The Hungry Pilot

This is the last part of this series about what you need to become a professional pilot. We will take a look at health and medical issues. You don’t have the eyesight of an eagle and think you cannot become a pilot? Wrong!

This one is perhaps the most widely known myth about health requirements for pilots, and it is as wrong as many others. As I am not a doctor and the medical requirements may differ from country to country (not in Europe, at least), I cannot give you an extensive list of conditions which might render you unfit for flying. I will rather point you at the guidelines and the legal texts where you can find the relevant information. I will also give you advice on how to approach a medical issue which might cause trouble in the future in case you are not licensed yet. For those who are already flying I have some tips as well in case something unexpected pops up.

If you have read my post on motivation, you already know about my own struggle around the complete loss of sight in my right eye. That’s why I feel competent enough to give you some bits of advice in this area, but allow me to share more of this story first. For simplicity reasons I will mostly use the colloquial term “medical” which is widely used among pilots, instead of “medical certificate”.

What you will find in this article

• The Hungry Pilot’s own experience – continued
• Thoughts about health of pilots
• Where to find information about medical requirements for pilots

What you will not find here

• An assessment of particular conditions and a conclusion if you are fit to fly or not

Acronyms and abbreviations used here

• CAA: Civil Aviation Authority – An authority or governmental organization which oversees civil aviation
• LPC: License proficiency check – A check flight to revalidate (extend) your pilot license
• AME: Aviation medical examiner (or aeromedical examiner) – Aviation doctor who examines pilots for their fitness to fly
• EASA: European Union Aviation Safety Agency – The joint European aviation authority. It creates and amends our aviation regulations, a lot of it based on ICAO rules and recommendations. The European Commission turns these into EU laws, which is adopted into national legislation by the member countries
• FAA: Federal Aviation Administration – The CAA of the USA
• ICAO: International Civil Aviation Organisation – An organisation of the United Nations which develops and coordinates procedures, standards and techniques for international air navigation
• PPL: Private Pilot License – Your first pilot license, which will allow you to fly for fun and to gain flight experience on your way to becoming a pro

My own experience

As mentioned in this post about motivation, my pilot career almost ended abruptly just about a year after it began. After flying in a skydiving operation for half a year I returned to my previous job in the Austrian mountains, teaching how to ski. The idea was to return to flying skydivers in the following spring, as my employer was not busy enough during the winter to justify employing me year-round.

Returning to my pilot job started with a fail. I messed up the LPC on the Skyvan and I got demoted to fly ‘only small’ Cessnas. This was quite a blow for me as I was afraid that my career would suffer, keep in mind that it was early 2012 and the aviation industry was still recovering from the financial crisis in 2008. Jobs were hard to get if you came fresh out of school. I am thinking about writing an article about failure in the future, there I will go into more detail about why I failed as an aviator. Anyway, just a few weeks after this my life got a lot worse…

My medical certificate was about to expire in July, and I noticed that my vision had deteriorated a bit during winter. To avoid nasty surprises when seeing my AME, I decided to consult my ophtalmologist first to have my eyes checked. So I went to my eye doctor and he could not determine what was wrong with the methods available to him. Already on the next day I had an MRI and there it was, my nasty surprise.

They found a tumor in my right eye, in the orbit to be more precise. It was displacing the eyeball already for a while and my mother had noticed it and warned me repeatedly. I had noticed it myself, but I ignored it because of my fear to lose my medical certificate. Another lesson learned, at a high price. My ophtalmologist was also a colleague in my flying club and he helped me to get one of Europe’s top surgeons in this field. Shortly after the diagnosis I had an appointment for the surgery, just about 6 weeks later. Needless to say, my AME had no choice but to scrap my medical certificate.

Due to the size of the tumor my surgeon gave me a very pessimistic prognosis on the outcome of the surgery, with a high chance of becoming blind. The alternative to surgery would have been doing nothing, which in return would have resulted in the complete loss of the eye in time. I decided to have the surgery, as there was at least a small chance to preserve my eyesight.

Unfortunately the surgeon was right, it turned out that the operation was as complicated as anticipated and the damage caused by removing the tumor was too severe. After waking up my left eye was working normally, but the right one was not, there was only darkness with a prognosis which was, pun intended, eye-watering. I was in shock and for several days after the surgery I couldn’t even talk properly, my voice was just gone. It was obvious to me that I would never fly again. Luckily I was wrong, more on that to come in the future.

Pilots and health

What you want to do as a pilot will determine the requirements for your health. Civilian pilots of all sorts will naturally have less strict requirements than military pilots, and in their case especially fighter pilots. They do things that only very few civilians will ever do and the strain on their bodies is on a whole different level.

I will focus on the civilian side of aviation here, as this is where I gained my experience. If you consider the military route, your best option is to find information online and to talk to a recruiter in your home country. Or just sign up for the pilot selection during your mustering in case your country maintains a conscript army.

Keep in mind that there are different types of medical certificates, in Europe we know class 1 and class 2 for pilots. We will leave aside those for air traffic controllers and cabin crew. Class 1 is needed if you want to fly in commercial air transport, this is what most airlines as well as business jet and helicopter operators do. For leisure flying, but also for certain corporate flight ops which use light jets and turboprops, class 2 will be sufficient.

General thoughts and tips

Let’s face it: Being a professional pilot is taking a toll on your body. Why? Depending on the operation you are flying in, you will be exposed to or dealing with several or all of the following:

• Irregular working hours. There’s no such thing as a weekend or a holiday in aviation and you might not come home for several weeks. This can also greatly affect your mental health as it can be a major stress factor, especially if you have family
• Thanks to those working hours, your sleeping patterns are also irregular. Jetlag makes that even worse in case you are flying long-haul, and after you come home from a rotation it might take you a day or two until you are no longer a zombie and you are of some use to your family
• The first two points can be summed up under fatigue, which you will most likely experience at some point, even if your employer obeys the legal flight and duty time limitations (which, officially, everyone does of course)
• Flying high will expose you to cosmic radiation
• The air on board is usually very dry, you are being exposed to pressure changes all the time and fumes coming into the cabin from your engines just might sweeten your day
• Sitting in your chair in row 1 so much without moving will take a toll on your back

All I can say here is: Look after yourself. Regular exercise and a healthy diet will keep you flying longer. Listen to your body, in most cases it will tell you when something is about to turn bad.

Next we will discuss how to get started if you do not hold a medical yet. Followed by some advice on what to do if you already hold one and an issue comes up.

You do not have a medical certificate yet

It is possible to start your flight training without having a medical, in fact you can proceed all the way to being released for your first solo flight. For that first flight without an instructor you will have to show that medical though. Commencing your flight training will also come with some sort of commitment in most cases. That means, your flight school will ask you to sign a training contract which might come with some downpayments to the school. Now imagine, you pay several thousands of €, $ or whatever your currency is, and after flying already for a while it turns out you have a medical issue which might be a showstopper.

This approach is one you want to avoid, because in the worst case you might lose all the money you already paid without even holding a PPL. If you really can’t wait for your medical, make sure there is a not too expensive way out for you in case something comes up.

Try this approach instead:

1. Get your medical before you sign up for flight training and before you wire money to someone. Assess yourself: If you have a medical condition which you know the details about, you can check the regulations yourself to see if you are going to pass your upcoming initial examination. Below you can find the links to the relevant sections of EASA’s and FAA’s websites where you can download the respective regulations. Yes, it can be tiresome and boring to study those. See it as practice for later, when you will have the pleasure to study all that airlaw and many more things.
   
   A plus is that this will not cost you money. On the other hand, if there is any ambiguity or if you are dealing with a complicated problem, you might be better off seeking professional advice right from the start. If your eyesight requires correction, or if you are colorblind or you had any kind of eye surgery, find an ophthalmologist who is approved by your CAA even before you go to an AME.

2. See an AME for the initial examination, there is no way around it. To find an AME go to the website of your country’s aviation authorities. They should have a list of AMEs and specialists, as they usually are overseeing all aviation medicine in your country. Of course you can also ask your flight school or other pilots for a tip. I really do recommend doing that
   
   Be prepared to pay some serious cash, especially for an intital examination for class 1. The checks are quite extensive, may take a whole day of your time and can cost you up to 1k € or even more, depending on your location. This does not include seeing any specialists in case something pops up which requires further examination
3. Take that freshly printed certificate to your flight school and start flying!

You already have a medical certificate…

… and now a health issue comes up. What’s next?

The answer is simple: As always in aviation, stick to the rules and report.

The European regulations, for example, require you to always consult your AME if you are being admitted to a hospital or if you have any kind of surgery, for example. There is an actual list which you can find under MED.A.20 of EASA Part-MED which consists of these and several other conditions. In more difficult cases you might have to see specialists for more thorough examination and your AME might have to refer your case to the medical section of your CAA.

So now my case is with the CAA…

Do not panic if that happens, but be aware that your case is most likely one of many and that there are waiting times to be expected. These can differ a lot depending on how busy your CAA is and on the complexity of your case. So again, in some countries everything can move rather fast, in others it might take forever until someone even opens your file for the first time, and it usually doesn’t help just because you are a(n aspiring) commercial pilot.

Your AME is dealing with the CAA on a daily basis, so he or she is the first one to ask for advice if complications or long delays in processing your case occur. Your doctor might also offer to intervene or try to speed things up, especially if they have a good relationship with the authority. Some doctors won’t, but they should at least be able to advise you on who you can talk to in the CAA.

Should I take a lawyer?

When is the time to seek legal advice? This is a delicate matter and legal action from your side is ideally the last resort. There is no way to give a general recipe how to approach a more serious issue which might justify to hire a lawyer, this decision is entirely yours.

In my case I did not see another option anymore after how I was treated by the CAA. Keep one thing in mind: In your CAA are humans at work, who execute laws and regulations made by humans. Humans make mistakes. It is inevitable, and if you run into someone who tells you she or he makes no mistakes, you are dealing either with a clown, a narcissist or a psychopath. If you can, stay away…

Sorry, I digress. In my case I repeatedly received ambiguous or wrong statements regarding my application to renew my medical class 1. The last one was during a phone call and I immediately knew that the representative of the CAA was talking bullshit (thanks to my knowledge of the regulations). I thought that someone in such a position cannot be so incompetent, so the only other option was that the guy was lying to me. Either way, I had enough and took legal action and 3,5 years later things eventually worked out for me. This story is a long one, so I might write it down in a separate post in its entirety.

The takeaways for you are:

• Keep your guard up. Question everything and don’t hesitate to ask questions and to seek advice
• Always communicate in writing. An authority cannot just issue a verbal statement informing you about a decision, or worse, tell you something like: ”With your condition we will not issue a paper to you.“ A government authority must provide a written decision, including an explanation, inform about your rights to appeal and a deadline for the appeal
• Know the law, your rights and your duties. In my case, having a working knowledge of the regulations made the difference, on more than one occasion
• Whatever you do, always do it in a polite manner even though it might not be easy

Conclusion

Many of us don’t have their health on the radar, until it’s gone. I had to learn that the hard way, but maybe I can prevent someone else from making the same mistakes with this post.

Listen to your body and your guts, they will tell you if something’s off. Don’t ignore it or push it aside for a later follow up. It might be too late then and your career might suffer, or it may be over from one day to the next.

Let me know about your own story, or get in touch with me if you have any questions. I might be able to give you some advice.