I had a patient in recently. He is a tandem Jump instructor. He was new to me. I noticed that he got an FAA medical from the same AME that I’ve used in the past. when I asked him about it, it sounds like he has the same requirements for a class three medical for a pilot. Generally for my pilot patients or aspiring pilot patients. I make sure that I am careful with what kind of meds and diagnosis we use and talk about so I don’t cause a snag later on in their history. I was wondering if Their class three medical is the same as a pilots class Three medical, therefore has a lot of the same type of medication and diagnoses Pitfalls that can inadvertently Happen?
USPA requires an FAA third class medical for tandem jumping. It’s the same third class medical you’d get as a pilot…so same issues apply, same SI necessary for certain conditions, and same people in OKC reviewing the applications and making determinations. https://www.uspa.org/SIM/2
Yeah, most people don’t realize it is a requirement - including the average aspiring TI, who lives at the DZ and uh… parties. also need 500 jumps and three years in the sport. No 100 jump wonders
The three years part (and similar regs) bugs me. Wouldn't a jumper who went every day be better than one who did it once a month for decades?
Definitely some truth to this. I think that part of the reg exists because they want to prevent 18 year olds from being TIs and they want someone who has been around the sport long enough to see what can go wrong. A big part of the culture is reviewing and learning from others. Someone could get their 500 jumps in 50 days if they really wanted to and the weather was good (and they had the money). But that would mean they had only seen weather over the course of 2 months - in Arizona that could be identical every day - and they want people to have seen and experienced a variety of conditions hopefully at a number of dropzones. There are also currency requirements and getting TI certification is a very serious matter.
Yes, yes it is! I was a TI for several years. The training was intense and not, on occasion, very fun. As were some of the jumps. Same Third Class as a pilot.
I don’t have any interest in throwing drogues, but it keeps the sport alive for the rest of us - so thanks!
The interesting thing here is that the requirement for a third class medical is not coming from the FAA. I have also had clients where they are equipment testers in the back of aircraft for manufactures like Raytheon. Sometimes they require a second class for those guys.
I was trying to figure out one day why some random non-airmen were doing BasicMed exams. Turns out they were flight test engineers who required it for their job. Apparently their company was now allowing them to do BasicMed in lieu of a medical.
So, the guy in Arizona is going to have identical weather for all three years... And they could just make it so you have to be 21 to be a TI rather than requiring three years. Reviewing and learning from others is a big part of pilot culture too, yet we have no such requirements... And if that is the culture, there's nothing that prevents someone from going back and reviewing the past three years (or more) worth of skydiving accidents, right? So I'm still not sold on how it's necessarily better. But then again, jumping out of airplanes makes no sense to me in the first place so clearly I'm not gonna understand. Yeah, I'm a whuffo.
Why would it make sense to require a medical for these folks? Are they doing stuff with safety implications if they become incapacitated?
It is for Tandem Instructors. They accept money to strap the paying public to their chest and jump out of a plane. So yeah they need to be somewhat medically fit...
Sometimes, perhaps, but that would be uncommon. It's more likely a liability concern, as flight tests often subject systems (and test personnel) to high g's, unusual attitudes, etc., and have a higher accident risk. For example, a company might be conducting a captive carry test of a missile seeker and have racks of instrumentation and recording equipment on board with a person or two to operate the equipment. The aircraft might need to emulate the missile's flight trajectory as closely as it can, flying a hard pull-up, extreme bank angles, and a high speed dive. I worked several flight test activities at Lockheed (never got to ride along, though) so I'm slightly familiar with this sort of testing. I can understand wanting a health check on people who will be on board during such flights. IIRC, the military and the USG labs required a 3rd class for our personnel when we were testing systems on gov't aircraft. I don't think we required it when we were using privately contracted aircraft, but I could be mistaken.
