Do you need a medical to fly?

But today, I just want to kind of ask the general question, do you need a medical to fly? And this question has different answers, mostly, again, depending on what privileges you're trying to exercise.

And some of these answers have even changed as of relatively recently.

So here's the scenario.

Generally, I will ask, you know, I'll be doing a mock checkride for a private pilot candidate.

And by the way, if you would like a mock checkride and mock oral with me, reach out to me at my email, northwestaeronautatgmail.com. I'm happy to do mock orals as I have the time.

You just have to make sure you get on my schedule.

I'm actually doing a mock commercial oral for one of you out there later today.

But the scenario is I'm doing a mock private oral and I'll give them this scenario of, hey, we're flying from this point to this point for this purpose, right? Scenario-based training.

And And I, for the purpose of this scenario, am not a pilot.

You are the pilot and I'm just your buddy.

I'm your friend.

I'm your pal.

And we're flying along.

And the question is, you know, do you need a medical for this flight? And they'll generally say, yeah, I do.

And I got mine, you know, I'm like, okay, which one do you got? And I've got a first class here.

I got a second class, got a third class, whatever.

Okay.

And we'll talk about the different classes of medicals, um, and what they allow you to do.

Uh, quick overview is, you know, class one medical is basically for airline transport pilot operations, right? If you're transporting people, cargo at the 121 level, uh, Basically, you're going to need that class one medical.

Class two medicals just allow you to work for hire.

So if you're going to simply be maybe ferrying aircraft, maybe you're doing aerial photography, things like that, you're just getting paid to fly.

That is not in the transport area.

Then a class two medical is generally what's going to be required.

And then class three medical is, of course, kind of just your private pilot recreational flying around privileges, right? Day, night, IFR, VFR, doesn't matter.

That's your class three medical.