Aeromedical

How Not To Botch The FAA Medical John Yodice wrote a column once on the legal perils of making a falsification on the medical application, even unintentional ones (such as accidentally forgetting a hospital stay). It results in a felony and can become years of jail time as well as a heavy fine (like $25k). […]

A man whose pilot certificate was revoked 21 years ago for lying on his medical application was the presumed pilot of a Cessna 335 high performance twin that crashed near Palm Beach County Park Airport a week ago, killing him and his wife. Philip Castronova, 70, and his wife Mandy, 39, were on their way […]

Canadian researchers say they have debunked the long-held belief that facial hair interferes with the seal on pilot oxygen masks and at least one airline has lifted its decades-old beard ban. Air Canada, which commissioned the Simon Fraser University (Vancouver) study, says its pilots can now sport beards “to a maximum length of 12.5 millimeters […]

A lack of energy is one of those subtle health issues that are easy to ignore and hard to fix. We tend to brush off a lack of energy with a nap. But chronic lack of energy—especially for a busy pilot—can interfere with quality of life and even signal a potential health problem. For this […]

Airbus’ Perlan II glider shattered its own altitude record Sunday, reaching 62,473 feet over the mountains of Patagonia in southern Argentina. The massive sailplane touched down at about 2:40 p.m. local time after a 5.5-hour flight riding the mountain waves that blow through the area of El Calafate Airport in the wildly beautiful area in […]

Your body’s wondrous structure of bone, muscle, tendons, ligaments and assorted odds and ends is a fantastic erector set that keeps vital organs safe, and allows for all of life’s perambulations. It lifts, twists, bends on command, and permits pilots to go about their cockpit tasks without a second thought. But throw a monkey wrench […]

Chief among the many comments and reactions to the suicide by Rich Russell in a Horizon Airlines Q400 on Friday was the wonder about how a ramp attendant could take off and do aerobatics in a regional airliner. Well, Russell may have provided the answer himself. He told air traffic controllers he played video games […]

A Horizon Air Q400 crashed on Ketron Island near Seattle-Tacoma Airport in Washington State after 29-year-old ramp worker Rich Russell was able to take it off from the busy international airport. The motive was suicide and it was not a terrorist act. Russell used a tug to turn around the aircraft, which was waiting for […]

Flying is often a convenient and valuable means of travel. But it can also be lethal if we fail to abide some simple guidelines designed to keep us safe. Many of these rules, procedures, and limits were explained to us by our instructors, and then followed up by a request that we make a vow […]

The BasicMed checklist we’ve been reviewing in the Healthy Pilot series ticks the usual boxes—dizziness, sensitive gut, cancer, kidney stones and more. They’re all there, even depression and mental acuity. But the central player in your personal health history is your heart. It unfailingly pumps oxygenated blood out to the extremities, distributes nutrients to the […]