Aviation Medical Exam

I had my aviation medical exam today. I'm not real happy. I should have known something was wrong when the Doctor said he had never seen the FAA form for eye evaluation before(and the robot says "Danger Will Robinson, Danger!). Honestly, I should have gotten up and walked out at that point. I had communicated with the Aerospace Medical Division of the FAA before I started this process to make sure my amblyopia was not a big deal. I took a copy of the email from the doctor at the FAA and a copy of the eye evaluation from my opthamologist in with me. I think these just confused the medical examiner. Everything else was fine, I just have amblyopia, which I already knew about and have dealt with.



At any rate, I have sent the local medical examiner a link the FAA web site concerning aviation medical exams and amblyopia. Hopefully, this guy will read it and follow the instructions. I will have to follow up with him tomorrow because I have little confidence in his ability to figure it out.




I've made a decision on where to take flying lessons. I had an appointment for a discovery flight at Sarasota International and cancelled it. Several pilot friends have told me that I probably would not want to train at Sarasota. It's a pretty busy airport and most likely I would spend a fair amount of time on the ground waiting for jets to take off or land. If I'm paying a little over two dollars a minute for training, I don't want the clock running while sitting on a taxi way.


I'll be training at Albert Whitted airport in St. Petersburg. It's an easy drive from my work. The rental rates are the best in the area. They have a pretty good fleet of rental aircraft and a number of instructors. I like the idea of flying out of a controlled airport that's not too busy. They have an online scheduling system and I've scheduled some time for Wednesday morning, weather permitting.