MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
Maybe understanding and accepting that needs to be step 1 in the backup plan.
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Xyla Foxlin and the FAA Medial Wing
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Lindberg
Final Approach
If what she says in the video is true, that 50% of pilots have untreated/unreported mental illness, she makes a good argument for that. Or maybe she's exaggerating for attention.
Lindberg
Final Approach
Great. Everyone agrees. So let's stop bringing that red herring into these discussions.
What about him? Should he have to satisfy the FAA that the above is true? That the cause was just the "difficult time," and that he's not going to become suicidal of he goes through another difficult time?
Lindberg
Final Approach
She was also diagnosed with major depressive disorder, in treatment by a psychiatrist and debilitated for a year, and still in therapy, and that's just what she shared with the world.
Llewtrah381
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I’m going with B, which seems consistent with the rest of her story and its telling.
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I think there's another dimension to this discussion... being suicidal is one thing but it becomes a much bigger problem when that person is also willing to take the lives of innocent people with them. Do we need to screen for sociopathy? Nihilism?
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For the record, I like Xyla and have watched many of her videos with my grand-daughters. I cringed hard when I saw that video some time back in which she discussed her mental problems and suspected that this might affect her medical certificate but I do wish the best for her. She's young and idealistic and those probably aren't that helpful in her current struggle.
Um, no. But I looked through what I thought was enough to find it!
Maybe it got closed and hidden by the MC. Yeah, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Maybe allow for simple talk therapy for lesser issues without grounding them and making them jump through a zillion hoops and spend many thousands of dollars to prove themselves worthy, all while being grounded for years.
Because maybe that pilot wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to suicidal if they could have had easy access to mental health care early on without risking their career.
I think the only way you could have more is if you made ALL pilots get a mental health evaluation every renewal, and that would bring the entire system grinding to a halt.
Finding a job that pays what most pro pilots get paid these days is not trivial, no matter how good your backup plans are.
Not to mention, it's not just about the money. The idea of not being able to fly, to me, feels like not being able to eat. Every so often, I've just gotta get the heck off the ground. My happy place is in the left seat.
A whole lot of assumptions and hypotheticals in there.
No system is perfect and some of your suggestions, in specific contexts, already are allowed without consequence.
Maybe I’m a one-off, but by the time someone gets to suicidal ideation, you’re already an outlier.
Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among Adults Aged ≥18 ...
2015–2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health data regarding ...
www.cdc.gov
That’s an issue, but the bigger issue seems to be a suggestion that the FAA violate 14 CFR 67 when it comes to reportable/reported histories.
People like to bring up Australia as an example of the art of what’s possible. How many have actually engaged Congress or the FAA on the subject?
Lindberg
Final Approach
I wish folks would stop repeating the old-wives tale that pilots aren't allowed to go to seek help with tough times or go to therapy. In many cases, that won't even be reportable to the FAA.
And if you let or want someone to make up a diagnosis so your insurance will pay for something it wouldn't otherwise pay for, that's on you.
Many times these providers are not 100% transparent with the billing codes they used to get paid by insurance.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
So choose your provider wisely.
Sometimes you don’t know till you find out
What you say during your visit may mentally expire by the time they get to the billing paperwork stage, or may be in one ear out the other
Not many people care about insurance billing codes to the same degree as a pilot, expectation bias
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
Make sure to get the name of their malpractice provider.
Or just...you know...pay for it. Then it's just talking to someone. Or go talk to your priest/rabbi/pastor/imam/whatever.
Xyla is extremely talented. Her videos are very good, she has awesome woodworking skills, engineering ability, and willingness to try new things. I was delighted, but not surprised, when I learned she was a pilot. She's also got the victim mentality that so many of her generation have. I pretty much stopped watching her videos because I got tired of being preached to about how oppressed she is and how much harder she has to work because she's a girl. Yeah, okay. So I'm also not surprised to hear that she got crosswise with with OKC. If you're not "neurodivergent" these days, you're nobody.
Dana
Final Approach
Most people aren't even aware of the existence of insurance billing codes, or what they're for.
I was even more delighted when her choice of plane was an old taildragger putt-putt.
I haven't seen much of that in her videos that I've watched. I'm sure she's gotten some of it, being smart, female, and Asian (triple whammy). But it doesn't define her persona like some people who constantly play the victim card.
But I'm unclear how this all happened. Somebody reported her to the FAA, of course... but did she apply to renew her medical and get denied or did the FAA initiate an emergency revocation?
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
True or not, what I’ve seen is she made a public announcement of the problem on YouTube, and somebody dropped a dime.
And that helps me how with the FAA?
There is a reason medical screw ups are the 3rd leading cause of death
And that process to paycheck will take under how long and cost how much?
Point is, even little things a court might not care about can get the administrative nazis at the FAA frothing at the mouth, it happens and it’s very unique to the FAA compared to most other professions
I did not realize submitting a MedXpress application could result in death.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
It keeps your income level up and pays for the FAA hassles.
We don’t recommend picking an AME at random and giving them access to questionable medical history without a consultation. Why would we recommend getting questionable medical history without vetting the doctor?
Death of a career, which often results in death of a marriage, of a family etc etc
This is much more damaging than many encounters with police
Who is we?
The question isn’t the AME, though they need to be vetted
Going to a random doctor or shrink, 99.9% of them don’t speak aviation, that’s where the land mines are
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MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
No ****? So why not vet them?
One can try, but if vetting was 100% bulletproof most of the posts on the medical section here wouldn’t exist
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
I don’t get that impression of the medical section.
I haven’t been here very long and I’ve read a few
flyingcheesehead
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I tried Xyla (duh), YouTuber (because she was at one point in the thread called an "Aviation YouTuber" or something like it, even though she only had three videos with anything aviation in them at the time), and Maker at least. I posted a reply to the "aviation youtuber" comment that was something about how she was a maker type youtuber and not an aviation one and how I liked her videos and watched them with my son. Apparently I didn't say anything odd and memorable enough to make it searchable... Or you guys might have hid it, though I don't know why.
which is not, in itself, grounding...
and in which she did not fly, and when she was coming out of it she got back into flying to help with that process as I'm sure many of us would...
So f-ing what?!? That's the whole point of this discussion. Being in therapy, for many people, is a GOOD THING. It is a thing that keeps a lot of people from getting depressed or suicidal, and should be encouraged. Instead, pilots live in fear of losing their wings because a provider was in the habit of coding a disorder for insurance to pay or any number of other issues that can happen.
Considering what she shares with the world, I doubt there's anything more there.
I was trying to help a friend who's a high school guidance counselor with one of her students who was interested in becoming a pilot recently, and I read the AME guide. It appears to me that simple talk therapy isn't reportable, but during the whole recent ARC thing one of the major takeaways they had was that... It should be made not reportable, which leads me to believe that it must be reported. But it's ambiguous for someone who's looking for the right resources on the subject, so it's awfully hard to say that the FAA is for sure OK with it.
The stories I've heard with people getting tripped up by this is that they told the provider specifically NOT to make a diagnosis because it would affect their career, but later on the provider, out of habit thanks to our messed up health insurance system, forgot that request and coded something because that's what they're in the habit of doing. So I won't say it's "on you" the pilot, because it's on the system as much or more so.
What?? I haven't gotten that from her videos at all.
This most recent one about the FAA, and the one that got her in trouble in the first place, are the only ones I can think of where she shared any struggles, except for maybe in the in-video ads she does that I think were for that site that connects people with therapists whose name slips my mind at the moment. I pretty much skip/ignore the ads so maybe I missed something. She wouldn't have been due for renewal until later this year, I think (She's under 40 and got her PP on 9/23/2020). I think after someone dropped a dime on her, the FAA decided to pull her medical. Her record currently shows "no medical information available" and gives a number to call, so they definitely yanked it.
** After further review... She soloed at age 17, which appears to have been in 2015, so she probably renewed in 2020 and was due for renewal in 2025. Of course, with the FAA site now listing what it does, who knows when her previous medical was issued, so it could have been a renewal thing. However, the FAA can still send you a certified letter informing you that you're done, it could have gone either way.
And now I discovered that she has other talents and combines them as well - I present, the electric violin Tesla coil:
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Using different permutations of {name, "youtuber", "maker", etc} turns up nothing beyond this thread and one other dupe even in closed and/or hidden threads. I can think of other reasons why it might not turn up, but they are neither provocative nor relevant.Apparently I didn't say anything odd and memorable enough to make it searchable... Or you guys might have hid it, though I don't know why.
Nauga,
pointy
Lindberg
Final Approach
Major Depressive Disorder is an automatic deferral to the FAA. It is certainly a condition the FAA considers incompatible with safe operation of an aircraft. But for some reason, you want to ignore the bigger picture. Missing the forest for the trees.
You're going in circles. She doesn't dispute that she was diagnosed, and actually suffered from, debilitating mental illness for at least a year. Surely you're not contending that after that she should be able to declare herself well and hop in a cockpit with passengers, while the FAA declares "olly, olly, oxen free"? I don't think so. Which means the only question is whether the FAA made the right call. Without reviewing her records, how could you know?
Did your friends submit insurance claims?
She made a video about concealing her issues from the FAA.
Listen, I’ve got one that tops it.
Picture this
the stone-cold sober types, cruising in broad daylight, no phone in hand, fingers glued to the wheel, eyes locked on the road and they still damn near clip you.
That’s the real menace. At least the guy who’s had a couple too many IPAs or the chick texting her babysitter about little Timmy’s bedtime has an excuse. They might wobble, sure, but they can sober up, put the phone down, and straighten out. That first one? That’s their peak. That’s the best they’ve got, and it’s still a rolling disaster.
You’ve got Soccer Mom over here, piling up dents and scrapes like they’re badges of honor, year after year. She slams into someone, and suddenly it’s an “accident”poor her, the victim of fate. Never mind that she drives like she’s steering a bumper car with a blindfold on. She knows she’s a menace, even on her best day, and yet here we are, pretending it’s not her fault. Gimme a break.
flyingcheesehead
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When an issue of any sort occurs, do you send your medical certificate in to OKC or do you ground yourself?
When it is no longer an issue, do you go for a new medical or do you use the still-valid one you already have?
No, the docs did.
No, she didn't. She made a video about some issues she had during the period she held a medical certificate. She had not applied for a new certificate afterwards.
She elides the question of what the diagnosis was and what she needs to do and demonstrate to get a special issuance. also there’s something off putting about someone who has to live her life in public via youtube videos
RyanShort1
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It's amusing how arbitrary that post is.
She apparently values *some* level of privacy about her diagnosis and SI... and there are off-putting things about every human being I've ever met.
Do you feel that way about ALL YouTubers, TV personalities, and public figures or just some of them?
people who were in the public eye were usually artists with some exceptional skill. singing, acting, dancing. people were interested in them because they had achieved in life. youtube seems to be mostly silly people who deeply crave attention with very little level of distinction beyond cobbling together videos.
RyanShort1
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I guess the algorithm is not in your favor.
flyingcheesehead
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I've been watching Xyla's videos with my son for quite a while. She does have "exceptional skill" - She's very good at designing and making stuff and explaining it to others. Her videos are informative, entertaining, and inspiring. And, she mixes it up by having a few aviation videos on her channel in between the ones where she makes stuff.
She's also the "real deal", someone who truly loves aviation like the rest of us. She owns a C140, she's building a Pietenpol, and she goes on some other aviation adventures with friends as well.
I spotted her in Oshkosh this year and said hi, and was happy to find that she's every bit as delightful in person as she is on camera. She was down to earth, just a normal (well, as normal as pilots get) human being who I'd love to hang out with... And she let me take a selfie with her to send to my son because he wasn't in Oshkosh that day, and gave me some stickers to give to him too.
If all you find on YouTube is "silly people who deeply crave attention", it's because YOU are only clicking on videos made by silly people who deeply crave attention. There's some really great content on YouTube and if you just search and watch it, you'll get more. I highly recommend Xyla, Mark Rober, I Like To Make Stuff, and of course our own @SixPapaCharlie (Just Plane Silly). Start there, or by searching for your own interests... Or just go back out on the porch and tell the kids to get off your lawn, I don't care.
At the end of the day, I'm just glad that another aviator has slayed the aeromedical dragon and will be back in the air.
and im perfectly ik with that
ill pass on the youtube videos.I've been watching Xyla's videos with my son for quite a while. She does have "exceptional skill" - She's very good at designing and making stuff and explaining it to others. Her videos are informative, entertaining, and inspiring. And, she mixes it up by having a few aviation videos on her channel in between the ones where she makes stuff.
She's also the "real deal", someone who truly loves aviation like the rest of us. She owns a C140, she's building a Pietenpol, and she goes on some other aviation adventures with friends as well.
I spotted her in Oshkosh this year and said hi, and was happy to find that she's every bit as delightful in person as she is on camera. She was down to earth, just a normal (well, as normal as pilots get) human being who I'd love to hang out with... And she let me take a selfie with her to send to my son because he wasn't in Oshkosh that day, and gave me some stickers to give to him too.
If all you find on YouTube is "silly people who deeply crave attention", it's because YOU are only clicking on videos made by silly people who deeply crave attention. There's some really great content on YouTube and if you just search and watch it, you'll get more. I highly recommend Xyla, Mark Rober, I Like To Make Stuff, and of course our own @SixPapaCharlie (Just Plane Silly). Start there, or by searching for your own interests... Or just go back out on the porch and tell the kids to get off your lawn, I don't care.
At the end of the day, I'm just glad that another aviator has slayed the aeromedical dragon and will be back in the air.
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flyingcheesehead
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Maybe pass on the bitchin' too then.
