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hatton
4th Sep 2016, 20:13
Aviation and obesity - are they compatable or mutually exclusive. Looking for a serious thread here, not discerning comments. Thanks

Gordomac
5th Sep 2016, 09:53
Just need to look at "mutually exclusive". Is that an oxymoron ? And I see BMI resurfacing again. I was anorexic once. After severe warning by the Medics, I started to put on weight. Went from 8st.6 lb (old school) to 9st. 7lb and was warned by the joker doing my annual renewal that I was "putting on weight" and that "they" didn't like fat pilots. Talk about oxymorons........there is a discerning joke there, somewhere.

cavortingcheetah
5th Sep 2016, 17:37
It ain't over 'till the fat pilot sings.

hugh flung_dung
15th Sep 2016, 12:08
An honest answer is: it depends. The issues are: passing the medical, mass and balance and physical size.
The only way to know whether you can pass the medical is to be examined by an AME.
All aircraft have mass and balance restrictions so a heavy pilot may not be able to fly some aircraft or will have reduced disposable load and range (every 40-60 lbs is equivalent to an hour of fuel in a small light aircraft.
Physical size will also restrict the aircraft you can fly. Many years ago someone "on the large side" came to me for a tailwheel conversion - so we used a Stearman (huge cockpit) and did what was needed.

Despite the above, it would be far better to lose some weight!

HFD

cavortingcheetah
17th Sep 2016, 12:02
It is rumoured that the powers in Europe are about to standardise on a maximum coefficient of fat to height body ratio, as measured by fat calipers, on initial medicals. No flight crew will be permitted to fly with excess fat upon their frames as to provide sufficient body fat material for liposuction.
This has now become a security issue within the EU because it has come to the attention of the authorities that liquidised body fat, when mixed with certain crystals that are easily available from pharmacies, can provoke a chemical reaction that is undesirable.
Some concern has been expressed in Brussels at the possibility of home liposuction kits becoming available on the open market thereby leading to the possibility of either voluntary or involuntary liposuction and consequent outrage.
It is further rumoured that this is the principle reason behind the recent , ex EU,resignation of Manuel Barroso and his acceptance of a no doubt lucrative post at that well known paragon of financial rectitude, Goldman Sachs.

Loose rivets
17th Sep 2016, 21:38
I've just lost 30 pounds or so and wish like hell I'd done it years . . . no, just never put it on. At 6' even, I've been swinging between 14.5 stone and 15 most of my post-50 life.

It wasn't too bad when I could run every day but it's still nothing like being reasonably slim. To achieve the loss I gave up drinking (I know. Unthinkable) and the main reason for this was the wine was costing more and more and becoming cr@p.

I'd plan the wine with the food every night and one would bolster the looking-forwardness of the other. :\

Walking 12-15 miles a week and almost broke into a run last night.

My main thought now is - it's a bit bleedin' late. :suspect:

cavortingcheetah
18th Sep 2016, 17:42
No it's not.
Exercise increases your life span by a percentage which, by definition, relates to your state of present longevity curve. A 5% increase in life span at 76 means that you'll die when you would die had you done nothing but with an additional increment of nearly 4 years of life.
Had you taken up exercise at 50, you'd only live your allotted span + 2.5 years.

Loose rivets
19th Sep 2016, 01:06
That's making my brain hurt. Probably because some of my weight loss is a shrinking brain.:uhoh:

Late night ramble as I'm trying to do without Zolpidem. 4 AM this morning started to feel sleepy.

Also, my little mission: a mention of this gluten/wheat thing again. It just might help someone - as so many people have back pain and don't think about inflammation being caused by something else.

I did a lot of hard physical work in my 50's and then used the kid's weights before showering. Every morning I'd run.
Just EDIT something in here as the thread is about weight. When I say heavy work, I mean years of working on my home and do-uppers. I moved a lot of steel and concrete in that time. But, I was still consistently overweight. One has to throttle the food intake back, and eat the right stuff, or you'd have to run to Mars to burn it off. Well, Scunthorpe.

However, I thought a knee that had been intermittently tedious since my 30's needed a bit of cartilage taking out and finally I had it done. On that day, age nearly 60, running was over. It turned out that it was the lining of the inner 'knuckle' of the femur. Medial Condyle comes to mind. Anyway, it would from time to time flip over making a double thickness so the strings at the side were not long enough. The op cured that but I was a year getting over having the joint parted way open to grind away the flappy bit.

(That was an infinitive instead of gerund. Oh, F:mad:k off Grammarly!)

Anyway, they rough up the surface and the scar tissue acts as a cartilage. I flew the ATR for a retirement job after that and nothing could have been a better knee strengthener than the rudder on that. Only while taxiing I hasten to add! :}

However, as the knee got better, the old back started to play up. No one would operate . . . until last year. One night in hospital and life changes again. Why, why, why did I have to be fobbed off? If I'd been rich I wouldn't have had a 16-year chronically painful delay. Though, as I've said before, a lot of that may well have been celiac/wheat allergy. The spinal surgeon showed me a side view of my descending colon and spine. They were very close. "If this gets inflamed of course this will hurt." He said, pointing to my hurty bit.

No, still not tired. I know, I'll start a thread about bad writing. Got a Kindle book for 99p today. I was robbed.:uhoh:

hugh flung_dung
19th Sep 2016, 09:49
Cavortingcheetah: Exercise increases your life span by a percentage which, by definition, relates to your state of present longevity curve. A 5% increase in life span at 76 means that you'll die when you would die had you done nothing but with an additional increment of nearly 4 years of life.
Had you taken up exercise at 50, you'd only live your allotted span + 2.5 years.
Could you try that again for those of us whose engineering degrees are distant memories.

HFD

9 lives
19th Sep 2016, 11:45
The design requirement for seats and restraints for light aircraft is for an occupant weight of 170 pounds. A person of a greater weight will have less protection from crash forces.

A client of mine spent ten years restoring a Tiger Moth to beautiful condition. I watched its progress, as a part time project in his hangar over that time. He always had a gleam in his eye when he spoke of flying it again. I was on the phone with him one morning discussing flying I would be doing that afternoon in another aircraft. At the end of the discussion, he passingly said "... and while you're here, I'll have you fly the Moth.". That surprised me, (a) as it was his pride and joy, and he had mentioned so often about flying it again, and (b), as I had only flown a Moth once, more than 35 years earlier.

As I arrived at his shop, there it was, ready to go, surrounded by his proud staff. He was nowhere to be seen. I sought him out in his office, as usually, he had "advice" for me before the check flights I flew in his [customer's] aircraft. All he said was "go take the Moth for a flight, and make sure everything is okay with it. It seems to have shrunk since I flew it last. The staff told me he'd tried to fly it, but simply could not get in. I flew it two flights, checked myself out in it, and had lots of fun. It was sold and gone within the week, without another word.....

wiggy
19th Sep 2016, 16:28
TangoAlphad

The way the industry is heading with tough rosters with more operators using FTL's as a target which on a fit and healthy body can be very punishing with rather healthy people losing medicals or falling off their perch at 50-60!


Agreed.

I won't lie I'm not perfect and could improve my diet and get more exercise but I'm slowly improving as I'm becoming more and more aware I need to be fit and healthy,

Good idea but despite the advice about percentages it's only stats and it's worth bearing in mind the random gene/ random event can always catch you, regardless of how fit you are, or what you eat/drink. I'm not advocating drinking 15 pints a night and mainlining on take-aways but barring some radical medical break throughs I'm afraid some of todays gym pounding healthy eating, healthy Cranberry Juice drinking youngsters are going to be have a shock later in life..

However what being fit later in life may well do is make you more able to put up with the rigours surrounding any treatment and hopefully perhaps help get your licence back quicker.

cavortingcheetah
19th Sep 2016, 16:38
hugh flung_dung

I could try that again if I could remember what I was talking about in the beginning of time.
The general gist of the thing is that the later in life one starts exercising then the greater is the salvage of years in proportion to the extension potential of human life when related to a coefficient of age expressed as a percentage.
I've always found that to be a rather good pulling point for beautiful women 1/3 of my age; that and flashing my Class I. I guess women are just curios and exercise never hurt a healthy heart.

tonker
12th Oct 2016, 17:18
I'm obese and am just about to go through my 6 monthly "review"(another £250 check)

I'm starting to make inroads into not only my weight, but general overall health and wellbeing. Less stress and more excercise essentially. What gets on my goat though about the CAA BMI test, is that if I drank half as much as some of the alholics or nutcases I occasionally fly with. My weight would be fine.

The thinnest bloke I knew used to go to bed with a fist of beers. Literally 6 or so. He's never tested for alcohol,but as long as he looks like a chipper bloke, who cares eh?

cavortingcheetah
12th Oct 2016, 23:00
The difference is that while the performance of alcoholics improves during the duty cycle as the pilot's blood alcohol levels reduce, the cardiac capability of an obese flyer would decrease through the same flight duty period as a consequence of time spent in a pressurised environment exacerbated by both increased physical and mental stress.

Loose rivets
12th Oct 2016, 23:50
This walking thing. A PPRuNer pal used to swing by my seaside flat and we'd go for a walk. One day, he said he'd be a while and was not quite sure of his ETA. I asked where he was. "That's about ten miles away!" says I. He's going to have walked about 25 miles before he gets to mine . . . to go for a walk. Funny thing is, at 16stone he's no lightweight.

I noticed he'd pace up an down outside rather than come in and rest as I got me kit on. Now I know why. After dinner I set out on a walk that takes me at least once, up the cliffs by steps or slope. Sometimes I do the 70' climb three times. Any delay, and I'm champing at the bit.

Tonight, I opened the door and it'd started peeing down with cold rain. I just could not bear the thought of not doing the walk and drove to the beach. It bought back memories of me and me mum walking back from the pictures. We'd sometimes get splashed by waves coming right over the road. It made the fish and chips a bit soggy sometimes. Anyway, it's not simply the timing, there's something more. Some kind of energy burst that needs to come out at that time. The routine seems vital to losing weight. A gym session, a walk, tennis, it doesn't matter, the mind and body gets programmed to desire it on time. For the fist time in years walking in lashing rain felt good.

I'm now down over 40lbs and I fear it's not going to make me pull. Lovely lady at the shops gave me a very uncomfortable look I'd seen a lot this last few weeks and then said, I think you've probably dieted enough now. Yep, one's head looks like something that's been preserved in a peat bog. I know, I've said it before, but I haven't had an oval face for 65 years and being in disguise is fun.

tonker
13th Oct 2016, 04:28
So I should do the take off, and he can land!

When you consider why people are piling in planes because they are knackered(something the authorities still do nothing about), or through mental issues(I've never talked to a shrink) it just gets my goat that your BMI has become a ball breaker.

What's the evidence that this will improve safety or even better, name just one incident over the last 70 years that was caused by being pleasantly plump?

I've never been tested for drugs, and I've never had an alcohol test in 15 years. But if you don't have a size 34in waist OMG.......

cavortingcheetah
13th Oct 2016, 11:12
There I was thinking that the CAA rationale for a BMI restriction was because with anything greater than a 34" waist one has a difficult job to fit a slimline hostie in between oneself and the yoke.