BasicMed changes in 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act

Clip4 said:
I kinda think if you permitted under an private pilot certificate with IR and a couple CFI endorsements to strap on a 6000# airplane with 5 passengers on board doing 325 knots true in IMC at night an initial class 3 exam isn’t overly burdensome.
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I kinda think it is.

Consider that with no medical exam at all you can load a dozen or so passengers into your poorly maintained 1980 van and sail down the most dangerous stretch of interstate in the country, in heavy traffic, in the rain, having last taken a driving test when you were in high school.

Society has decided that risk is acceptable.

The pilot you’re so worried about has had a medical exam, passed a course in aeromedical risk management, had a flight review within the last two years, has made at least three successful landings in the last 90 days, and is flying a plane which has had an annual inspection to ascertain its airworthiness.
 
Baked Potato said:
I think we're conflating two things: the ability for someone to be eligible for BasicMed vs someone who can actually pass it.

Remember that the "disqualifying conditions" for BasicMed, in essence, also include all of the conditions for a 3rd Class medical, since one must have that before being eligible for BasicMed. And very few otherwise very healthy people (of body and mind), the requirements for the FAA medicals are very burdensome to overcome due to the all-encompasing nature of the questions.
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FIFY. The complaints you read on POA isn’t what’s happening in the real world to >90% of the people presenting for a Class 3.
 
Half Fast said:
I kinda think it is.

Consider that with no medical exam at all you can load a dozen or so passengers into your poorly maintained 1980 van and sail down the most dangerous stretch of interstate in the country, in heavy traffic, in the rain, having last taken a driving test when you were in high school.

Society has decided that risk is acceptable.

The pilot you’re so worried about has had a medical exam, passed a course in aeromedical risk management, had a flight review within the last two years, has made at least three successful landings in the last 90 days, and is flying a plane which has had an annual inspection to ascertain its airworthiness.
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Wow, the 1 hour flight review 23 months ago and the half hour spent to do 3 successful landings 12 weeks ago certainly changed my mind, LOL.
 
Clip4 said:
Wow, the 1 hour flight review 23 months weeks ago and 3 successful landings 12 weeks ago certainly changed my mind, LOL.
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Better than what you have to do to drive that broken down van, isn’t it?
 
:rolleyes: Never once in my life have I ever gone out my front door in the morning and wonder if a medically incapacitated GA pilot was going to take me out. Traffic and bozos in cars? Yes, those register as risks.

Passengers and cargo? Yes, I see the need for medicals. For the non-rev GA fleet? Nope!
 
It's such a shame the FAA implemented these medical regulations after so many here acquired their ratings. No one saw any of this coming.
 
It’s worth mentioning that whatever the medical standards are for driving is generally irrelevant.

Drivers license standards are set by individual states. Airman certification standards are federal.

Ultimately the minimum standards for aviation will not be set purely by statistical data, but by the public expectation as interpreted by the legislative branch (what is directed to the FAA by Congress) and the Executive Branch (what the White House is willing to support from an administrative perspective). We’ve seen both branches exert influence regarding medical eligibility at some point. Just as runway incursions are starting to attract attention thanks to social media, medical incapacitation incidents garner headlines. That’s bad for BasicMed , or any easing of medical eligibility standards, even if such incidents are statistically rare. It’s hard often hard to convince elected officials and their political appointees to go along with easing medical eligibility standards for fear of being “less safe”, even when arguably that might not be the case.
 
Doc Holliday said:
How much skill is involved in driving a van on a highway, versus flying an aircraft?
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I’ll probably get flamed for this, but not much difference. There are mostly decent pilots flying around, mixed in with about 20% complete idiots; sadly, most of those idiots think they are good at what they do and expect the rest of the sky to operate around their whims…just like idiot drivers. Flying a single engine fixed pitched plane doesn’t take any more skill than driving a standard car; with enough practice, nearly anyone can do it.

But I agree with others, the medical certificate, regardless of type, has nothing to do with skill set.
 
Half Fast said:
I kinda think it is.

Consider that with no medical exam at all you can load a dozen or so passengers into your poorly maintained 1980 van and sail down the most dangerous stretch of interstate in the country, in heavy traffic, in the rain, having last taken a driving test when you were in high school.

Society has decided that risk is acceptable.

The pilot you’re so worried about has had a medical exam, passed a course in aeromedical risk management, had a flight review within the last two years, has made at least three successful landings in the last 90 days, and is flying a plane which has had an annual inspection to ascertain its airworthiness.
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I've always thought the 3rd class prior to basicmed made sense, but this is the first argument that has made me reconsider that.

For the sake of argument, I'll say that having higher health standards for than drivers makes sense because once, you take off, you have to land. If you have a sudden debilitating pain, you can't just pull over and stop. 2-3 times per month we get medical calls to the state police station or the rest areas on the interstate here for someone who has a medical event while driving.
 
Jim K said:
For the sake of argument, I'll say that having higher health standards for than drivers makes sense...
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I won't argue that point. I'll merely point out that Basic Med accomplishes "having a higher health standard" and the initial 3rd class does very little to enhance it, especially considering that the 3rd class could have been issued more than 15 years ago.
 
Jim K said:
I've always thought the 3rd class prior to basicmed made sense, but this is the first argument that has made me reconsider that.

For the sake of argument, I'll say that having higher health standards for than drivers makes sense because once, you take off, you have to land. If you have a sudden debilitating pain, you can't just pull over and stop. 2-3 times per month we get medical calls to the state police station or the rest areas on the interstate here for someone who has a medical event while driving.
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The issue for me, at least, is the "Have you ever..." questions. I'd be golden if they were changed to something like "Have you in the past 25 years...".

There are a lot of people that had events or conditions during childhood or puberty that are not relevant to their current health or cognitive picture. But the FAA needs to know all of it regardless, unfortunately. And you have to prove a negative, basically, to satisfy them.
 
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Doc Holliday said:
Nope. Not even close. Again, you're trying to argue apples vs bulldozers. :rolleyes:
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Evaluation of hazards has absolutely nothing to do with evaluation of skills required to perform a task.

Higher/lower skill/proficiency can be used to reduce/increase the probably of a hazard occuring.
 
Brad Z said:
It’s worth mentioning that whatever the medical standards are for driving is generally irrelevant.

Drivers license standards are set by individual states. Airman certification standards are federal.
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What about Light Sport pilots and LSA's? If MOSAIC ever happens and there are provisions for LSA's to cover aircraft with more than two seats it seems like driving medical standards are not irrelevant but even more relevant...

Brad Z said:
Ultimately the minimum standards for aviation will not be set purely by statistical data, but by the public expectation as interpreted by the legislative branch (what is directed to the FAA by Congress) and the Executive Branch (what the White House is willing to support from an administrative perspective). We’ve seen both branches exert influence regarding medical eligibility at some point. Just as runway incursions are starting to attract attention thanks to social media, medical incapacitation incidents garner headlines. That’s bad for BasicMed , or any easing of medical eligibility standards, even if such incidents are statistically rare. It’s hard often hard to convince elected officials and their political appointees to go along with easing medical eligibility standards for fear of being “less safe”, even when arguably that might not be the case.
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Appreciate the admission that Medical Certification standards aren't totally grounded in science. Interesting report, thanks for including that link! I skimmed it and could have missed it, but it sure seems lacking in that the data and conclusions were on accidents and fatal accidents, but didn't attempt to separate the accidents where medical incapacitation was a direct cause of the accident. I also found it informative that if I drop BasicMed and go back to a SI I will have 33% lower odds of croaking. Awesome!
 
jbarrass said:
I find driving my truck on the DC beltway requires much more skill than flying my Yankee over the farmland.

Far, far, more scary and risky too IMHO.

Not even close.
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The DC beltway is like a CTAF airport where right of way rules are optional and also nobody has a radio, and where the pattern is jam-packed all hours of the day and in all weather conditions
 
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idahoflier said:
... Interesting report, thanks for including that link! I skimmed it and could have missed it, but it sure seems lacking in that the data and conclusions were on accidents and fatal accidents, but didn't attempt to separate the accidents where medical incapacitation was a direct cause of the accident. I also found it informative that if I drop BasicMed and go back to a SI I will have 33% lower odds of croaking. Awesome!
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I saw that the report identifies some increased risk factors for medical incapacitation among BasicMed pilots. It also notes that the overall accident statistics are not any worse for BasicMed pilots than those with third-class medicals. This may suggest that BasicMed pilots are at least doing a good job of assessing their medical fitness for each flight.
 
Doc Holliday said:
How much skill is involved in driving a van on a highway, versus flying an aircraft?
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Doc Holliday said:
How does medical fitness affect a skill level? Is someone who is in poor health able to accomplish task at a high skill level?
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Let's try to keep the goalposts in one place. A doctor is only going to determine if you have a condition that makes you likely to flip out or fall out; they aren't assessing any skill level whatsoever.
 
Palmpilot said:
I saw that the report identifies some increased risk factors for medical incapacitation among BasicMed pilots. It also notes that the overall accident statistics are not any worse for BasicMed pilots than those with third-class medicals. This may suggest that BasicMed pilots are at least doing a good job of assessing their medical fitness for each flight.
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Personally I don't put a lot of stock in the the report. I think it uses flawed data and then massages that flawed data. The last sentence says it all (emphasis mine):

"While the data collected in this study provide a limited initial analytic impression of BasicMed, several more years of operational data with considerations of causation factors will be necessary to validate the conclusions of this report."
 
MauleSkinner said:
A BasicMed Pilot is largely an “unknown” from a medical perspective. Allowing an unknown into some of the most highly-regulated airspace would be a difference.
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From the Third class medicals I have had they are NOT very complete and you are really an unknow from a medical perspective.
If you go basic med with your primary care physician you will at least get blood work and routine check ups. Going 3rd class you pee in a cup and look at a color chart
 
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1RTK1 said:
From the Third class medicals I have had they are NOT very complete and you are really an unknow from a medical perspective.
If you go basic med with your primary care physician you will at least get blood work and routine check ups. Going 3rd class you pee in a cup and look at a color chart
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Big difference between “complete” and “known”.
 
1RTK1 said:
From the Third class medicals I have had they are NOT very complete and you are really an unknow from a medical perspective.
If you go basic med with your primary care physician you will at least get blood work and routine check ups. Going 3rd class you pee in a cup and look at a color chart
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Funny, I had my routine physical from my PCP today. He does an EKG and blood work on me each time. Other than that, if anything, it was less thorough than my last Class 2 exam (the same as a Class 3 exam) at least because he didn't test my vision or hearing.
 
Mine tests vision and hearing. Along with EKG and pulmonary function test. MUCH more in depth than FAA Class 2 (I have never actually had a Class 3 exam).
 
It seems to me that the pro-third class argument is making the assumption that without this regulation and scrutiny we'll see a significant increase in accidents. Is there any good data to back that up? Everything I've heard about light sport suggests it won't. What little history we have of basic med also suggests it won't. My personal opinion is that the combination of having the means to afford flying, the discipline required to pass the training, and simple basic fear of dying does a decent job of filtering out people who are unfit. That's opinion though, no different the assumption that the process is making us safer. These decisions ought to be data driven and I believe the only solid data we have is the light sport and limited basic med history... both of which lean towards it not being necessary.

But let me just throw this out there; we all know this can be a difficult hobby to be in. It's not just the money it's the time and coordinating with CFIs/A&Ps,AMEs, etc. Most of us have lives outside of flying that limit the money and time we can put into it. So, I'll put it this way- what's going to make us safer. An afternoon and $300 to a doctor for our medical or an afternoon and $300 of recurrent training with a CFI? Taking a look at the actual accident stats I'd say the latter. Maybe we ought to dump the third class and make the bi-annual flight review an annual flight review.
 
cowman said:
It seems to me that the pro-third class argument is making the assumption that without this regulation and scrutiny we'll see a significant increase in accidents. Is there any good data to back that up? Everything I've heard about light sport suggests it won't. What little history we have of basic med also suggests it won't. My personal opinion is that the combination of having the means to afford flying, the discipline required to pass the training, and simple basic fear of dying does a decent job of filtering out people who are unfit. That's opinion though, no different the assumption that the process is making us safer. These decisions ought to be data driven and I believe the only solid data we have is the light sport and limited basic med history... both of which lean towards it not being necessary.

But let me just throw this out there; we all know this can be a difficult hobby to be in. It's not just the money it's the time and coordinating with CFIs/A&Ps,AMEs, etc. Most of us have lives outside of flying that limit the money and time we can put into it. So, I'll put it this way- what's going to make us safer. An afternoon and $300 to a doctor for our medical or an afternoon and $300 of recurrent training with a CFI? Taking a look at the actual accident stats I'd say the latter. Maybe we ought to dump the third class and make the bi-annual flight review an annual flight review.
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Good post! I believe one of the factors cited in the early discussions of BM had to do with the success of Sport Pilot. BM has also proven that medical incapacitation isn't a huge factor in aircraft accidents. No heartburn with a yearly review except that for Sport Pilots sometimes it's tough to find a CFI with a Light Sport plane ...
 
Daleandee said:
for Sport Pilots sometimes it's tough to find a CFI with a Light Sport plane
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Yes, this exactly. Logistically it would be sooo much easier for me if I could train in a 150/152/172, due to both airframe and CFI availability. Am I really that much more of a danger to society in one of those Cessnas than I am in an RV-12 or a SportCruiser?
 
1RTK1 said:
If you go basic med with your primary care physician you will at least get blood work and routine check ups. Going 3rd class you pee in a cup and look at a color chart
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Not necessarily. You can go to your PCP and have them just sign off your BasicMed checklist, doing the minimum it takes for them to do that. Or you can get a complete checkup and blood work and all that, and also have them sign off your BasicMed. So while it does seem wise that "if I have to go there anyway, I might as well get a complete checkup", it's by no means necessary.
 
Baked Potato said:
Yes, this exactly. Logistically it would be sooo much easier for me if I could train in a 150/152/172, due to both airframe and CFI availability. Am I really that much more of a danger to society in one of those Cessnas than I am in an RV-12 or a SportCruiser?
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Absolutely. Or the FAA wouldn't require such onerous medical examinations. /s :biggrin: :p

(that last emojie is not what I intended... : P)
 
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