Kenny Keller walks through the FAA medical certificate exam for pilots. Almost nobody fails the third-class medical. The exam checks urine, vitals, vision, reflexes, and pain. Schedule it early and talk to an FAA-designated examiner if you have health concerns.
Hey Day 240 Coffee with Kenny I'm Kenny Keller, the creator. Helicopter Land Ground School Short Video Today I want to talk about medical certificates. We get a lot of questions for people that are just starting out. So this is geared for you that are brand new. If you're already a pilot, you already know the basics of the medical certificates. For those people that are getting ready to start their career, they ask so many questions and they email us as instructors and hey, I have a problem with this. Or, you know, there's a number of different medical conditions a person can have and still get a medical. And one of our members just said, hey, Kenny, what goes on when you go to the medical? He goes, because I'm kind of concerned and I've had a pass back injury. And to answer his question, for those of you that are just starting out, I can promise you the gentleman I've been using for my medicals the last few years, he's a flight surgeon of 40 years and an FAA designated medical examiner. And he said, kenny, everybody freaks out, everybody worries. Almost nobody fails a medical. And he explains to me each time that, you know, there are a lot of different health problems a person can have. That doesn't necessarily disqualify you for the medical. Some particular health issues. They may be able to issue you a medical as long as you're under the care of a physician. So there's different ways that this can play out. But if you're new to this, what you're going to need is a third class medical. And this member said, well, you know, what goes on with the test? Basically you're going to schedule the test. You'll go in, guy's going to have you pee in a cup, then he's going to check your heart rate, they're going to check your vision and they're going to have you jump up on the table and they're going to check your reflexes and probably have you lay out and they're gonna poke you here and poke you there and poke you there and say, does this hurt? Does this hurt? It's really a basic medical exam. And I can tell you that the years I drove heavy duty trucks, the medical certificate for the commercial driver's license, I think was tougher than the medical. So if you're stressing over the medical certificate, don't stress over it. Easy for me to say, right? I stress every year. When I go back and I go in, he's like, your blood pressure's a little high. Were you nervous? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, what are you nervous for? Almost nobody fails these medicals. And I'm like, yeah, I know. And he usually says something like, don't drink so much coffee before you come in, would you? And he goes, don't worry about it. Everybody comes in here a little bit nervous and sometimes you have to make them sit there and you know, breathe calmly for three or four or five minutes. Get the blood pressure down. Very, very common. I recommend if you're new to this, you probably know by now you're going to be spending a lot of money on the training. So you're better off. Just go ahead and schedule that medical certificate, go in, talk to them and see if you can pass the third class. That's all you're going to need at the private pilot level if you're going to go more advanced. For commercial, there's second class and there's also first class. But that's once you're farther into the career. I highly recommend just simply calling up your medical examiner and you can do a Google search, simple Google search for your area for FAA medical examiner, schedule that test and go take it. Not mandatory, but if you're concerned about a health issue, this is a big deal and you might as well just go straight to the to the doc, say hey, here's what I'm worried about and see if you can pass the test. And then if there's some kind of an issue, he can help guide you through that and say, well you know, you do have a little bit of an issue here, but we can work with that. And then he can guide you along the path to help you get through that medical. So a great topic for day 240. Make sure you like and subscribe. Thanks to everybody that tunes in every single day. This is Coffee with Kenny. Every day we talk about training and checkrides and success and failures, all kinds of stuff, helicopter training related. Subscribe the channel and when you do, click the bell to be notified of our daily video. Give us a thumbs up. Leave your comments down below about anything helicopter related and we'll see in day 241. Peace out.
