why a 3rd class medical?

[896tr]

Why do we need a medical cert? Do they prevent heart attacks, or seizures, or any other anomaly that would lead to pilot in command incapacitation? People ask me why I would even consider flying one of those "little" air planes or one of those "dangerous homemade death traps, they are always crashing". My answer is "how can you get in a vehicle that could possibly be recalled tomorrow for a faulty brake system or a throttle system that could stick wfo, or drive down the freeway at 70 plus miles an hour three feet away from some one that you have never met that could be under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

Many studies have proven that air travel is the safest form of travel. Airplanes have to be inspected at certain intervals to be legal to fly (but we all know that doesn't always happen). How often does a car ever have to be inspected for roadworthiness? Even if a "small" plane does go down, the number of casualties is minimal (but still too many)

So why don't we have to have a medical certificate to drive the number one cause of deaths in the United States?

[efwd]

Probably because if you experience anything short of passing out, you just pull over.

[Wheels]

What is your question? Did something change while I was asleep at the wheel ... again. Or, was the third class medical requirement reinstated?

[Delta Whisky]

896TR - interesting question and I wouldn't propose that I know the full and complete answer. However, I was at a safety lecture some time back and the speaker said something that I'll never forget and changed my whole outlook and approach to flying. That was - aviation travel IS the safest way BUT only if you are talking about COMMERCIAL aviation. GA is not nearly as safe - from a statistical point of view. To bring this home, he asked us "How many friends can you name that died in a car crash?" Of course, the next question was obvious: "How many friends have you lost in a plane crash?" Sadly, I can name a lot larger number in the latter case - and this is only my 51st year of documented PIC - I hope there are many more. As to the third class medical - years ago the rate of accidents caused by a medical condition in the GA world was compared to the medical induced rate in the self certifying world - back then it was gliders and balloons - and the answer was statistically the same. (0.02 difference if my memory serves.) Maybe it was similar rates that contributed to our new found ability to fly LSAs. Just thinking and writing cus there ain't nothing good on the ol tele.

[efwd]

Hi Wheels. If I am not mistaken, 3rd class medicals have not disappeared. They remain a required element of the student pilot license. They also remain a requirement for me to jump through since I have not had one in the previous 10 years or something like that. Anyhow, I had to go get one last year so that I can participate in the Basic Med program. I have an LSA so I could have skipped it but I would like to travel from the Phoenix area, say on a Sunday eve, to get home to Southern Cal.

[KitKarson]

All the stats I see put GA aircraft at the same risk level as motorcycles. With that said all the reading I do on crashes it seems that if you don’t starve your plane of fuel, attempt the impossible turn and stall it when the engine quits on takeoff your eliminated all lot of the stats.

As far as the medical it seems a lot of people lie on them anyway or avoid seeking medical treatment from fear of loosing them. As mentioned above you just don’t coast to the side of the road when something happens so probably good that there is some basic risk assessment.

[896tr]

I guess my point is with medicals becoming less restrictive and some not even requiring an exam why have one at all? Ultra light's don't need one, para sail's don't, powered 'chutes don't. If medicals are required for some why not require anything that can lift someone into the air also have the same rules? When I turned 40 I had to renew every 2 years and at the next renewal I found out I have type 2 diabetes. When I told Oklahoma it was controlled with diet and exercise everything was fine but the next doctor that renewed my med. cert. said I was using Metformin and hoops had to be jumped through. I guess I am also saying that even though med certs are easier to get I will be a rebel and not get another one. And I need to go sleep, I tend to ramble when I'm tired. Sorry for wasting bandwidth but I feel it's something to think about.

Steve

[aviator79]

I am not totally against medical certification, and I'd much rather have an incapacitated pilot crash his paraglider pilot into my house than Cessna 421. But a bureaucrat in DC trying to make a determination on whether your type 2 diabetes is properly managed seems ridiculous to me. I like BasicMed in principle. You let people and their doctors decide if they are fit to fly. But, as Eddie mentioned, you still have to get a 3rd class medical at least once. If this requirement went away, BasicMed would be more meaningful. What does that 3rd class really mean 20 years later?

[Hockeystud87]

Just to correct one thing. Airline travel is one of the safest ways to travel and or be period. You're safer flying airlines than you are in your own home.

General Aviation is definitely not safer than driving. There has been many statistics that cover different stats (Miles flown/driver or hours flown/driven) both show results of planes being less safe than cars.

http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/safety - interesting article on the topic.

[av8rps]

But we all drive our cars a lot more hours every year than we do our airplanes...so the real risk is still most likely driving our car.

I remember hearing that an aircraft is 12 times more dangerous than an automobile. So if you fly 1/12th as much as you drive, the risk is the same.

That's what I tell my friends when they talk about how dangerous planes are...

[av8rps]

Oh, and on the subject of a medical:

I run a trucking company. Every commercial truck driver in America is required to have a DOT approved medical. Yet every time I start shopping for company health insurance I get told how our rates are high because we have such an unhealthy group :confused:

Having medicals proves nothing as you can keel over walking out the door of the doctors office (my grandfather died in his sleep the night after a complete physical, which he passed with flying colors).

To make the public feel better they should continue with medicals for commercial pilot licenses, just like they do with truck drivers.

But for recreational pilots there should be nothing more required than to show you have a valid drivers license, like LSA.

[PropWash]

All the stats I see put GA aircraft at the same risk level as motorcycles. With that said all the reading I do on crashes it seems that if you don’t starve your plane of fuel, attempt the impossible turn and stall it when the engine quits on takeoff your eliminated all lot of the stats.

As far as the medical it seems a lot of people lie on them anyway or avoid seeking medical treatment from fear of loosing them. As mentioned above you just don’t coast to the side of the road when something happens so probably good that there is some basic risk assessment.

Yes I have seen similar stats. Specifically, If you 1) don't run out of gas, 2)don't fly close to the ground outside of take off and landing, and 3) don't fly VMC into IMC, then GA is darn near as safe as driving a vehicle.

[Hockeystud87]

Yes I have seen similar stats. Specifically, If you 1) don't run out of gas, 2)don't fly close to the ground outside of take off and landing, and 3) don't fly VMC into IMC, then GA is darn near as safe as driving a vehicle.

This is actually very true You reduce all accidents by almost over 60% if you don't spins tall and fly into clouds.

[nyrikki]

While there may eventually be the option to just allow for basic med without the 2006 cutoff for a class 3 medical at some point in the future; remember that International law also ties into this. You cannot fly to Canada on Basic Med or with a Sport Pilot ticket as an example. We will see where the FAA goes but the 3rd class medical is probably with us in some form for a very long time.

Related to the stalls, spins and other loss of control in-flight the FAA is taking big steps to encourage angle of attack (http://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/USAFAA/2014/07/28/file_attachments/311142/InFO14010.pdf) indicators in even GA aircraft which is pretty impressive on how they decided to simplify the approval in the certified world.

I don't think that the forward spar design will allow for my prefered safeflight SCx AOA indicator options like the Garmin and Bendix King do work standalone and while they add another $1500+ to the cost and add weight they seem like a great idea to me.

While not perfect it should help during a loss of power during take off or other situations where an accelerated stall or a stretched glide happens during stress. I suppose it has somewhat less than a 50% chance of helping alert to a cross-control stall too.

AOA indicators are not a replacement for spin and other training but if you are looking to help mitigate risk consider it.

Edited to add:

This FAA Video (https://youtu.be/8JcjWnAJGKQ?t=960) will show how some of the options work. While just an opinion I think the typical pitot tube location may lead to some false positives for AOA but maybe moving it out one more rib on the wing or a bit forward may help. This is just a guess and I don't have data to show that it may be shadowed so just consider it yourself. I like the safeflight being on the leading edge which I think would solve this issue but doesn't seem possible without causing more serious issues as it would require cutting the forward spar.