Aeromedical Service Back To Pits After Administrator Promised They Would Have Necessary Resources

By ANN Senior Contributing Editor Juan Jimenez

Last July, those of us who attended EAA's AirVenture at Oshkosh remember the hoopla surrounding the FAA's announcement that the final Sport Pilot Rule was about to become the law of the land. The FAA made a lot of noise... the EAA made a lot of noise... the media made a lot of noise.

During one of the hoopla news conferences in one of the larger open-air areas, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey joined Tom Poberezny and a gaggle of EAA and FAA senior management employees to talk about the new rule. They did their best to try to make Sport Pilot come across as the best thing to happen to general aviation since the introduction of the propeller.

Throughout all of this, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about some of the issues that would come up given the FAA's last-minute decision to pull the rug from under the feet of people who had stopped flying because of medical reasons. These were the pilots who thought they would be able to fly again without having to pawn their first-born to pay for expensive medical tests, and send mountains of paperwork into the gaping maw of the Black Hole of Oklahoma.

Warnings bells went off in my head when I heard that these people would be required to apply for and receive a special issuance medical before they would be allowed to fly again without a medical certificate. The folks from Aeromedical told everyone at EAA that they weren't out to keep people from flying, but frankly, very few of us believed them -- they just didn't seem sincere.

During one of the conferences, this reporter stood up and asked FAA Administrator Marion Blakey, point-blank, what she was going to do so that Aeromedical would be prepared to handle the onslaught of special issuance medical applications. Everyone knows that first-time requests usually take as much as 12 months to slog their way through the bureaucratic muck. It was clear to me that if additional resources and manpower were not added, the situation would turn worse -- much worse.

Ms. Blakey stood up, and so did Dr. Jon Jordan, head of FAA Aeromedical, and they both stated they would work together to make sure the department would have the necessary resources. Dr. Jordan added he didn't think there would be a problem with the volume of work, but again, he just didn't look like he believed what he was saying. I kept hoping to myself that my gut feelings were all wrong, but alas, it was not to be.

Fast forward nine months ahead. Back in January, I submitted an application to renew a special issuance certificate, a process that should take no more than thirty days. In the months before that I had fought a battle with Oklahoma over a demand that I change a couple of my medications -- something which every single practicing medical doctor I talked to said was a completely absurd request. Nevertheless, I was told that when Aeromedical decides they want to be thick-headed about something, it's not worth the time to fight them about their decisions, absurd as they may seem. So, I changed medicines, waited a while and then went to my AME with a letter from my doctor in hand, as requested.

I guess my problem is that I am too much of an optimist. I knew that Aeromedical would be swamped, and my application would disappear into the swirling black mists of the "examiner" corps. So far, it's taken three times as much as it normally takes to get a response, and it appears that Ms. Blakey has done it again -- she told us in no uncertain words she would do something, but didn't follow through, or changed her mind. A few weeks ago it was user fees, now it appears she never did what she said she would do with Aeromedical. I thought perhaps it was just my application, but I've talked to several other people throughout the country and confirmed that their special issuance renewals have also been stuck in limbo for months.

It's a pity, because I liked Ms. Blakey. I thought that she was doing a great job at the FAA, and truly bringing positive change to an organization that sorely needed it. I wanted to believe. Maybe that was my mistake.

FMI: www.faa.gov