By Michael Gilmour 

Isn’t it great being able to fly? Soaring with the birds is nothing short of miraculous but two words always seem to bring pilots rapidly down to earth – ‘medical due’.

I remember when I was first told about pilots needing to get a medical. For some strange reason it sent a chill up my spine and scenes from numerous movies where pilots had failed their medicals rapidly passed through my vivid imagination. Just who are these medicos anyway to keep me pinned to the ground? Not unreasonably they are the same people who are trying to keep you and the unsuspecting public from being killed.

When you really think about it, making sure that people are fit to fly makes a lot of sense. Private pilots, like myself, plough through the air at about 120 knots oblivious of the fact it's like a controlled firecracker just waiting to go bang at any moment. The key component of the aircraft is the pilot and regular maintenance and servicing is highly recommended.

Let's consider, if a light plane and contents weighs about 1000kg and plummeting from 5,000 feet in a nose dive gets us going to about 350kph (yes, I know, the wings just fell off) then the good old high school momentum formula of mass x velocity shows that we are hitting the ground with a considerable crunch followed by a decent sized explosion. In fact, the explosion is in direct proportion with how well you plan and manage your fuel which does add an additional incentive to get those calculations right.

It’s no wonder that people on the ground don’t like the fact that you may land on their house in this spectacular fashion due to a failure at the pilot level. Generally speaking the public has faith in the machinery (hey, they go up in planes all the time) but the pilot is another matter altogether. The only solution for them to feel confident that this biological component is going to hang together is to enforce a medical. After all, they can’t ask some LAME to squirt a little oil on a knee joint or replace the lens in the eye because it’s a little scratched. The best way to view a medical is to think of it as a 100 hourly on the most critical part of any aircraft - the pilot.

So recently I took a look at my medical and the fateful date leapt off the page that screamed that it was due. I don’t know what it is about guys and doctors but we just don’t like them. My wife knows that for me to ever go to a doctor I have to be just one step away from death. This attitude traversed the generations when my son said that he had a sore arm. I told him to, “don’t worry, I’m sure it’s fine.” My wife, knowing my doctor phobia, came back from the medical centre with my son’s arm in plaster. Thank goodness for wives who tend to have more sense in these matters.

I’m sure that you now get the idea that for me to call a doctor up and request a medical must then mean that I really, really like flying and that I was prepared to take this big personal giant leap. After dialling the number incorrectly a couple of times I managed to book my appointment. That was when the anxiety set in.

The days until the great event became the doomsday clock that seemed to be rushing me headlong into oblivion. The night before culminated in a nightmare which involved a doctor using a flight computer, pencil and eraser as instruments for inspecting all aspects of my anatomy. I woke up feeling relieved that he’d used a WAC chart to find out what areas of my body needed to be checked.

That morning I headed off to the medical centre and waited in the reception area with half a dozen people of a generation that I was fast approaching. The nurse called my name, gave me a small bottle and pointed to the lavatory.  I don’t think this happened last time. Don’t you just love the new CASA drug rules? I’m not a doctor but if I was using drugs I think that I’d try to hold off prior to a medical I’d just booked. Luckily for me I passed this test event better than my PPL test.

Next I met the doctor. He immediately set me at ease with a pleasant conversation about flying (any conversation about flying is normally pleasant) and then began prodding and poking. Reflexes were good, I could walk a straight line and everything else seemed to be functioning up to specifications. That was until he asked me to read the eye charts.

I could read the one on the far wall with no problems at all. In fact, he could have moved the chart down the street and I could probably still read the bottom line. The problem for me was reading anything up close, which is useful if you want to read the altimeter, ASI or even possibly a map. Age had caught up with me. Never fear, I had just seen an optometrist so after donning my glasses all was good.

I now have a medical which says, “must have glasses”.  Not a big deal as I really do value my life. If you think that you may need glasses then make sure you don’t get polarising lenses for your ‘sunnies’ as the polarising filter makes all LCD screens and instruments go black. Trust me when I say that flying a glass cockpit aircraft and not being able to read the monitors isn’t a very intelligent thing to do for a pilot.

At the end of this traumatic (well, not really traumatic) experience I’d passed and the doctor signed a form that would allow me to enjoy my passion for another two years (CASA willing) at which time ‘medical due’ would once again rear its ugly head. On the whole, medicals aren’t really that bad and they are designed to keep us flying safely. While I’m thinking this happy thought I know that one day some GA medico is going to say the fateful words ‘failed’ but at the moment 100 years of age is a long way off. 

In the meantime, safe flying and I wish you all the best the next time the most important part of an aircraft has a maintenance check…and that's you.