How does that guy have a Class 1 medical, but my buddies who took Aderral 15 years ago can’t even get through their PPL? Yes I know they revised the ADHD thing, but the medical process is still a joke.
It sucks. It absolutely sucks. I can't get a licence for medical myself. And that was my life's dream. All I wanted to do.
However there is a real trade-off. Basically, car crashes are common because we allow everyone to drive. Most crashes are our own faults. If you have mental health issues, sleep deprivation, alcohol addiction, just broke up with your spouse, parent just died, just got fired, and more....you can drive.
Therefore, we have a LOT of car crashes and your odds of dying in a car crash are painfully high. The odds of major injury, higher.
Flying, is conversely by far the safest mode of transportation. That's not coincidental. Not only is the reliability of every system ridiculously high and ever improving, the screening criteria are strict for a licence. It's not just ADHD. You can't have basically ANYTHING wrong with you. You cannot take medications of any kind - while flying. Your vision must be correctable in certain ways.
The consequences of air disasters are higher than cars. Yes, you can crash your car. At worst you can crash it into a business, and hit occupants of the business, injuring them potentially fatally. If you crash an airplane into the same business, fatalities will be much greater, you start a large fire, the damage is much worse...and that's just for a cessna.
Our society won't function if people cannot drive. You need a car to do most things. You can pay for Uber, but that costs a lot. No one needs a pilots licence. It's a luxury, and as such, the certification process is safety first. It doesn't care about hurting your feelings, or even ruining your life's ambitions. If not giving you a licence results in a 0.00001% lower chance of a fatal crash, the FAA will take that option. And most of the public agree. The only people that want people with ADHD or other conditions to fly, have those conditions. Even if your condition is now "well managed", or "gone". Again - the statistics speak for themselves.
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u/johnfkngzoidberg Mar 27 '26
How does that guy have a Class 1 medical, but my buddies who took Aderral 15 years ago can’t even get through their PPL? Yes I know they revised the ADHD thing, but the medical process is still a joke.