Military flight physical as FAA 3rd class

Low Level Flyer

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§61.23 allows military pilots to use their military flight physical for civilian flight in flights not requiring more than a 3rd class. My question is wether this extends to military student pilots that haven’t yet received their wings. In other words, does the military pilot clause in §61.23 extend to military student pilots? The FAA recognizes student pilots as pilots, do they extend this logic to military student pilots?

And if anyone has a reference for their answer, much appreciated.
 
Does a student pilot certificate require higher than a third class medical? It does not, so the military medical exception applies. However, the question is, are you a military pilot who holds military flight status? You're asking about a student pilot certificate. Most military pilots mil comp into an FAA pilot certificate if they're military trained.

The applicable regs are:
14 CFR 61.3(c)(2)(xii)
14 CFR 61.23(b)(9)

Edit: re-read your message: you're asking specifically about military student pilots. You would need to meet the definition of military pilot, which means holding on of the acceptable records as listing in table 5-7 of FAA Order 8900.1 volume 5, chapter 2, Section 15. I'm not sure what records you hold as a student pilot, but those documents are the source of records necessary for certification via mil comp.
 
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Thanks for the replies.

Brad Z said:
...However, the question is, are you a military pilot who holds military flight status? You're asking about a student pilot certificate. Most military pilots mil comp into an FAA pilot certificate if they're military trained...
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That's the question, does the FAA see a military student pilot as a military pilot? Also, the military comp doesn't apply in this case. In this case, it's an Army helicopter student wanting to train for their airplane single engine land private. But really the question has zero to do with civilian training. I would ask the same question about a military student pilot that owns an airplane and has a private certificate already with a lapsed FAA medical. Could they use their military flight physical?

WDD said:
If the FAA sees the military flight physical as equivalent for 3rd class, I would just go ahead and get Basic Med. When you show your flight instructor and eventually the DPR your Basic Med they're not going to push back...
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Basic Med wouldn't apply if the pilot hadn't previously had an FAA medical. Plus that doesn't change the fact that it may not be necessary if the military physical exemption applies here.
 
Just to clarify, this isn't about receiving an FAA pilot certificate through military training (military comp) as allowed in 61.73. It's about using a military flight physical for Part 91 general aviation flights (or part 61 training) requiring 3rd class physicals and wether this exception extends to military student pilots.
 
Low Level Flyer said:
Thanks for the replies.



That's the question, does the FAA see a military student pilot as a military pilot? Also, the military comp doesn't apply in this case. In this case, it's an Army helicopter student wanting to train for their airplane single engine land private. But really the question has zero to do with civilian training. I would ask the same question about a military student pilot that owns an airplane and has a private certificate already with a lapsed FAA medical. Could they use their military flight physical?
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Sorry-

I just edited my reply while you were replying. There isn't FAA guidance defining what a military pilot is. If your branch considers a student pilot a pilot, than the FAA would as well. Order 8900.1 defines what documentation is necessary for mil comp purposes, so it stands to reason that if you cannot produce the documentation necessary to establish yourself as a student pilot, you wouldn't be able to use the military pilot medical certificate exception.

This is a very unusual situation as you will eventually either become a winged military pilot or you will washout from training and need to obtain an FAA medical anyways in order to conduct civilian flight training.
 
Brad Z said:
This is a very unusual situation as you will eventually either become a winged military pilot or you will washout from training and need to obtain an FAA medical anyways in order to conduct civilian flight training.
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Less unusual is the non-pilot crewmember who has to go through the same military flight physical and can't apply it to the civilian side at all. :cool:

Nauga,
and the double whammy
 
Paging [mention]Velocity173 [/mention] for RW students info
 
Back when I was performing military flight duty it went like this. The examiner asked if I would ALSO like an FAA Medical Certificate. A document. For your wallet. The report of the annual military Phys exam went directly into the flight crewmember's military medical file. Which was kept in a file cabinet. No wallet certificate issued. Use of the military P.E. (You did NOT also request a FAA med cert when you took your annual exam?) must mean that one merely flashes a photocopy of their military P.E. for a single civil flight. A military P.E. does not require any pilot training at all. Not connected. The military gives the same physical to Loadmasters, Flight Nurses, tower operators, student pilots and flight surgeons. Cannot turn the controls over to these, however. The FAA is able to regard a P.E. by a military flt surg as a CL two equivalent.
Army, Navy, USAF and NASA Flt Surgeons are all interchangeable. A Navy F.S. once had to refer to a publication to make sure that he was covering my Army standards. He was surprised to find that the Army P.E. is more stringent than NASA's.
 
Maxnr said:
Back when I was performing military flight duty it went like this. …
Army, Navy, USAF and NASA Flt Surgeons are all interchangeable..
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Times have changed and have probably gone full circle twice. My first FAA medical was from a USAF Flight Surgeon who was also an AME. That was in 1991 and the only time a USAF Flight Surgeon issued me an FAA medical. By the time I was commissioned in 1996, the USAF stopped doing that entirely. By 2012, the USAF would let an Army Flight Surgeon do my annual flight physical since I was stationed at an Army installation. That lasted exactly two years before that stopped again.
 
This will probably require Chief Counsel interpretation :eek::D, as the service branches are imo, not interested enough to make specific reference to the definition of a pilot for the purposes of the FAA's use case. That's something the FAA is probably going to have to clarify. The DoD certainly won't.

Here's what I mean: Though I cannot speak for the Army, for the USAF, an initial pilot trainee is specifically categorized under the AFSC of 92T0 (student pilot), and that is the specialty code held even after graduation from UPT, which is when the aeronautical rating of PILOT is officially granted. But he/she will have a rating of pilot at that point and only from that point (UPT graduation). That's wings on chest, even though they'll continue to be 92T0 until entrance into their MWS/MDS B-course.

To further complicate things, the Aviation Service Date is issued once the flight medical is obtained, or the UPT class start date is reached, whichever is later. Which means, a pre-UPT graduation "student pilot" is not considered a pilot for the purposes of holding the aeronautical rating, but the aviation service accrual for gates and other flight incentive pay, does consider him or her a pilot for those purposes. Imagine now going to the FAA with either interpretation of when someone becomes a PILOT in the eyes of the Service Branch. It just wasn't meant to be used for that, so the FAA is going to have to clarify what trigger point they want to use.


I happen to fly as a civilian strictly under the provisions of the medical allowance in question, though have held FAA medicals in the past. I'm not the Chief Counsel, but my TLAR answer in this question would be, notwithstanding the determination of flight pay which uses the earliest date interpretation of aviation service in order to determine qualifying aviation activity, the person in question does not satisfy the requirement of the CFR until the Service Branch (ARMY in this case) issues the aeronautical rating of PILOT. I don't know when that occurs for the Army, but that would be my answer.

In my interpretation of the world (my perception is after all, my reality :D), homeboi is SOL until he earns those wings.
 
The BIG question is are you allowed, as a military student to pursue outside training for your Private.

When I was in USAF UPT it was NOT allowed, and doing so could be you booted from UPT.

In fact, you were not allowed to do any outside flying. If you had your Private, would could fly outside
 
nauga said:
Less unusual is the non-pilot crewmember who has to go through the same military flight physical and can't apply it to the civilian side at all. :cool:

Nauga,
and the double whammy
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This was me for a long time. Non-Rated Crewmember holding a class three military upslip for years. Not a military pilot, so couldn't use my DA4186/DD2992 as my third class. Finally the Army got tired of filling out waivers for us old broke guys, and sent us packing to the FAA. That created a whole new issue of vets needing class III physicals to perform crew duties with all the baggage that comes from 20+ plus years of service, and the VA disability claims drama...<sigh>
We need to clone Dr. Bruce and Dr. Lou...
 
Pinecone said:
The BIG question is are you allowed, as a military student to pursue outside training for your Private.

When I was in USAF UPT it was NOT allowed, and doing so could be you booted from UPT.

In fact, you were not allowed to do any outside flying. If you had your Private, would could fly outside
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The fairness doctrine is long gone. The USAF no longer cares about civilian flying during UPT as some sort of unfair advantage. It's now and has been for a while, generally treated as a high risk activity, to be filled out in the Form xxx-29B. No different than riding a motorcycle during UPT. Which I always found it funny. They let me solo a T-38 with less than 20 hours on the thing, but futzing around a Cessna on the weekend was considered hazardous to my health and the USAF investment lol. Not that most have the time or inclination to dabble in civilian flying during UPT. You're exhausted at the end of the week as it is.

Nobody would pursue civilian flight training during UPT anyways, the completion of UPT (T-1 or T-38 track) mil-comps you a CPL single engine AND multi-engine land with instrument rating.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Try @Velocity173 to get his attention as he is now tagged and will get a notification.
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I don’t have any FAA CC letter on the matter and I can’t speak for other services. If the OP is Army I can tell you it was accepted when I was in for students to use their 4186 (up chit) for a class 3. Only time the FAA reg gets into being rated or having passed the required tests is if applying for a cert (mil comp). Also, the FAA reg doesn’t specify that the military pilot must be a rated pilot under the medical paragraph. Pilot time in the Army can mean a rated in qualified pilot in the aircraft but a student with an IP is still logging pilot time or PI. You’re also on flight status.
 
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Pinecone said:
The BIG question is are you allowed, as a military student to pursue outside training for your Private.

When I was in USAF UPT it was NOT allowed, and doing so could be you booted from UPT.

In fact, you were not allowed to do any outside flying. If you had your Private, would could fly outside
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Unless the rules have changed, it was not allowed when I was at Rucker.
 
“They call them aviators in the Navy…they say they’re better than pilots!” No one will get that movie reference. ;)
 
The Right Stuff?

Navy also does not say you can’t fly civilian, therefore you can. My interpretation is that you are a military pilot as a student, although you aren’t yet “designated” as such. You do hold a unique designation, in the Navy it’s a SNA, student naval aviator. The FAA recognizes a student pilot as a pilot certificate, just quite limited in its privileges, however, the medical certificate requirements are the same.

A Nauga like question is then would a student pilot that somehow managed to buy training in a 121 program, need a first class to solo?

I’m gonna ask my POI about it though… never knew that reg existed.
 
Velocity173 said:
I don’t have any FAA CC letter on the matter and I can’t speak for other services. If the OP is Army I can tell you it was accepted when I was in for students to use their 4186 (up chit) for a class 3. Only time the FAA reg gets into being rated or having passed the required tests is if applying for a cert (mil comp). Also, the FAA reg doesn’t specify that the military pilot must be a rated pilot under the medical paragraph. Pilot time in the Army can mean a rated in qualified pilot in the aircraft but a student with an IP is still logging pilot time or PI. You’re also on flight status.
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I've been using the same logic and feel the 4186 is accepted, but some fellow instructors are questioning it. Was just hoping someone had something definitive (ie chief counsel interpretation, etc)

Velocity173 said:
Unless the rules have changed, it was not allowed when I was at Rucker.
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FYI, that's been changed for some time now. Ride a bull, fly, skydive... :)
 
hindsight2020 said:
The fairness doctrine is long gone. The USAF no longer cares about civilian flying during UPT as some sort of unfair advantage. It's now and has been for a while, generally treated as a high risk activity, to be filled out in the Form xxx-29B. No different than riding a motorcycle during UPT. Which I always found it funny. They let me solo a T-38 with less than 20 hours on the thing, but futzing around a Cessna on the weekend was considered hazardous to my health and the USAF investment lol. Not that most have the time or inclination to dabble in civilian flying during UPT. You're exhausted at the end of the week as it is.

Nobody would pursue civilian flight training during UPT anyways, the completion of UPT (T-1 or T-38 track) mil-comps you a CPL single engine AND multi-engine land with instrument rating.
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The reason stated before was not hazard, but getting conflicting training information between the USAF way and the civilian way. And some people were having enough trouble to NOT need any additional confusion.

When I was flying Military, when I got my annual physical, I just asked, and they gave me an FAA 2nd Class. They could not to 1st Class, unless they were also an actual FAA AME, which some were.
 
Pinecone said:
The BIG question is are you allowed, as a military student to pursue outside training for your Private.

When I was in USAF UPT it was NOT allowed, and doing so could be you booted from UPT.

In fact, you were not allowed to do any outside flying. If you had your Private, would could fly outside
Click to expand...
Times have changed. When I was a student, it was stated that "No civilian piloting allowed!" For some reason, several of us joined the Ft Rucker (now Ft Novosel) Glider club. After a relaxing weekend of auto tow launches we went back to class and banged the Flight Commander's ear about it. It looks like everyone was busting regs. Once the Ft Rucker Commander dropped in at the strip in his UH-1, joined in, and even did an aero tow with the Huey.
 
Low Level Flyer said:
I've been using the same logic and feel the 4186 is accepted, but some fellow instructors are questioning it. Was just hoping someone had something definitive (ie chief counsel interpretation, etc)



FYI, that's been changed for some time now. Ride a bull, fly, skydive... :)
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Look at it this way. “Student” is nothing more than a modifier to the word pilot. No different than instructor pilot, maintenance test pilot, or experimental test pilots. All are considered pilots pilots in Army parlance. You’re performing pilot duties are are required to have the same type of flight physical as the IP sitting next / behind you.
 
Velocity173 said:
Look at it this way. “Student” is nothing more than a modifier to the word pilot. No different than instructor pilot, maintenance test pilot, or experimental test pilots. All are considered pilots pilots in Army parlance. Your performing pilot duties are are required to have the same type of flight physical as the IP sitting next / behind you.
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Absolutely the way I’m looking at it. Just checking to see if there was any guidance I wasn’t aware of.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
Interesting. I never had a problem with that restriction, it made sense to me since the asymmetrical thrust was negligible in T-37s and T-38s.
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The problem was that it was also applied to airplanes that *did* have non-negligible asymmetric thrust with OEI, like the Hornet. The reason given at the time was that there was no published VMC - the Hornet NATOPS instead published AOAs for different configurations where OEI loss of control may occur. I'm glad to see the FAA came to its senses and recognized basic aerodynamics.

Nauga,
leaping headlong into the 20th century
 
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TCABM said:
I think that changed, too.

https://www.sheppardair.com/download/Centerline thrust restriction removal 2018.pdf
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Interesting.

I got mine removed when I passed my initial checkride in the A-10. The local GADO (before FSDO) did it. The reason was, the A-10 flight manual had a Warning that at low speeds when single engine, the aircraft could develop yaw rates that precluded recovery. So no Vmc number was published, but obviously there was a Vmc.

I was later told that the criteria was all aircraft with engines mounted in or two the fuselage was considered a CLT aircraft, so the removal of the CLT limit was incorrect.

Good news is, this letter means I am legal in no uncertain terms. :D
 
Quite the rabbit hole, but to look at it differently, just go knock out a civilian flight physical. After taking Army flight physicals for over a quarter-century, I've been decidedly underwhelmed at the extensiveness of my FAA 1st Class maintained for the past 5 years. Quick, painless, and done. At least my employer pays for it now ;)
 
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