The best investment you can make in aviation

Look in any pilot’s hangar and you’ll see a wide variety of oils and lubricants for their aircraft. Look closer and you’ll also see a variety of tools and different cleaning supplies for every part of the aircraft.

Then take a look inside the cockpit and you’ll see redundant systems to ensure safe flight.

“They want to be sure that plane takes them from Point A to Point B without a whole lot of stress,” notes David Hale, founder of Pilot Medical Solutions.

But often pilots forget to take care of the most important thing in the airplane: Themselves.

“Pilots wouldn’t think of putting bad, dirty, aluminum-filled oil into their aircraft, but that’s what they do with their bodies,” says Hale. “And potentially, it’s going to affect the risk that that machine doesn’t get you from Point A to Point B.”

And taking care of yourself can reap benefits far beyond getting from Point A to Point B.

Of course, it will allow you to keep your medical so you can keep flying. More importantly, it could have a huge impact on your insurance premiums: A healthy pilot is a much better bet than one who is not healthy.

“We have helped many people with both life insurance and health insurance,” Hale says. “When you reduce your risk factors, let’s say, for heart disease or you lower your weight to a more optimal number, those things are part of the tables that are used to rate life insurance. And so when someone’s cholesterol goes down, their weight goes down, their risk factors for heart disease goes down. They’re a better investment as far as what their longevity is going to be. It’s not something that a lot of pilots come to us for, but again, they probably should. And we can help with that.”

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Taking care of yourself will result in a longer, pain-free life — and a longer time that you can stay airborne.

“If we live long enough, we’re all going to have a medical condition that’s going to jeopardize our medical,” says Hale. “This is something that pilots need to embrace and not be in denial about.”

For most of us as we age, the problems are typically heart related. That makes sense as cardiovascular issues are the leading cause of death in the United States — and the leading cause of the FAA denying a medical certificate.

Simple issues such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart murmurs, or an unusual EKG/ECG may ground pilots for months. A heart attack, persistent chest pain, or a valve bypass can mean a mountain of paperwork and completing a stress test before you can get back into the air.

It was a cardiac stress test that led to Hale creating Pilot Medical Solutions more than 30 years ago.

An exercise physiologist, he was doing cardiac rehab at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. An avid pilot, one of his fellow Bonanza pilots had just had a five-way bypass and asked Hale to be his safety pilot. Hale went one step further.

“I told him, ‘hey I can help you get ready for the stress test the FAA is going to want,'” he recalls.

He remembers that he got criticized by some people who considered him preparing this pilot for the stress test as “cheating.”

“That’s kind of ridiculous,” he says.

Now, that’s one of the services Pilot Medical Solutions offers to its clients. He also was asked by the FAA to write an article on conditioning for the FAA stress test.

“There’s all sorts of things that pilots can do to prepare for the stress test,” he says.

“To say that we’re going to convert the pilot population to fitness buffs is probably a stretch, because let’s face it, pilots, they just want that ticket. They don’t want to hear about the fact that they need to work on their weight or that they’re not eating properly, but some of them do.”

And that’s what leads many of them to Pilot Medical Solutions’ office near Oklahoma City. That location isn’t an accident. That’s where the FAA’s Aerospace Medical Certification Division is based as well.

Many of the physicians who work for Pilot Medical Solutions are former FAA employees, who were charged with approving — or denying — medicals.

“We have the former chief of medical certification who ran the FAA certification program and other former FAA consultants and physician employees. When we are managing a case, we’re uniquely clear on what it is that the FAA is looking for. We have a true understanding of what it’s going to take to get something through and what is and isn’t necessary for the doctor to produce.”

He notes that most pilots — and their doctors — don’t have a grasp on exactly what the FAA needs to make a decision.

“Pilots don’t really have a heart for the nit-noid details that the FAA needs,” he says. “They often don’t understand their medical records. They don’t want to get caught up in all that. They just want to fly, and rightly so.”

He says that many in the aviation community personify the FAA, considering them ogres and heartless.

“But the fact is, they have been tasked with satisfying safety in the airspace system,” he says. “And they are just like anybody else. They want to do their jobs and go home to their families. If you give them what is necessary to accomplish that, we’ve found that it’s fairly straightforward and you can get it done.”

BasicMed

The advent of BasicMed has impacted Pilot Medical Solutions business, giving the professionals another tool to help pilots.

According to Hale, the company’s clients break down in a similar fashion to the pilot population.

“We have a fair amount of pilots who have first and second class medicals,” he says. “But we also work with thousands of the class three and even BasicMed airmen as well.”

And while BasicMed has been around since May 2017, Hale says he talks to pilots every week who don’t know about it.

“It has been a helpful thing for a lot of pilots who really don’t want to wrestle with the requirements and just want to fly a small aircraft,” he says. “We often use that as a tool to get someone where they want to go, which is flying. There’s a lot of opportunity with BasicMed that wasn’t there before, and it’s nice when someone calls and they’ve got a situation that BasicMed can serve and bring them back into the pilot role, much faster in some cases.”

Early Warning System

Finding the right tool for each pilot to navigate the FAA system is Hale’s specialty.

He points out that one of the things many pilots don’t understand is that while “the system is thick with bureaucratic components, the standards are typically very liberal.”

“If a pilot is willing to work with their physician and also an advocate like our organization, they can overcome many of the reasons why pilots are often denied or delayed. Many times, the biggest frustration that we deal with is the delays that a pilot experiences and sometimes, they’re not necessary.”

“The perfect example is a pilot who has a medical problem that happens during the time his medical is valid,” he says.

The initial thought is “well, I’ll have to tell my AME about it when I go to renew my medical.”

But it will save you time — and frustration — if you deal with the problem right then and there.

“You can send the documentation to the FAA ahead of time and they’ll approve it before your examination with the AME,” he says. “So rather than end up deferred, the pilot can continue to fly. Because many pilots don’t know that, they end up being delayed or grounded.”

You can only do this if you already have a medical certificate, he notes.

“If you are on file, you can send something in early that is germane to your flight fitness and the FAA can process it then,” he says.

Of course, this usually relates to health conditions that are relatively benign, such as dental work. Get the records together, “ask your doctor to be eloquent — don’t just write a quick note on a prescription pad, but give the details that are needed — and the FAA can often make a decision then and there.”

“It’s going to save a pilot a lot of money and time,” he says.

Some pilots are probably thinking right now, “Why would I take the chance to let them know I have a problem early? That’s just going to cause more problems for me.”

“All visits to health professionals are reportable on your flight physical,” he says, adding that if a new medical condition comes up that you will have to report, it’s going to be more efficient for you to submit it earlier rather than later.

But it’s also important to have someone look at it who has an understanding of what you’re submitting and whether it’s going to be successful.

“Pilots should not just haphazardly submit something to the FAA thinking, ‘Oh well, I’ll just shoot this their way.’ We see that too. And that can be unfortunate because if you submit insufficient information, they are going to come back and want more information.”

With all the expenses related to flying, why should a pilot add one more by consulting a company like Pilot Medical Solutions?

“Just like anything else in life, you get what you invest,” Hale says. “If you invest in your health, it’s going to pay dividends.”

And while most clients get their medical certificates, there are those who aren’t successful. But the investment is still worth it, Hale notes.

“Even if we didn’t get your medical certificate, we’re probably going to add years to your life as a result of this,” he says. “You may not be enthusiastic about that, but you should be.”