The FAA has released the official BasicMed Comprehensive Medical Examination Checklist that pilots must fill out and have completed by a state-licensed physician.
It has also published a link to the free online Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Self-Assesment Course that satisfies the requirement for pilots to complete a medical education course prior to operating under BasicMed. [Read more…]
While many pilots are anxiously awaiting May 1, when third class medical reform becomes reality, others are facing a problem: Their insurance companies are requiring an FAA medical in spite of the new reforms, now called BasicMed by the FAA.
Take Bill Talutis of Murchison, Texas, who said in a recent Letter to the Editor that his insurance company insists he get an FAA flight physical and medical certificate. [Read more…]
Following the FAA’s announcement of the final rule for third class medical reform, GA’s advocacy groups responded, with the president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association saying this is the best thing to happen to GA in decades. [Read more…]
Now that the elation of finally getting third class medical reform approved has abated a bit, new concerns have been raised by pilots who worry their doctors won’t sign off on an FAA form that says they are fit to fly.
“Most doctors won’t want the liability,” more than one person has commented at GeneralAviationNews.com.
It’s also something that GA advocates are hearing, according to Jack Pelton, chairman and CEO of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). [Read more…]
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Transportation Safety Board, in a Safety Recommendation Report issued recently, urged the FAA and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association to educate pilots and aviation medical examiners about the hazards cataracts pose to flight safety.
The report contains three NTSB safety recommendations for the development and dissemination of educational information for pilots and aviation medical examiners about the risks cataracts may pose, particularly at night. [Read more…]
By MIKE LUCAS
As I removed my shirt and sat up on the examination table, my Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) asked me: “Have you seen a doctor lately?”
The question was curious to me. I have been visiting an AME physician every year since 1985. That question was, it seemed, a trick question, I was sitting in a doctor’s office. After my examination, I received my second class medical certificate that day.
The interesting point about this exchange with my AME that August is that 10 months later, the next June, I was on an operating table, scheduled for a quadruple bypass surgery. [Read more…]
By TOM DOUGLAS
Seventeen minutes without a heartbeat set Jim Poling off in a new and life-fulfilling direction.
“They say you can only survive 19 minutes with a shut-down heart, so it was a close call,” Jim related recently. “Even so, a stroke suffered on the operating table left me blind in one eye.”
The Canadian author had been living on borrowed time for more than 40 years – since the day when, as a 15-year-old, he’d been diagnosed with a congenital heart problem.
“It’s called aortic stenosis — a narrowing and stiffening of a main valve that controls blood flow from the heart,” he said. “I was told nothing could be done. Open-heart surgery was unheard of then. I’d have to learn to accept the situation.”
This medical finding was a double blow. Not only would Jim be living with a biological time bomb in his chest, his dreams of becoming a bush pilot like the legendary Wop May and Al Cheesman had just crashed-landed. [Read more…]
The FAA has released recommendations from an aviation rulemaking committee (ARC) tasked with providing input on how to assess and improve pilots mental fitness for duty.
The ARC was empaneled last year in the aftermath of the Malaysia Air 370 and GermanWings 9525 tragedies. In both cases, a depressed member of the flight crew is believed to have potentially used the aircraft to commit suicide. [Read more…]
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation has passed S. 571, better known as the Pilot’s Bill of Rights 2, bringing third-class medical reform one step closer to reality. [Read more…]
Two GA advocates have filed an amendment to the Senate highway bill now under consideration that includes third-class medical reform.
The amendment, which was filed by Senators Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and John Boozman (R-Arkansas), mirrors language in the Pilot’s Bill of Rights 2 (PBR2). Both senators are longtime general aviation advocates and Manchin is also a pilot and AOPA member. [Read more…]
