I was scared to death at my initial medical. I got it though. I first encountered problems after the 4th recurrent, where I went to a new AME. Turns out he is a former fighterpilot, who's standards were like if he was approving people for space-travel. I went to another AME, and there were no problems at all. So guys, when you recurrent, it does matter which AME you choose. Some of them work out from standards of the regulation, and some of them are evil creatures who wants your carrer to end.
That shows remarkable insight, good for you. In secondary school, we had a chem teacher who was working on his PhD in his spare time and asked us the craziest questions on exams and one time when a student came up with a different solution than he had envisaged, he actually responded "yeah, that's probably possible too". In hindsight, he was trying to teach us "rocket science", lol, because that is where his mind was most of the time. Okay guy, though. Later, when I was not able to make sense out of some of my geophysics classes (on astronomy) at university, I remembered a tip that a guy teaching structural geology (a combination of geometry and mechanical physics) had given me before when I had said (complained) that some of what he said was hard to follow... namely... simply find a different source of knowledge that works better for you. I consulted actual astronomy books and ended up understanding the stuff better than the guy who was teaching us the stuff. This was, you know, first-year general stuff, so it is not necessarily taught by folks who really understand the stuff that they talk about.
I failed my Class 1 medical check this summer but in two weeks I have the opportunity to do it again. Hope I pass this time! Love your channel ;) Greetings from Barcelona
I failed the psychological test. The results said I had some obsessive compulsive traits. In the scale of 1 -100 I scored 62 in this trait and pilots need a maximum of 59 or under. 3 points less and I could have passed the test :( Anyway, the medical centre said me that the psyco tests are not 100% sure of your real attitude so that's why I have a second chance
Best of luck to you! But I have to add one thing he of course did not mention in this video. Ofcourse you have to be honest to the doctors questions. But NEVER tell them too much. They will dig for a way to fail you. Trust me. I know of people who had what mostly reminds of a tiny pimple on their eardrum, which they told the AME, and then failed the medical. 6 months later the "tiny pimple" was gone, and they went to another AME, and then passed the medical check. Be honest about the things that matters to your medical. If in doubt, you are not in doubt.
You're so comfortable doing things like this, if you ever decide to stop flying you'd be a wonderful teacher in the subject! So cool under pressure but so sharp with the questions and knowledge! I'm certainly no pilot but still apreciate videos like this as it gains my confidence as a passenger. Well done.
Im currently saving money for my CPL and im so happy that I passed my initial medical class 1, 2 months ago, until today... Over 2000 pilots and air traffic controllers in Denmark, including me just got their medical class 1 & 2 suspended. This is do to non-authorised aeronautical doctors issuing medicals. An absolute scandal and completely unheard that this could happen. Hope that I'll pass it once again and hope actually working pilots can get their medical within 2 months, otherwise they will be grounded. Never the less thanks for a great video - Gustav :-)
I have an upcoming class 1 medical tests at the end of January and it will be my very first and this video has really helped me , thank you so much for sharing.
This video has been so helpful!! I'm actually getting my medical done in coming months..and I had so many questions. Your videos are absolutely wonderful and really very informative. Cannot thank you enough for uploading this video. Amazing work as always. Cheers!
It was awesome, Mentour! Thank you so much for your hard work, answering to our questions! I am looking forward to your next episode! :) I wish you all the best!
This is a video many people have been looking forward to for a long time! Fantastic. You are very resourceful, thank you for getting this information for us who want to know! 😀
In the United States, you only go to a certified air medical examiner. It's a usual medical examination and it doesn't take all day like in Europe or other countries.
My, non-aviation, occupational medical tests required fasting for the blood draw, it was great if they could do this first, it’s hard to fast until noon, for example. I did worry slightly about false positives in the drug test, so I avoided known cross-reactors like poppy seeds in muffins, etc. Also, Marijuana smoking in public places is so common where I live that I used to worry about a positive for that in my drug tests, every time I went out in public it seemed I had to walk through that disgusting smoke. I don’t know how high the frequency of false positives is, but I think they should take a duplicate sample and send one set of sample containers of blood or urine to each of two different labs, just in case. I never used illegal drugs, and I hated to think my beloved career could be ended by a laboratory error!
Sure, I've seen and pass few health exam much worst than that. There is nothing there if you are in 'good shape' and exercizing regularly. I remember one exam taht impress me a lot at the time, it was needed to allow me to go in paramilitary training in the Artic. They check all that can be checked on a 8-pages physio-physical at my doctor's office plus a full evaluation of my physical fitness : full audio width, tastebuds, numbered all my dark points in my eyes, complete field of vision, characterize in detail my color vision, wide blood evaluation up to (if I remember correctly) 5 sub-blood groups, major renal activities, some scans for tumors and x-rays, peripheral blood circulation, tactile sensibility at several spots, reflexes, ORL, assessment of all past accidents, cardio at rest and on work load, some tumor's check over the body... I was pretty young at the time and it was an opportunity to learn a lot about my body and its health. I pass and was the only one over hundred guys who enjoyed his time over there.
You are so helpfull for a beginner learning about aviation. I live in Iceland and am hoping to get into my country's top flight industies: WoW air or Iceland air. I am 13 (in one month 14) and i can start early learning at 15 and am going to a flight teaching center this summer. I am hoping to become an airline pilot and fly across the world. :)
I have a question. If a captain on a 737 upgrades to a 777. Is he still a captain for the 737 or does he change roles when flying the specific type of aircraft?
Very interesting video, can't wait for the follow-up! Since you've insisted on the illicit drug problem, I became curious: how often does it happen that pilots fail the drug test during recurrent examination? I'm not asking about initial examination discovery rates, because practically anyone can go there, but I'm wondering how many pilots (who were obviously clean at the initial) go down the wrong path later in their lifes?
Thank you for these wonderful videos Mentour! I am in the process of doing my Class 1 UK CAA Medical at the moment.... everything was ok except my blood pressure was a little high. I was requested to get an ABPM (24 blood pressure monitor) and I just did that and it appears my blood pressure was pretty high the whole time (probably didn't help that I couldn't stop thinking about it!), but now I'm not sure what will happen when I submit the results to the AME! :(
Mentour, a curious question for you and Captain Joe. Do you think that it would ever be possible for you 2 to fly together even though you are in different countries and flying for separate companies? It would be good to see both of you doing the launch of a next-gen airliner.
11:57 i was HOPING that he would bring up the topic about testing observation and whether or not there is privacy in urine testing or it has to be observed... unfortunately he talked about something very different. In fact, I do not blame people who get annoyed by this since i can confidentially say it feels very uncomfortable if not done in an empty private room.
How about colour blindness, or actually colour weakness? I am not going to be a pilot, however I am curious, as I have a very slight anomaly, called deuteranomaly, which I guess, many "colour blind" people have. In my case, it might be that the green sensitive cones are tuned slightly too much towards the red ones, creating a very minor change of how the spectrum is perceived. I experience _every_ colour of the rainbow, and see no discrepancy when subjected to palettes, like in a shop where they sell painting. A friend of me, by the way, is nearly a dichromat, he cannot actually see the red colour, maybe only somewhat, so he really is colour blind, in the right meaning of the word. Red, screaming "SALE" posters, for instance, for him, are dark grey or dull so obviously, he would have great trouble, being a pilot or train operator, so how about all those who only are just a little colour deficient, and not actually colour blind? I have never had doubts about seeing the difference between red and green traffic signals, or say, seeing red berries inbetween green leaves, and only fails on a couple of those very stringent Ishihara colour vision tests, where you have to see the difference between very obscure shades of brownish colours, to make out the numbers. On other colour vision tests, I get only a very minor deficiency diagnosed, while the Ishihara test, is very stringent, like pass vs feil, and nothing inbetween, like diagnosing minor colour weakness. This actually made me being confused for very many years, as they said to me as a little boy, that I was "colour blind", while as I said, have no problems with colours in practise, even doing digital photography, scanning and colour restoration in my work, without any hints of problems. I found the papers on me, in archives, and it turned out, they _could_ actually have explained this better to me, if they had bothered to. When correcting or restoring colours in old photographs or films, I have even not seen any discrepancy between the RGB levels in numbers, for every pixel, and what I think I perceive, and no customers has ever seen anything wrong, either. :-) Pictures might have either a red or green tint, due to age, and I seem successful every time, about correcting it, without "cheating" by looking at the RGB numbers :-) - however in some pictures, the old colour might need to be corrected different in highlights and in the shadows, then of course, you may need to look at the numbers, as our eyes easily are confused, if the colours are "illogical", like all those optical illusion pictures clearly demonstrates. So - to be a pilot, do you have to have a perfect colour vision, or is very small imperfections accepted? If only perfect vision is accepted, I would guess, there would be some great disappointments, as most people may not know about the small deficiency, like I have, unless they for some other reason, like need for glasses, have their eyes checked anyway by an eye doctor. (In my case, I had a big cylinder error, making me having trouble to read letters, as the cylinder errror was near 90 degress. A laser operation as adult, however, corrected my vision 100% . :-) )
In FAA there are alternative tests for color vision outside Ishihara, you need only to pass one of them to obtain an unrestricted Class One Medical. Examples are the Lantern Test or an operations test that requires you to identify light gun signals on the ground while in the air. In CASA (Australia) too color deficient airline pilots can fly, though a while back they were only allowed to be First Officers. The restriction has since been lifted. Today even the most severe form of color deficiency (a Protan, in contrast you are a Deutan) can fly as an airline captain. Rules in JAA/EASA (UK/Europe) are much more stringent (a.k.a. discriminatory), though I believe alternative tests are still available according to JAR, but they may not necessarily be offered or accepted as "restriction-less" Class One. In most military though, color deficiency is a resounding NO. Many color deficient people may live their lives not knowing they are "deficient" at all. The difference is so mild that drivers' license won't test for color vision when traffic lights are "red" and "green". What's more interesting is that the Ishihara test has "hidden plates" that only color deficient people can see. This implies color deficients can see a different spectrum than "ordinary" people. In fact, during WWII, color deficient people are so good at pattern recognition that they were asked to spot camouflages. Ordinary people has S M and L cone cells, while color deficient people has S L L', hence it has been speculated that females with one carrier gene in fact has all 4 cone cell types making them much more superior in color vision. However, I am no authority in this area as I am at best a sim player, not a real pilot or an AME. I am hoping that +Mentour Pilot can ask Micke about this issue.
" What's more interesting is that the Ishihara test has "hidden plates" that only color deficient people can see." As far as I know, it is done so that you have slightly lighter/darker colours for example red and green. And you can see number 3 in green, but the lighter coloured circles form actually an 8, so colourblind person will see different number. I suppose it works for camouflage to some extent because normally people see (perceive) the colour first and brightness second. And yes some women are able to see yellow (or close to anyway) on top of red, green, and blue so they have superior colour vision. I wonder if anyone tested them if they can spot difference between true yellow and red and green combination creating a yellow. Some TVs were marketed as having extra yellow pixels, but not sure if it was connected to this phenomenon or it was just marketing stunt to have more colours than competition.
Hi Mentour Pilot! Thanks so much for the video! It's so helpful! Can you please cover in the next Q&A video about Nystagmus. Basically it's an eye condition that causes the eye to not be steady. I have a slight condition, not serious and was worries that it could prevent me from the first class medical. I really want to become a professional pilot, and now I'm a student pilot with thurd class medical. Thanks!
+Tetsuro s Hi! That's a very specific condition that you will have to speak to your own AME about. I will be covering the most common questions in next episode, otherwise it will be too long. Sorry my friend.
I'm so nervous about getting my Class 1 Medical. Never done before. If I successfully obtain mine, I'll come here to reply to this comment. Wish me luck)))
Can I just add as well, I did my class one last week and I was worried about my eyesight. The CAA guidelines indicate that your eye prescription must not be greater than +5.00 or -6.00 diopter and this is a problem for me as I am -5.75 Left eye and -6.50 Right eye. So going into the exam I was terrified because I knew my prescription was over the "limit". However, I managed to pass as he examiner mentioned to me that because the rest of the eye examination was fine and there was no problem he could give me discrepancy. So if your eyesight is over the limit in anyway I wouldn't worry. Problems will only start to occur if they are massively over the limit or you have more than one problem with your eye (astigmatisme etc) Hope this helps someone as I wish I knew this before going as well.
Thanks for the vid! How about headaches... one of the most common ailments? I wouldn't fly with a bad one. But, would a history of migraines disqualify somebody? Don't get them much, but when I do 2-3x a year, I'm smart enough not to drive. Is this a judgment call for the pilot? I'm sure everybody gets one... and possibly has had to fly with one.
Because the blood test requires that,I have done my medical check in Amman,Jordan,Toronto and baghdad.in the three mentioned places I been told to be fasting before the medical check. Even now when I do my recurrent checks I have to be fasting.
Mentour Pilot - Not that I disagree but there are some types of aircraft (such as the one I intend to learn to fly) which DO have a minimum weight requirement (as well as a maximum), below which, the aircraft needs to carry additional ballast. It's not a make-or-break issue because a pilot under 60kg simply needs to add ballast to maintain appropriate weight and balance.
Wow to get a medical to drive a semi truck they just do a long and short range vision, do your blood pressure, then the doctor asks you 25ish questions and your out 15-20 minutes then you out
I had heart surgery at the age of 4 for my pulmonary valve. I play hockey and AA division soccer. I dream of being an airplane pilot. I heard they give us an ECG ... I hope I can get past it.
Yes you can, as long as you don't take injections, if the disease is controlled and that doesn't affect your duties onboard then you it's no problem, that's what a doctor told me once!!!
What I'd like to know is if the authorities in the EU are as lenient as the U.S authorities?. For example, if someone doesn't meet a particular standard for vision, perhaps having glaucoma or some other illness, Will the Authorities in the EU simply disqualify a pilot or will he be allowed to demonstrate his ability to be a safe pilot if the condition is stable and closely monitored? I've heard of pilots with 1 eye correctable to 20/20 only, some with prosthetic limbs and other health conditions that all flying commercially in the U.S. Are the standards in the EU the same or at least lenient in this regard also? Also, why do some airlines have higher medical standards that what is required? Doesn't this limit the pool of pilots they can rightfully hire if they qualify by the standard of the authorities?
there isnt a yes and no to this question. It all depends. I got migraines with aura, and im fit enought for a class 2 medical, but not a class 1 medical. I will need to be 10 years attack free i think.
In Spain people smoke a lot of weed on the streets and sometimes i've "smelled" the weed due to it. I'm kinda scared that such a low quantity could show up.
Well, not sure if you did the test but don't worry about it. As long as you don't use it. Or you don't need it to function properly, as for example you are dependant on it then it's fine. As long as you don't go to test under influence of weed it will be fine. If it was something else though, other than weed, I'm 99.9% sure it would reason in fail.
