Soaring on unapproved prescription drugs, and conditions, legal??

Rich Chesser wrote:

I'm pretty sure a glider has right of way over an airliner. Therefore
it is most likely that the airliner would be at fault.

....and the FAA/NTSB/jury/judge would base their decision solely on that?

In your and Allan's dreams.

Graeme Cant

I wonder if this 61.53 applies to ultralights and the upcoming Sport Pilot
certificate??


It appears that 61.53 does not apply to ultralights. It looks like
this was something of an oversight.

61.53 is in 2 parts. The first part says that if you have a current
medical certificate then you can't use it for any flight operation
where it's required if you know or have reason to know that your
medical condition and/or treatment would make you unable to meet the
requirements for the medical. The second part, which is supposed to
cover all flight operations where a medical is not required, instead
specifies that you cannot act as pilot in command of any aircraft
operations listed in 61.23(b) if you know or have reason to know your
medical condition makes you unable to operate the aircraft in a safe
manner.

61.23(b) refers to
- exercising the privileges of a pilot certificate with a glider
category rating
- exercising the privileges of a pilot certificate with a balloon
class rating
- exercising the privileges of a student pilot certificate while
seeking a pilot certificate with a glider category or balloon class
rating
- exercising the privileges of a flight instructor certificate with a
glider category rating
- exercising the privileges of a flight instructor certificate when
not serving as pilot in command or as a flight crewmember
- when exercising the privileges of a ground instructor certificate
- when serving as an examiner or check airman
- when taking a test or check for a certificate, rating or
authorization

Since ultralights don't require a medical, the first part doesn't
apply. Since ultralights aren't listed in 61.23(b), the second part
doesn't apply.

Common sense would have to apply instead, I guess.

FAA has a section on their site called
"ask FAA" so I sent them an E-Mail
I don't know if they can answer such a question, except with a conservative
"no" but I asked

(DL152279546231) wrote in message ...
FAA has a section on their site called
"ask FAA" so I sent them an E-Mail
I don't know if they can answer such a question, except with a conservative
"no" but I asked



I would like to relate an experience I had on this subject. I was an
Army senior flight surgeon and am board certified in Aerospace
Medicine.

Several years ago I wrote an aeromedical summary to appeal the denial
of a medical to a pilot who had a history of depression controlled
with an antidepressant (Effexor). My argument for his appeal was as
follows.

1. The present FAA position is that a history of depression is not
disqualifying. If the patient is having no symptoms and has not taken
any antidepressant medication for the last 3 months he may receive a
class 3 medical.

2. This position was formulated when depression was treated with
tricyclic antidepressants and these were discontinued after the
episode ended. Treatment was episodic and the meds had significant
side effects that could affect flying such as postural hypotension.

3. The current treatment for depression has changed so that many
patients are treated chronically in a preventive manner with
medications that have less and different side effects.
I cited a study in which healthy persons were given cognitive function
tests while taking effexor and while not taking effexor. The study
concluded that the persons taking effexor had better concentration and
performed better on the cognitive function testing. The side effects
such as may cause drowsiness occur in a small number of patients and
usually early in the course of treatment.

Thus if the patient has no symptoms of depression and the current
medication gives him no side effects that would effect his ability to
fly he should be granted a waiver.

The response was as follows:

I received a response over the telephone from the Federal Air
Surgeon's consultant in Psychiatry. He said that everything in my
argument made sense. He really couldn't say that the pilot was unsafe
to fly. It was just a political thing. They weren't ready for pilots
on Prozac.

Remember also that the FAA recommended that pilots flying with a
recreational license be required only to have a driver's license
instead of a medical . Secretary of Transportation Pena would not
approve the recommendation.

Some of the present FAA decisions are political not medical.

As evidenced above, not being able to get a medical does not mean you
are not safe to fly. It may mean that the politics and the regs
haven't caught up to current day medicine.

It is my opinion that this is why the regulation is written the way it
is. I have no doubt that if the FAA wanted glider pilots to meet the
requirements for a Class 3 medical they would require it.

IMHO

Some thoughts, and not necessarily PC for this group...

I've never been a big fan of litigation, but here is a case where it
serves an important purpose. The FAA has made medical
self-certification avialable to glider pilots. This leaves a great
deal of grey in determining one's own physical/mental competency.
However, if anyone were harmed by a glider pilot taking drugs for a
condition that precluded him/her from obtaining a third-class medical,
I would heartily endorse suing the pilot or his estate.

We will all someday be faced with the choice of giving up flying, or
continuing with risk to ourselves, and therefore, others. Love of
flight, individual rights, denial are poor excuses if you do damage to
others as a result of physical or mental incompetence brought on by
drugs and/or disease and/or diminishing capacity. While I believe it
is your right to make up your own mind, I also believe strongly that
you should be fully responsible for any damage your willful negligence
may cause.

Continue to fly if you want. But consider the effects upon your estate
and your heirs. While the regs leave you some room to quibble, a jury
of your peers will not.

Fortunately, you don't get to decide whether others can fly or not.
It has nothing to do with Political Correctness, it has to do with
individual responsibility.
No one is suggesting that a pilot should fly when he or she is ill or
affected by medications,
but the "one size fits all" solution that FAA medical requirements impose do
not apply to gliders, period!
If this is such a hard concept to grasp, one wonders how one ever passed the
written and
practical tests to get a certificate in the first place.

There many reasons for not having a FAA medical, among which is the
impossibility of documenting
many of things in one's medical history. Many folks have not lost their
medical, it merely ran out and
they chose not to renew it. In addition, prescription drugs affect people
in different ways.
What might put you under the table, could go unnoticed by me.

Since you are so devoted to solutions that require a law suit, perhaps we
should do as some Doctors are doing; they
are refusing to treat malpractice lawyers for routine or non-essential
medical conditions. As a proponent of law suits to
get your way, perhaps the gliding community ought not to allow you to have
tows or operate your glider. After all, one
does not wish to be sued. Let me say it again so that you understand: no
element of Part 67 applies to glider pilots.
The reasons are myriad and have been discussed often here. Why is it so
hard to grasp?

Allan

"Chris OCallaghan" wrote in message
om...

However, if anyone were harmed by a glider pilot taking drugs for a
condition that precluded him/her from obtaining a third-class medical,
I would heartily endorse suing the pilot or his estate.

Gosh, Allan, did a bug crawl up someplace private? I know at least a
dozen pilots who continue to fly with health problems that make them a
danger to themselves and others. Most continue to fly without
incident. Others have broken gliders, themsleves, and in one case I
know of, another person.

All I'm doing is stating the facts... Pilots choose to fly with these
conditions. The law does not currently preclude this; it is not
criminal. But the law also provides the injured with recourse. Perhaps
more aging and infirm pilots would gracefully leave the sport if they
recognized that they were risking their estates? It's amazing that for
so many, money is more important than life (theirs and others).

I think it's fair to say that if I did you financial harm through my
willful negligence, with or without criminal intent, you'd be shaking
the lawyer tree hard and fast in an attempt to recoup your losses. (Or
perhaps you are far more Christian -- read the "patiance of Job" --
than I give you credit...) Regardless, the threat of litigation is a
powerful tool, one that helps people weigh the outcomes of their
actions. One perhaps that might cut through the absurd
rationalizations some pilots practice.

And just to keep you on my straight and narrow, I've offered up the
right to choose, based on how the law is currently framed. And your
reaction proves my intoduction. Speaking favorably of litigation is
not politically correct in any aviation forum. Unless, of course, you
happen to be the injured party. Litigation is a just a tool...
granted, some abuse it, but it has its place in a society of personal
freedoms AND accountabilities.

No Chris,

It is simply the tendency of some to frame their interpretations based on
their world view
and not realize that there are as many world views as there are people.

Since I am not immune to that tendency, you get to learn about my prejudices
as well.

Seemingly every time someone submits a question that involves FARs,
responses come
out of the woodwork that appear to come from that room full of monkeys
trying to
reproduce Shakespeare's plays.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since, for 228 years, folks haven't
figured out what
the US constitution means.

Unfortunately, you are not stating facts, you are stating assumptions based
upon
faulty interpretations of the FARs.

There is no negligence if there is no standard to base it on.

There is nothing "Politically Correct" about my opinion.

A case in point: 14 CFR 91.175(c) specifies the rules for takeoff and
landing under IFR.
Ignoring for the moment part 121 and part 135 rules, the specification for
descending
below MDA or DH describes "flight visibility". This is not a RVR value or
measured
value, this is the visibility that the pilot sees from the cockpit. So, if
the pilot can see well enough
to land at DH or MDA, then the pilot may land regardless of the reported
visibility.
(This assertion ought to be enough to start a 300 response thread.)
Nevertheless, it is a fact.

The controlling FAR for glider pilot health gives the pilot, and no one
else, the authority
and the responsibility to determine his fitness for flight.

If there are those who abuse this authority, then that is their problem.
Since I do not
and I presume you do not, abuse this authority, then what is the point of
trotting out
potential lawyer threats?

You state that you know of many who abuse this authority. I know no one who
does.
Which of us is closer to reality? I don't know and. I suspect, neither do
you.

Now, while I reach around for that bug, let us go fly and have fun.

Allan




"Chris OCallaghan" wrote in message
om...
Gosh, Allan, did a bug crawl up someplace private? I know at least a
dozen pilots who continue to fly with health problems that make them a
danger to themselves and others. Most continue to fly without
incident. Others have broken gliders, themsleves, and in one case I
know of, another person.

You state that you know of many who abuse this authority. I know no one who
does.
Which of us is closer to reality?

OK, how about max gross weight and seat limits? Just hang around my gliderport
for three hours during any Saturday or Sunday when we have flight instruction
and you will routinely see people exceeding the max gross capacity of the
aircraft. Their solution is to rip out the placards that showed the carrying
capacity.

You're lucky if you fly at a place where PICs don't abuse their authority.

Jim Vincent
CFIG
N483SZ
illspam

ADP wrote:

You state that you know of many who abuse this authority.
I know no one who does.
Which of us is closer to reality?
I don't know and, I suspect, neither do you.

Now...let us go fly and have fun.


But, that's not the purpose of a NewsGroup -- to Fly and Have Fun. The purpose
of a NG is to balance one's own prejudices against everyone else's, or, in my
case, to enlighten the benighted. ;

There are those who do abuse their "authority", both in the power- and in the
glider-world. We have witnessed here recently individuals with an admittedly
questionable grasp of that which the rest of us loosely agree is reality,
stumbling about verbally while hoping against hope for someone to give them
permission to do that which even they know is wrong.

If the FARs say one must not fly when a reasonable person would know that one is
impaired in some manner, then all the verbal acrobatics in the world will not
change the fact that one is morally and legally liable if one injures someone
else while operating with said impairment.

As always, if they have to ask then the answer is, "No."



Jack