Tom

I'd like to relate two points that are non-speculative: 1) Many if not most all malpractice insurance providers will state that they don't cover aviation medical certification except for aerospace medicine specialists. This historically is not an issue for AMEs as AMEs simply strictly follow FAA guidelines and are thus practically shielded from liability. 2) The PBOR2 language, as it currently is written in the various bills that it has been attached to, essentially precludes the ability of AMEs to "certify" exams unless the patient/examinee meets 3rd class criteria. Do we really think that an AME is going to sign off a private pilot with a medical history that the physician (and incidental AME) knows is disqualifying for a 3rd physical? No way. Do we really think that regular physicians are going to "certify" pilots for flight without malpractice coverage??? It needs to he understood that PBOR2 does not do away with 3rd class physical, rather it makes it non-compulsory. It should probably be assumed that to maintain your current liability/hull coverage that you'll need to maintain a 3rd class (at least at current premium levels). It should also be understood that 98-99% of people with a third class can keep it even with serious medical problems (though FAA has some wonky mandatory grounding periods for some conditions). My take is that, in a PBOR2 world, most GA pilots will keep their 3rd class except after certain medical events that FAA considers to be "groundable." The GA pilot might elect to fly signed off by a non-AME, though the pilot later will want the 3rd class back.

On a tangent: electronic ignitions have been accused of raising CHTs (while being more efficient in certain profiles) Having a PF exhaust in theory should allow for use of an EIS ignition with less heat concern. I wish there were more PIREPS on this.

Replacing an unreliable fuel gauge with another gauge that claims that itself cannot be relied upon makes no sense to me unless you have a surplus of money or if it just makes you feel better. We all have to do what makes us feel comfortable.

WARNINGS 1. NEVER RELY SOLELY ON ANY FUEL INDICATION INSTRUMENT FOR THE DETERMINATION OF AVAILABLE FUEL. 2. WHEN USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH A PHYSICAL INSPECTION, DETERMINATION OF AVAILABLE FUEL PLUS NECESSARY FLIGHT DURATION AND CONDITION CALCULATIONS, A FUEL LEVEL INSTRUMENT BECOMES A VALUABLE COCKPIT RESOURCE. https://nebula.wsimg.com/eda94b4fa871ff56471110dd006606fa?AccessKeyId=ED5892C3F1066DF7973B&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 The above warnings come from STC'd Cirrus install manual. No change from 1947 when pilots were taught to monitor fueling, inspect tanks after fueling, calculate for the flight, and don't rely on the fuel gauge.

You cried attribution bias but then in response provided a selection and confirmation-biased argument with an anecdote. Intellectually dishonest. Curious to know how much money you stand to make if everyone was required to buy your product. I don't know about everyone else, but the few times I've flown on vapors I did so because of my being an idiot, not having anything to do with the fidelity of the fuel monitoring. Had I crashed and ended up on your ambiguous histogram, you would have been guilty of attribution bias in including me in your data. And I strongly suspect I'm not the only idiot out there. who has flown on vapors not having anything to do with the fuel quantity monitoring system. So in what percentage of the accidents did pilots crash because of trusting the gauges or not dipping the tanks appropriately? What is the hazard of trusting the world's most reliable fuel monitoring system? More precisely, how many new accidents would occur because of reliance on the world's most reliable fuel monitoring system?

http://www.lasar.com/w/id/249/new-plane-details.asp

Paul Loewen was/is asking $95K for his with a recent top. Paul's plane does have sort of a salvage history 25+ years ago but nothing builds airplane character like having risen from it ashes and being owned/cared for by someone like Paul.

Please provide evidence to support your claim that professional pilots suffer fuel starvation accidents in GA aircraft with anywhere near the incidence of accidents caused by non-professional pilots. I call BS. No. Sounds like the opening/closing argument of a personal injury attorney: "that 1947 Cessna 120 wouldn't have crashed in 2008 had Cessna installed a highly accurate, calibrated fuel gauge to offset this unpreventable category of human error."

The lore says that Mooney salesmen would routinely scoot back in cruise for a more speed-favorable cg. Can't say that I've been able to detect this in my Mooney but I have a Beech B-19 that sliding back does offer an extra couple-three knots.

You're not supposed to take a picture of a mid-body with the front seats touching the back seats.

This. And this. And 2 hours with an instructor every 3-6 months to help keep your A-game alive. I'd pick a 750 or 650 or 540 or 440 now with a $500 FAA subsidized ADS-B solution. Resist all urges for any other glass in the panel (including engine monitoring) until at least 2018. It's very likely that by 2020 you'll be able to legally install all the Dynon goodness that you currently see on the Dynon site. If the year is 2023 and I'm looking for used planes I'd choose a Dynon equipped plane over a Aspen/G500/JPI/EI panel any day. Dynon offers (in my opinion) superior utility at a lower upkeep cost. I'm curious if the Dynon-equipped would actually command a higher value vs, for example, an Aspen-JPI equipped plane. Just another opinion....

It's completely different for many reasons, more prominent including: 1) AMEs have basically no real medical liability so long as they provide exams consistent with FAA policies and guidance (fairly unique in all of medicine). 2) AMEs are able to write of tens off thousands of dollars of personal income tax annually on personal flying activities solely because the provide physicals to pilots. 3) Aviation accidents often involve multiple victims, property damage, and deep pockets Diving and racing accidents are typically limited to one victim and little/no property damage. 4) There is no academic discipline called "racing medicine," no board certification in "racing medicine," no continuing education courses in "racing medicine" 5) The diving medicine community is extremely small, isn't full of goofy science and rules, and has never had any number of conflicts of interest for its patients. 6) There are no "racing medical experts" available/willing to testify against a family doc for clearing a driver with, for example, kidney stones to race. If there is no difference, can we count on AOPA to use its affiliated physicians and resources to stand up to the AME cartel in court when the time comes? It's inflammatory to ask this, but will AOPA really ask it's affiliated physicians, some of whom have spent their entire life committed to the idea that 3rd class physicals are needed, to develop resources (such as a webpage) to guide non-AME physicians in providing these physicals?

PBOR2 requires the non-AME examination to document the following: “I certify that I discussed all items on this checklist with the individual during my examination, discussed any medications the individual is taking that could interfere with their ability to safely operate an aircraft or motor vehicle, and performed an examination that included all of the items on this checklist. I certify that I am not aware of any medical condition that, as presently treated, could interfere with the individual’s ability to safely operate an aircraft.” [my emphasis] Wait for the first or fourth accident to occur where a medical problem is the likely cause. There are professional AME witnesses already willing to testify against the non-AME physicians for operating outside of their scope of practice in "certifying" aviators for flight. Assuming PBOR2 goes through exactly as it is written, and FAA changes nothing, which they won't on this paragraph, it is 99% likely that we will be 80% back to where we are today after 3-5 years. This "certification" statement should have never been allowed in and it's a huge mistake to lose the inertia that is present at this point in history towards true and sustainable reform.

By "your people" I mean to refer to secessionists who did not (or, more rarely, who do not) appreciate the goods and services granted to them by being a member of the common union.

My people have been contributing a little extra since at least as early as 1861 to your people. In 1865 most of your people got the message.

We simply have a lot of freeloaders who don't see themselves as freeloaders. "Wealthy people overwhelmingly attribute their own success to hard work rather than to factors like luck or being in the right place at the right time. That’s troubling, because a growing body of evidence suggests that seeing ourselves as self-made—rather than as talented, hardworking, and lucky—leads us to be less generous and public-spirited...Surely it’s a short hop from overlooking luck’s role in success to feeling entitled to keep the lion’s share of your income—and to being reluctant to sustain the public investments that let you succeed in the first place." http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/why-luck-matters-more-than-you-might-think/476394/ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/business/are-ceos-that-talented-or-just-lucky.html?_r=0

What does this mean? What do you do?

Most people do whatever is necessary to avoid cognitive dissonance. Want to skip out of a $60 annual fee but feel guilty? Seek out an echo chamber that will make you feel less guilty. A story comes out that reminds you that you're not paying it forward? Look the other way.

-In the pool your tissues never really had to switch to non-oxygen metabolism. Where they did have to switch to non-oxygen energy metabolism for a few seconds those bad metabolites were washed away quite quickly in a matter of seconds, never resulting in damage. It's quite another thing all together to have persistent non-oxygen metabolism going on for several minutes in a row, no less an hour or more. -Hypoxia/hypoxic is just a mutually agreed upon numerical concept. If you take the time to acclimate yourself, you can survive at an elevation far higher than you could naturally find food to support yourself (i.e. you'd have a hard time growing vegetables, finding meat, and a hard time finding tinder with which to cook the meat). Your oxygen level would be in the range to qualify yourself as being hypoxic, but so what. You could still walk around and survive, even with a little sub-optimal brain activity. The body seems designed to reproduce, not score high on IQ tests.

Your welcome!

As best as can be told, the issue is oxygen depletion (it sounds obvious, but not necessarily). If inflammatory reactions are going to happen, they'll start quickly (in minutes, not even hours). While the reaction will happen quickly, and the results of the reaction will be of questionable duration. You didn't hear it here first, but even doing a single chamber flight could result in changes seen on an MR study (please don't quote this). Not exactly analogous, but single carbon monoxide exposures have also shown long-duration effects (albeit, again, with neurocognitive testing only). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12362006 The good news is that, all else equal, living at higher altitude probably results in longer life.

Yes, there are effects that are believed to be permanent. To date, the permanent changes are only detectable with neurocognitive testing and MRI scans (i.e. everything will still seem normal). It is a safe bet that in the coming years there will be statistically significant tangible associations made from observations of the U2 community. At the same time, this is incredibly expensive to measure and small populations are involved, therefor it is unrealistic to assume that we will develop solid evidence-based best practices about this stuff. Some would say "if I can't feel it I don't care." The problem is some others do care. Given all the other challenges going on, most of us don't need any additional challenges to the brain.

Seth is the kind of parent that asked for advice about hypoxia. Some parents try harder. You shouldn't project your parenting values onto someone who is more conservative with their children's health than you were--at least that's what I was taught. If you had taken the time to read the non-hypoxic hypobaric study AND appreciate the neuro development going on in a one year-old you'd probably not joke about hypoxia and you probably would ask for some altitude information (assuming that you believe in science).

You and your co-pilot need to run through the primum no nocere checklist a few times. There is reason to not be so cavalier about mild hypoxia (as well as non-hypoxic hypobaria). e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25164539 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24819068

"Normal flying" needs to be qualified. There's a lot of very uncomfortable findings in research on hypobaric hypoxia. What altitudes are we talking about? For the lead keeping the plane clean, keeping the kids away from fueling operations and components, and being careful with hand in mouth activities is about all you can do. I wouldn't sweat this.