Originally Posted by
Possum1
CASA still proposes to discriminate against the pilots who have had a medical certificate cancelled by making them ineligible to apply for a Class 5 Medical, even though, were they to apply for the Class 5, they could easily fit the medical standards required as detailed in the Draft Guidelines: Medical Assessment for Aviation. They are in effect applying an historical failure to meet a Class 1 or 2 medical standard to a current different medical standard(Class 5).
This blatant discrimination could be successfully challenged as CASA's response to this has been weak - they refuse to answer the question of discrimination but provide a lot of vague irrelevant blah:
"The purpose of the scheme is to have a simple and clear approach that doesn’t require CASA to undertake a medical assessment for pilots. ....
That bit is BS already: CASA don't do any "medical assessment" for pilots. (Fortunately. Nor would we trust them to do so!). Class 1 and 2 medical assessment is done by a GP or a DAME (usually both.. just to add a little more cost for the unfortunate
victim pilot) so Avmed can pin any later issues on someone else, and they've no plans to change that.
I know of at least one pilot forced to stop flying simply because he isn't earning enough to pay for the armload of specialist Medical Reports CASA have requested.
I really don't get what they're so worried about. A medical professional (a real one, not a desk-jockey in Canberra) who has actually met the candidate would still be signing off that they are fit to fly in line with whatever guidelines CASA choose to impose.