I don't think that's entirely fair. Yes, they seem very conservative and often taking a punitive approach, but: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/07/20210728-g100ul.htm... "FAA approves first high-octane unleaded avgas", for medical certification there's now BasicMed, the new light airplane certification standards mentioned in the article are a lot less prescriptive than the old ones, and they're now working on the MOSAIC changes to make special-airworthiness certificate rules more flexible.

BasicMed came from Congress, not the FAA. And true to congressional style, it disproportionately benefits the elderly - it requires you had a valid medical within the past 10 years, which helps if age related health issues stop you from renewing, but not if you were never eligible for one in the first place.

Not true, the requirement is to ever have had a 3rd class medical. So yes, you still need to see a medical examiner once, but after that you never have to again.

And I'd argue it does not benefit the elderly, it benefits everyone. Instead of having to find and pay a hundred bucks to a medical examiner every two years I can now accomplish this by having a chat with my primary physician, which I see anyway, every four years. I think it's hugely beneficial to all recreational pilots.

But you're right in that the FAA had to be forced to do it.

So I looked this up [1] and it turns out we're both wrong - you need to have had a valid medical at some time after 2016-07-14.

That date is exactly 10 years before congress passed the Basic Med law, so when basic med was new, it was "in the last 10 years", but the law pinned it to a specific date, not a specific number of years in the past.

[1]: https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/airmen_certificati...

Basicmed was mandated by Congress and forced through with the FAA kicking and screaming the whole way.

I deal with the FAA regularly and I agree with your overall impression. The people you deal with at the bottom/middle of the organization are incredibly reliant on existing rules/wording that when something new comes up they often seem to lack common sense.

You may have some luck with antidepressants. What about ADHD (even with treatment)? Even more luck is needed.

A few antidepressants are now allowed. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/av...

Having ever been diagnosed with ADHD is disqualifying, as is taking any ADHD/psychotropic medication to mitigate the condition. All you can do is take a day-long battery of psych tests to demonstrate that you never had ADHD in the first place.

It’s three or four old SSRIs and that comes with with other caveats and requirements. I’m also a private pilot wannabe and the FAA situation in regard to this is bullshit. Is there a chart somewhere showing how many small planes fall out of the sky due to some dude taking his meds?

> Is there a chart somewhere showing how many small planes fall out of the sky due to some dude taking his meds?

Well, probably. The FAA is the accident investigation authority on the US, if anyone has that chart, it's them. (I know I don't have that information, but last time I worked on a safety related area (not on the US), and worked into getting a relation of causes for accidents, almost no cause had enough accidents linked to it to do any kind of analysis.)

I am personally against strict regulation for general aviation, but most of the eVTOL isn't general aviation (I'm not sure why people are lumping it there).