and say that some type of recurring basic health check having to do with eyes, ears, and motion might not be a bad idea every 3 years. I am sure my hand-eye coordination has decreased in 30 years since I started. My hearings isn't what it used to be, and I would be remiss in not taking into account these things with respect to aviation. I don't cut things as fine as I used to, but that's up to the individual and each person gets to decide how much risk they are willing to put up with. As I age, I also realize my judgment and perspicacity have improved.

We decry the crappy aged, or ineffective drivers on the roadway for the same issue we face in our own endeavor. We hurl invective at any driver which shows little awareness, or regard for their medical ability to drive a car, but want the feds completely out of the medical game with respect to GA PPL? I guess I'll suffer the slings and arrows, but I would be ok with some kind of middle ground. However, I would take the FAA Aeromedical branch out of it, and maybe provide a basic set of tests for each state or something. Not sure how it would work, but I don't think a test of vision, hearing, and motion sense is asking too much every 2-3 years. Maybe a bit more than what the state DL requires, but not the big mess the FAA is involved with.
 
Kiddo's Driver said:
skyking3286 said:
I'd feel more comfortable if they limited to two to four place under 160 mph Vne...QUOTE]

That would count out my Socata Tampico. It maxes out at 105 knots, but is so overbuilt that the Vne is 165. I can't get anywhere NEAR 165 knots in it!

A Vne limit would have the unintended consequence of excluding extremely durable aircraft in favor of an aircraft design that has the cruising speed closer to the Vne, such as a Cessna 172.

No matter what you pick there are going to be aircraft that are right on the line that get excluded.

Jim
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Pla - Card :)
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JB1842 said:
I'd rather take my chances with drivers license medical pilots than having dealing with this on the roads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5mhyYKRdGA
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That accident has nothing to do with medical incapacitation, so it's irrelevant to this thread.

Yes, accidents happen in cars too. But car fatalities are much less frequent (whether per hour or per distance of travel) than GA fatalities (see, for example, the statistics reviewed in the Nall Reports).
 
acrophile said:
That accident has nothing to do with medical incapacitation, so it's irrelevant to this thread.

Yes, accidents happen in cars too. But car fatalities are much less frequent (whether per hour or per distance of travel) than GA fatalities (see, for example, the statistics reviewed in the Nall Reports).
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Maybe not, but its a interesting video.
 
docmirror said:
However, since the FAA works for the exec, and the exec has shown little regard for what comes out of the HR, my first estimate is that this bill as it stands has zero chance of passage.
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He did sign the Pilots Bill of Rights and the Small Airplane Revitalization Act.
 
Palmpilot said:
He did sign the Pilots Bill of Rights and the Small Airplane Revitalization Act.
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He can sign bills all day. Funding them is a different matter.

Looked at your photo on you pilot certificate? How many years ago was that signed and the FAA is still waiting for the funding.
 
RotorAndWing said:
He can sign bills all day. Funding them is a different matter.

Looked at your photo on you pilot certificate? How many years ago was that signed and the FAA is still waiting for the funding.
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You're right in the sense that it's all about the money.

But generally, The Pilots Bill of Rights, the Small Airplane Revitalization Act, and elimination of the 3d class medical allow the FAA to do less, not more, so it's an easier implementation.

Congress is an absolute mess generally, but compared to the FAA bureaucracy, they have been very good to GA the last couple years.
 
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