Basic Med Three Year Report Card Has It Worked? - AVweb

This is a VERY fair question to ask, glider cfi. I talked to Sen. Inhofe two different years at Airventure … one-on-one. One year, I walked with him for 15 minutes. He told me that his original intent with Basic Med was that if you have a driver’s license, you’d meet the Basic Med litmus test and you’d be able to fly low end recreational GA. What happened during that time in 2016 when the FAA Reauthorization Act was being worked was that MY FL Senator wouldn’t sign onto that idea and took six other Senators with him fighting against the idea. So, to assuage those people, Sen. Inhofe came up with a simple test. Unfortunately, in conference, even that was bastardized and the 22 item checklist had ‘pass/fail’ on it. Sen. Inhofe then went ballistic and had it changed to “examined.” The intent is that if there’s some issue a physician isn’t comfy with, that item is discussed, possible additional tests are conducted to satisfy the doctor and that’s it. There are only three specifically defined medical issues which would require a one-time special issuance 3rd class physical to be performed after which the pilot could revert to using Basic Med.

What I’ve been hearing / seeing is that pilots themselves are making this process WAY harder than it needs to be. We all pee’d and moaned about medical reform for years, listened to Michael Huerta ‘spew’ for years about reform being ‘ex parte’ and nothing happened. Along comes the perfect storm opportunity for a proactive Senator pilot – Sen Inhofe (thanks, Jim) – to shove it up the aeromedical divisions you know what during a FAA Reauthorization period and suddenly, Basic Med popped out. We ALL owe Sen. Inhofe a big pat on his back!

But – yes – it should have been a driver’s license medical but is darn near that anyways. And … it’s likely SAVING LIVES because pilots are seeing doctors again … not fearing the FAA Aeromedical bureaucracy.