In most countries, the first medical exam is when your unique pilot ID/reference number is created. This stays with you forever. In Europe, there’s no need for any licence or certificate to fly solo – just a medical certificate. (Many schools also require Air Law exam pass, but it’s not legally required).
In the US, that first medical exam also immediately issues a student pilot certificate, required before going solo. See this AOPA article.
From 1st April, that will no longer be the case. You CFI must sign to confirm you can speak Engkish adequately, then apply to the FAA for a certificate. A TSA screening check is then conducted. The process currently takes several weeks, but is intended to be sped up to a maximum of three weeks. No solo flight is permitted without it. For those on accelerated programs, that may be too late.
A side effect may be that if the requirements for medical school are relaxed, then thus new system could cope with that.
Foreigners require a TSA check and visa already, but it’s unclear to me how it may affect those going from Europe for intensive courses. It’s yet another hurdle to consider when flying stateside.
Thanks for posting this, it’s a development I hadn’t heard about previously.
Flight instructors until now have had no involvement in the student’s application/paperwork process, their work has been ‘sandwiched’ between FAA paperwork done by medical and pilot examiners. I can’t imagine instructors will want to get further involved with FAA now. To me that indicates that unless the instructor is affiliated with a flight school that performs that work for the instructor, students will most likely be required to apply themselves in person, at a FSDO or with a pilot examiner, just as they currently obtain their medical certification independently. From the point of view of the student, it precisely doubles the pre-solo bureaucracy.
The only benefit to the student may be that the student pilot certificate no longer expires, meaning a student could fly solo indefinitely on a student pilot certificate as long as he gets the required periodic sign-offs from his friend the independent flight instructor. Useful for owner/pilots flying their own planes out in the country because they can take the exams when the want to carry passengers, without time pressure otherwise.
DavidC wrote:
You CFI must sign to confirm you can speak Engkish adequately, then apply to the FAA for a certificate
Not true.
Under the new rule student pilots will no longer get their student pilot certificate from an aviation medical examiner (AME). Instead, they can apply in person at a FSDO, through a designated pilot examiner, with a Part 141 flight school or a CFI. The TSA will vet the application, and then a plastic certificate will be sent to the student by the Civil Aviation Registry.
Student pilots still will have to visit an AME to acquire a separate medical certificate once they pass the DPE checkride to get their license.
Thanks for posting that David.
I wonder how this affects the current impossibility of doing a full standalone FAA PPL ab initio outside the USA? This is supposed to be impossible if the student has no other licenses because the US Student Pilot Certificate is not valid outside the USA.
That didn’t stop a UK based AME issuing me with one in 2004 and didn’t stop me doing an FAA PPL in the UK. But (a) I did have a UK PPL at the time and (b) there was no solo involved 
The only way to do it used to be to pretend to embark on a JAA/EASA PPL and get the solo flying out of the way (to an extent sufficient for an FAA PPL) and then walk out of the school and do the FAA PPL. All the JAA/EASA training is then usable as a credit towards it.
You CFI must sign to confirm you can speak English adequately, then apply to the FAA for a [student] certificate
Not true.
I don’t think we disagree – you’ve explained the new process more clearly and comprehensively than I did, although I suspect most applications would come via a CFI.
The procedure is discussed in more detail on this podcast (starts 6:10), and the verbal discussion does include some uncertainty about exactly how it will work. CFI would check you can speak English and submit a student pilot certificate application online through IACRA (or can be done on paper).
The FAA site explains the latest rules do also allow a CFI to approve the application, not just FSDO or DPE, as was original proposed. See third column in section B here
I can find no detail on how it will impact foreign applicants, who should already have been vetted by the TSA. Doing this partially in (Northern) Europe would seem counter productive to me.
USFlyer wrote:
Student pilots still will have to visit an AME to acquire a separate medical certificate once they pass the DPE checkride to get their license.
Why would the requirement for a medical be shifted now from pre-solo to post private certificate?
Sure, but FAA medical ‘reform’ is as yet still a proposal being debated by Congress, the law in that regard is as yet unchanged. For now, a Class 3 medical certificate is required prior to solo and I haven’t seen any indication of that pre-solo requirement being affected by the new US law under discussion in this thread.
In Europe, there’s no need for any licence or certificate to fly solo
I have my misgivings about this one, but it may be a semantic issue. Certainly I could only take lessons after having been issued a document recognising me as a student pilot, and along with that a logbook into which to register each and every flight, including training with an instructor so not being PIC. But that was for a national ultralight license, perhaps it is different in other countries and/or has changed since the advent of EASA / SERA?
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
But that was for a national ultralight license, perhaps it is different in other countries and/or has changed since the advent of EASA / SERA?
That might well be the reason! Sweden used to requires student pilot licenses for everyone, but with EASA that is today only required for national licenses, i.e. UL licenses.
