FAA Commercial Balloon Pilots Medical

[hotairballoonist]

BFA President Pat Cannon asked me to share the message below.

Dawn Chase
BFA Social Media

As promised, I am bringing you more information regarding the FAA’s rulemaking effort for the implementation of the second class medical requirement for all commercial balloon pilots. A meeting was held a few days ago between the BFA’s Call to Action Committee, made up of 4 individuals that have decades of experience and the person at AFS-800 rulemaking branch responsible for this effort.

Let me start by saying that the BFA’s Call to Action Committee has been working with both the FAA and NTSB since 2016 and the Lockhart accident. Discussions have been held monthly to bring to bear the experience and opinions of both our committee, the board of directors of the BFA and you, our members. We have worked exhaustively on your behalf to attempt to influence the final outcome of the rulemaking.

Remember that the rules was driven by Congress and attached to the FAA reauthorization act in 2018. The act stated that the FAA would: “Revised (14 CFR) section 61.3(c) to apply to an operator of an air balloon to the same extent such regulations apply to a pilot flight crew member of other aircraft.” This presents a difficulty to the FAA to provide strict compliance to the wording of the act. The BFA’s read on this is that the FAA will write the coming rule change to include all commercial pilots, but will likely exclude the task of instructions, for which no medical will be required.

The target date of publishing the NPRM is November 30, 2021. That date is just one month from now. We have been assured that there will be a public comment period that may be approximately 60 days from the date of issuance. When this NPRM is published, we will forward that out to you for your comments. At that time, we will also provide you with some guidance on how best to state your opinion to the FAA.

In addition, the FAA also recognizes that because many LTA pilots have likely never applied for an FAA medical before, that there will be a time period provided prior to final implementation by the FAA, during which, those obtaining a medical that may have some restrictive physical condition, will have time to contact their local aviation medical examiner to begin the process of obtaining a medical waiver for that condition where possible. In today’s flying medical world, I know pilots that hold second class medicals with all kinds of physical issues that 20 years ago would have meant permanent disqualification. Not so much anymore. I would expect a considerable time between final rule and implementation to enable pilots to work through this process.

We are working hard every day to mitigate the potential to our industry and sport and our contacts are direct to upper management of the FAA, but we cannot do all of this without your support. I’ll provide you with more information as it is made available to us.

Pat Cannon, BFA President
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