Dav8or
Final Approach
This is just an opinion poll, so no demands for facts, figures and citations required. The reason being, those facts aren't known yet.
The FAA wants to have AMEs to start requiring all pilots seeking a valid medical that have a BMI over 40 and eventually over 36, to go and get a sleep study done at certified sleep center to see if these pilots suffer from OSA. I'm told the study costs about $2000. If negative, the test results are fine and you get your medical until the next medical when you do it again. If you are positive, you must get treatment which usually involves buying a machine (not sure how much they cost) called CPAP and strapping it on your face at night to help you breath. If the treatment is proven successful, you get a SI and you can fly.
They want to do this because OSA causes sleep deprivation and medical studies have shown that sleep deprivation is cognitively impairing about the same as having .088 alcohol in your blood, so legally drunk. The 2012 Nall Report states that for 2010, 62%, or 856 accidents out a total of 1377 for the year, were caused by pilot error. These accidents resulted in 148 deaths.
The medical establishment also has good science that shows that if you have a BMI over 40, there is a 90% chance you suffer from OSA. If your over 36 BMI, I assume the likelihood of OSA is somewhat less, but still high. I don't know that number, but the point is, this is why the FAA is using BMI to select out the airmen that need testing. If you're over a BMI of 36, you likely suffer from OSA, if you suffer from untreated OSA, you're flying as though you were legally drunk and you very well may end up in one of those 62% of pilot error accidents.
The counter perspective to this is this- is this new requirement worth the potential damage to the pilot population and by extension, GA as a whole? Healthy, alert pilots are a good thing, but how many will see this as yet another obstacle and either quit flying, or never start in the first place? This is unknown and we won't know until after the mandate.
We know the pilot population is dwindling, pilots are flying less and less and as a result the cost of flying is going up. Rising costs cause more to quit. A vicious cycle. The way out of the cycle is more pilots. Pilots of all sizes.
Is some unknown potential reduction in total accidents (1377 for 2010) worth the unknown risk of further pilot population reduction at this time in America's GA history? Will overweight pilots gladly submit and get tested and treated, or quit? If they do quit, will the loss of these pilots in the population make a difference in cost to other pilots? Will the newly vetted pilot population stop making so many pilot errors that result in accidents? Will the skies be safer?
Nobody knows, that's why this is an opinion poll and nothing more.
The FAA wants to have AMEs to start requiring all pilots seeking a valid medical that have a BMI over 40 and eventually over 36, to go and get a sleep study done at certified sleep center to see if these pilots suffer from OSA. I'm told the study costs about $2000. If negative, the test results are fine and you get your medical until the next medical when you do it again. If you are positive, you must get treatment which usually involves buying a machine (not sure how much they cost) called CPAP and strapping it on your face at night to help you breath. If the treatment is proven successful, you get a SI and you can fly.
They want to do this because OSA causes sleep deprivation and medical studies have shown that sleep deprivation is cognitively impairing about the same as having .088 alcohol in your blood, so legally drunk. The 2012 Nall Report states that for 2010, 62%, or 856 accidents out a total of 1377 for the year, were caused by pilot error. These accidents resulted in 148 deaths.
The medical establishment also has good science that shows that if you have a BMI over 40, there is a 90% chance you suffer from OSA. If your over 36 BMI, I assume the likelihood of OSA is somewhat less, but still high. I don't know that number, but the point is, this is why the FAA is using BMI to select out the airmen that need testing. If you're over a BMI of 36, you likely suffer from OSA, if you suffer from untreated OSA, you're flying as though you were legally drunk and you very well may end up in one of those 62% of pilot error accidents.
The counter perspective to this is this- is this new requirement worth the potential damage to the pilot population and by extension, GA as a whole? Healthy, alert pilots are a good thing, but how many will see this as yet another obstacle and either quit flying, or never start in the first place? This is unknown and we won't know until after the mandate.
We know the pilot population is dwindling, pilots are flying less and less and as a result the cost of flying is going up. Rising costs cause more to quit. A vicious cycle. The way out of the cycle is more pilots. Pilots of all sizes.
Is some unknown potential reduction in total accidents (1377 for 2010) worth the unknown risk of further pilot population reduction at this time in America's GA history? Will overweight pilots gladly submit and get tested and treated, or quit? If they do quit, will the loss of these pilots in the population make a difference in cost to other pilots? Will the newly vetted pilot population stop making so many pilot errors that result in accidents? Will the skies be safer?
Nobody knows, that's why this is an opinion poll and nothing more.
