On Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:14:45 -0500, Richard
wrote:

On 4/20/2013 9:50 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:

FWIW, I don't care if you're a danger to yourself. You're an adult;
you work out your own risk-reward ratios.

I do get involved when someone pursues a hobby or a craft that creates
a danger for others who have not chosen to take risks for your sake.
I'll have more to say about this in my post to Lloyd. I'm glad he
started this discussion, because it's helped me to clear up something
that's at the root of a lot of the related issues we talk about here.

About losing your pilot's license: I'm sorry for you, and I'm
sympathetic. In three month's time in 1973 I lost my pilot's license,
my SCCA driver's license, and a berth on a sailboat for the Southern
Ocean Racing Conference. We can talk about it some time. I was
devastated by it; it turned my life upside down.

So I understand your frustration with that.


I appreciate that, Ed. BUT...

I didn't lose my pilot's license.
IT is still valid.

They just won't renew my medical.

I was finishing up a Wittman Tailwind, which is WAY too fast for
the new Sport Pilot (drivers license medical) and had applied for
a new medical, I fell into never-never land.

If one has been denied a medical, one can not legally fly under the
sport pilot rules.

Catch-22

Uh, that's a bummer. It was medicals for me, too. Type 1 diabetics
couldn't fly power until the '90s; I don't recall my license status at
the time. I hadn't flown power for five years but I had over 150
logged glider flights in the interim.

'Same for the SCCA. I tried again in 1983, after we had portable
blood-glucose monitors and something close to real-time control. SCCA
HQ was behind me but it was all at the discretion of the butthead
medical examiner in Philadelphia, and he wouldn't budge. I had built a
car for the ITC class (old junk driven by old men; I was 35 g) and I
had to sell it.

It was the SORC berth that broke my heart. That wasn't licensing; it
was the very real chance of a medical emergency and dying at sea.

Anyway, I've long since put it behind me. It sounds like it still eats
at you. Again, I'm sorry for that.

--
Ed Huntress