What if.. you lost your medical?

As a previous post suggested, the increase in difficulty of all the hoops that pilots have to jump through vis-a-vis aircraft maintenance, medicals, licensing etc. will inevitably lead to some people choosing to base themselves at a nice quiet field and not bother with any paperwork at all.

As ever, the only time that they are likely to get caught out is in the event of an accident, like here

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Piper%20PA-28-140%20Cherokee,%20G-AWPS%2010-09.pdf

where the pilot got caught out flying aerobatics in a PA28 140 and hit some railway lines.

This is likely to become especially prevalent at the cheap end of the C of A spectrum, where the aircrafts value can quite easily be the same as the cost of the annual.

As for medicals, when I used to race sports-cars in the 80's and 90's, the attitude towards medicals was pretty cavalier. One competitor used to get someone entirely different to sit for his medicals, another used to obtain them from a Doctor based in South America, via mail-order and a third simply bought a letraset kit and had bad handwriting...

where the pilot got caught out flying aerobatics in a PA28 140 and hit some railway lines

I recall that report... it sounded outrageous but having recently read another one (a crash in Switzerland; I posted the link here) which suggested that the engine had not been looked at for years, a total lack of maintenance is probably not uncommon. On fixed wing, you can get away with it; I am sure that if you bought a new plane, and it was in some shed overnight, it would be OK for at least 10 years without any maintenance other than topping up the oil.

One competitor used to get someone entirely different to sit for his medicals, another used to obtain them from a Doctor based in South America, via mail-order and a third simply bought a letraset kit and had bad handwriting...

The Holy Grail is of course getting the initial JAA medical, because after that you are running on Demonstrated Ability and anyway the CAA here is pretty good at keeping people flying.

The Holy Grail of all Holy Grails has been the colour vision test. Since you are allowed to take each of the 4 or 5 possible tests only once in your entire life, the name of the game has been to go to a doctor who (at best) just gives it to you or (at worst) doesn't make a note of your name if you fail.

Obviously to do this you want to be as far away from Gatwick as possible

Hungary was traditionally popular, for CV and other tests where nothing is recorded if you fail. I am sure thousands of current airline pilots have done their initials in Hungary.

Like most good things, that route has possibly come to an end.

The search is on now for the next country which is "very close to being EASA compliant" but its doctors have "not yet brought themselves up to speed on the latest regs". Croatia, maybe?

The irony is that the CV test that you will be offered at your UK AME's office is probably total bollocks. This study found that the Isihara test in particular is basically useless (unless you happen to pass it in which case it served you well )

I am sure thousands of current airline pilots have done their initials in Hungary.

Honestly, I do not know one single commercial pilot here in Germany (and I have helped to "make" quite a few of them) who went abroad for his initial medical. The reason is that you invest a lot of money for your licenses (close to 100kEuro these days) and in order to make that a safe investment you need a solid foundation, in this case a bullet-proof medical that lasts an entire professional life.

Before JAR/EU/EASA FCL the colour vision test was mandatory for every class 1 revalidation (and I recall having to do it a couple of times since JAR also). And rules get changed every now and then, who can guarantee that in three years time the CV test will not be required again? Colour vision is essential for most kinds of glass cockpits! Will the Hungarian doctor still sell medicals by then? And if he ever gets caught, every single pilot that they still can trace from his books will have to redo his initial medical - we've had that here a few years ago (it was a German doctor who sold medicals by mail-order!). I wouldn't want to live with such a time-bomb in my basement.

BTW: I just fixed an appointment for my next medical in one week... I'm not scared of it, but being post-50 the chances of walking out from there as a pedestrian instead of a pilot start getting discomfortably high.

Colour vision is essential for most kinds of glass cockpits

There are people who disagree

Also the vast majority of people who fail the various CV tests can actually distinguish the various commonly used colours in aviation.

No avionics should be designed so that spotting the colour of some small item (which can be otherwise displayed in a range of colours) is a safety critical function, and I think that is what Pape is basically getting at. Can you think of any counter-examples?

I wouldn't want to live with such a time-bomb in my basement.

A fair point, but we have what we have, and the current system does not require recurring CV tests (for a good medical reason, which is that CV rarely degrades over time, and I bet a quid pro quo was agreed to remove recurring tests in exchange for the - IMHO totally bizzare - lifetime ban on "retries") and it is thus almost guaranteed that the AME who did "your" initial CV is retired or dead while you are still a working pilot.

I think - practically rather than morally - your point would be 100% valid for stuff where outright document forgery can be detected retrospectively. One hears of airline pilots with forged documents but normally I would expect anybody (with more than half a brain) and with completely fake papers to get a job in another country and convert them, and then chuck the original ones away. For example if you forged your German JAR-FCL ATPL, you should get yourself a UK JAR-FCL ATPL (and a renewal medical of course) and then you only present the latter papers. I would think the pilots who got caught forged their papers but stayed in the same place.

No avionics should be designed so that spotting the colour of some small item (which can be otherwise displayed in a range of colours) is a safety critical function, and I think that is what Pape is basically getting at. Can you think of any counter-examples?

Pape is of course right. The problem however is that the glass cockpit colours and symbology were not designed with human physiology in mind, but dictated by what was possible when the first aviation colour screens became available. Mainly the basic colours for additive and subtractive mixing: red, green, blue, magenta, cyan, yellow and white.

From what I know, the problem lies not within the main flying display (AI, HSI, speed and altitude tapes), but with the little messages and annunciators. They are all colour coded in white, yellow (amber), green and red and if someone has difficulties in distinguishing these hues, he might miss important bits of information.

What I personally have encountered with students (who had somehow passed their CV test) was an inability to distinguish between white and red PAPI lights. Especially in hazy conditions when the white lights tend to look yellowish or orange. This is potentially dangerous as it will be interpreted as 4 reds or four whites. Another student once was unaware that he had aligned us with a taxiway. Obviously, he couldn't perceive the colour of the green centre and blue edge lights. Must be seen to believe.

Just for sake of completeness: I did my class 1 revalidation today, my first one according EASA regulations, and there was no color vision test. Audiogram only every second year now, stress ECG on the ergometer only at age 65 again (used to be done every year before JAR, one always needed to take a shower after the medical then!)

Fly with other pilots (licensed), share the experience and try turn it into a way to make flying more interesting and varied (difficult, but don't give up)

It's a shame as the lights could probably be redesigned to enable most colour-anomalous pilots (the politically correct term) to distinguish nav lights. But of course retrofitting the entire worldwide fleet of aircraft and ground-based signals isn't going to happen.

For EFIS displays and the like, there's no excuse as you would only need to upgrade one plane at a time (for private pilots).

What might be relatively trivial (as these things go) would be to modify a google-glass like display to augment the flying environment so that colour-anomalous individuals could identify warning signals e.g. by adding flicker to red lone lights; flagging green/red lights that were on a collision course. Certainly easier than getting it approved would be :(

take care: to mutch sex at a certain age with too young women in your luxury wather-bedded camping car can kill you in a simple turn... ;-)