If you were paying attention to the news last week, you may have noticed that the otherwise chronically broken Congress actually proposed a bi-partisan budget package. Now let’s not delude ourselves
into thinking strains of Kumbaya will soon be pealing from the Capitol and the members will be caroling on Pennsylvania Avenue, but this little outbreak of cooperation may have positive consequences for aviation. {boy that sounds familiar but alas we are only talking one house not two}
Specifically and without undue prodding, Congress got busy pushing back on two critical issues, the FAA’s plan to require sleep apnea diagnosis for medical certification and the very idea that the Third Class medical requirement is still viable.
It’s not unusual for Congress to dip deeply into the affairs of government agencies; that’s what they do, after all. But I can’t recall a confluence of Congressional involvement in two important aviation issues occurring so quickly. {unlike the snail's pace of RRP}
First, the proposed sleep apnea diagnosis. I’m surprised that FAA air surgeon Fred Tilton stumbled into this mess.
Mid-level agency executives are usually a lot smarter about what’s going to stir up the masses enough to invoke the wrath of Congress {here the midlevel crats thumb their nose at the pollies} . They like to avoid that sort of thing. Yet, by administrative fiat, Tilton decreed in early November that all pilots over a body mass index of 40 would have to be tested for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and that eventually, the agency wants to extend that to lower BMIs. Here’s Tilton’s announcement. (
PDF) It’s breathtaking in its potential scope, cost to airmen and utter lack of supporting data demonstrating how aviation safety will be improved or even anything showing that OSA is a threat to aviation safety. Earlier this month, the House introduced a bill to require the FAA to follow standard rulemaking procedures for this proposed new requirement.
What stuns me is that Tilton didn’t have his ducks in a row on this, attaching links to convincingly show how OSA is causal in aviation accidents to the extent that it’s worth the enormous expense he is proposing to address this issue. Could it be there are no ducks to line up? My guess is the convincing data doesn’t exist. Yes, the NTSB has opined (
PDF) on this subject, but largely in the context of fatigue in general, with apnea as but one factor. In other words, Tilton may be proposing an expensive fishing trip, to be paid by pilots seeking medicals.
If you break through the crust of all the coverage on sleep apnea, you soon see that it has become the condition du jour, the suddenly discovered silent killer of the masses.
How could civilization have endured so long with the scourge of sleep apnea? {love it!} An entire industry to treat it has emerged and doctors are being shown how they can make lots of money in the burgeoning field of “sleep medicine.”
In this story, NPR reported that Medicare payments for sleep testing increased nearly four fold between 2001 and 2009, from $62 million to $235 million.
According to the report, a company called Aviisha specializes in sleep testing and lures physicians with a picture of a doctor with a stack of cash in his lab coat pocket. Not to say the sleep medicine business is entirely a racket, but you can see the potential for abuse. I suspect Tilton’s proposal will be seen as playing into this. If Congress forces rulemaking, perhaps we’ll get a look at what data is supposed to support how OSA treatment will materially improve aviation safety.
Of course, if there weren’t a requirement for medicals, expensive OSA treatments wouldn’t be a requirement, either. And that’s the idea behind a bill introduced last week by Rep. Todd Rokita, an Indiana Republican who’s also a pilot. The bill would expand the use of the driver’s license medical certification to allow pilots to fly aircraft up to 6000 pounds, VFR in non-commercial operations. It doesn’t eliminate the Third Class, but rather reduces the scope of operations where it's required. If passed, it’s a huge step forward, but there’s one thing about it I don’t like: it doesn’t allow IFR operations. This makes no sense to me, for instrument skills and operations have always been seen as a means of improving safety. It’s counter-logical to say that it’s medically stressful or that it should require a higher degree of medical screening. My guess is it’s thrown into the bill as a bone and I’m not really complaining. We have to start somewhere on eliminating the Third Class and this is a positive development.
But it’s not without negatives. While I don’t think the elimination or curtailment of the Third Class will kill the light sport industry, it will put a dent in it, especially for some manufacturers. Many LSA buyers are older pilots who have the wherewithal to pay cash for $130,000 airplanes. Some are doing that because they’re selling their Bonanzas or Skyhawks out of medical-loss fear. They see LSAs as lifeboats to extend their flying career. If fear of medical loss no longer propels them, light sport will lose some sales. So be it.
It’s unreasonable to expect light sport to sustain on the back of a medical requirement that has long since outlived its usefulness, if it was ever useful. {love it!}
How these two issues play out will be interesting to watch and will likely
be another case study in how bureaucracies protect their castles (troughs!} by maneuvering around Congress.
It’s always amusing—or maybe infuriating—to attend public meetings where FAA mid-level or even administrator-level executives talk the talk about supporting GA and removing regulatory barriers. Yet here are two examples where they are doing just the opposite. Elimination of the Third Class medical won’t instantly stimulate GA growth,
but it will surely reduce the erosion of the pilot population, which is the next best thing. Tilton’s sleep apnea proposal is just bizarre.I have little doubt that many pilots on the verge of bailing from GA will be encouraged to do just that when confronted with a requirement for $3000 worth of OSA testing and then living with a CPAP machine.
Personally, I’d rather take up crack smoking than look and sound like Darth Vader when getting ready for bed. But that’s just me. Either way, it ought to be my choice, not the FAA’s.