I see, I'm in the north eastern quadrant but I don't know if my federal flight surgeon is one of those five doctor. Rationally, though I understand it's for safety but it leaves me questioning why I can legally buy as many firearms as one could ever dream of with no treatment, that arguably could be many times more destructive then a single engine prop, yet I am unquestionably barred from flight if I'd happen to be bipolar, and while like I said it's the law of the land, It seems borderline discriminatory that there is NO route for a such a contingency. Maybe it's just me, what do you guys think?
Since you asked, firearms isn't a good comparison because as one person already replied, it's a Constitutionally protected right, and even if it weren't, it's how people protect themselves. You don't need to be a pilot to protect yourself, so apples and oranges.
But other than that, you are absolutely right; it's not fair. But the world doesn't operate according to truth, logic and fairness. The world operates on two things: 1) what do most people want to do and 2) what impression, true or not, do most people have about the thing.
Example. The economic cost to the U.S. annually of heroin addiction has been estimated (and updated to 2015 dollars) to be about $33 billion. About half of this is medical cost. The annual medical costs of obesity to which soda pop is strongly linked is about $260 billion. Yet, because most people want to drink soda, and only a small percent of people want to abuse heroin, plus most people's impression of soda is that it's harmless, and most people's impression of heroin is that it's deadly, despite soda being very much more harmful to the country in total than heroin, it is heroin that is vilified, regulated, outlawed, and fought against, while soda can be purchased legally in unlimited quantities by any minor. This despite soda (and other legal sugar) costing the nation SIXTEEN TIMES the medical dollars than does heroin.
You might intuitively say, well that's because heroin is illegal and soda is legal, therefore way more people get diabetes and this makes the cost so high. And you would be wrong. If we made heroin legal, we would very likely have the same or fewer heroin addicts, OD deaths, etc., and if we made soda illegal, there would immediately arise a huge black market for the product. This is because the desire for heroin or soda is inherent to the product itself, not to its legal status. People will either desire it or not, and its legal status has very little to do with it. This fact was pretty much nailed by our experiment with alcohol prohibition.
So on an individual basis, heroin will kill you fast and horribly, and soda will kill you more slowly but just as horribly. But on a society-wide basis, the reality is that soda is doing far more total damage.
Yet the legal approach and mass perceptions are completely upside down. The way society works is not rational. It's based on aggregate human desires and false beliefs which become translated into law and policy. Things that the majority want to do every day, like drive cars and drink soda, are tolerated, while things only a minority want to do, like abuse heroin or fly airplanes, are viewed suspiciously and are highly regulated. It matters not at all the REAL risks involved. Look at the death and damage caused by automobile accidents. Compared to that, the risk to society of a GA pilot is almost non-existent. Risk to himself and his passengers is higher, and the risk of a commercial pilot to many passengers is also higher, but that is countered by the greater safety of large jet craft and multiple crew. The risk to the general public of a GA craft is thousands or millions of times smaller than the risk of being hurt by someone else's automobile, simply because there is so very much ground the odds of a small plane falling on you are minute but in a car you whiz within feet of hundreds of other cars all the time. yet the bureaucratic hoops one must jump to pilot are way more strict than getting a driver's license.
Why is this so? Because most people want to drive cars. And very few want to pilot airplanes. Therefore high levels of automobile risk is acceptable to the masses, while virtually no amount of aircraft risk is acceptable, simply because, they do not themselves want to pilot. And the second factor, the masses imagine themselves safe in their automobile because they have a history of driving every day without incident. So most people have a false sense of security about cars. But because flying planes is unfamiliar and the news sensationalizes every single incident, the general masses falsely believe airplanes are far more dangerous than they really are.
That's how the world works. Based on majority beliefs (whether true or not) and based on majority desires, we end up with what you are correctly sensing is not quite right. But remember, the average IQ of these majorities of which I speak is 100. Get used to it. You'll feel this dissonance your whole life.
Having said all that, none of it applies to your personal risk. The rules are written to address a perception of risk to society. The reality is that risk is low. But the risk to you, in a plane, is much higher. I've heard that the average risk of piloting single engine GA is equivalent to riding a motorcycle. I don't know how accurate that is, but it's within acceptable limits to most of us, for the benefit we get to fly. However that risk varies a great deal. You lower it significantly by not flying in weather. By being anal about fuel. By not flying night over water, etc.
And by not flying if you suffer from conditions that compromise your performance. Bi-polar would do that. Anxiety disorders too. If these conditions are confirmed (and they are telling you it will cost a lot of $$$ to try to disprove them) then you really are better off not piloting. Yes the rules are unfair and illogical because they're written to protect the general public. But your personal decision to protect yourself doesn't have to have anything to do with the FAA and its rules. It is always down to the individual anyway to self certify before every flight, and to de-certify ourselves if we recognize something that will compromise our safety. I can't tell you what you should do but I can tell you what I would do if I were in your situation: I'd stand down and make it MY decision, for my own safety, rather than spend a ton of money only to be denied by the FAA.
What ever you decide, best of luck.
)
