Minneapolis, July 29, 2018
24 year old Norwegian type 1 diabetic sets new world record for travels across the United States in a two engine propeller powered plane.
The pilot was able to touch down in 26 states in less than 24 hours, breaking the previous record. The pilot got his training as an air force fighter pilot but was grounded after his type ! diagnosis. He has declared his intention to campaign to remove artificial limits on what diabetics can do, or not.
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With glucose minute to minute electronic feedback, like this Nightscout display, I can understand the argument for authorizing T1Ds to pilot an airplane. I used to maintain avionics equipment for a major airline. The density of information displayed below rivals many displays in the cockpit of a commercial airliner.
Often they lump all diabetics together when they make these artificial blockers too, so something might be a problem for type 2 people and not for us but they still just exclude us all outright. I was told a long time ago I could never learn to scuba dive because of my diabetes, but more recently I was told that some will teach you as long as you can get approval from your doctor and/or show good control. Learning to fly and scuba dive were two things my dad did when i was younger and was told I would never get to. I am hopeful that I will one day be allowed to get a pilots licence as well. It is kind of ridiculous considering that there are many illnesses or health conditions that are just as risky or far more risky yet those people are not excluded. Some even flying commercial aircraft I would bet.
The problem is that every once in a while you’ll read in the newspaper a story about a type 2 diabetic who had a hypoglycemic episode, lost control of their car in a mall parking lot and crashed into a lady with a baby carriage. Or maybe they caused a pileup on the highway. And people remember those stories. Unfortunately that will continue to happen because we are all different and while some people might be very sensitive to their BG levels some aren’t. And some diabetics are responsible and check their BGs before they get in a car and some aren’t. And because of that some jobs and training will remain blocked to type 1 diabetics, including for example train engineer.
Displayname, the faa is pretty draconian in most aspects but with diabetes they’re pretty fair. Aviation has been the center point of my life. A few thousand skydives and a decade plus of owing an air lane and being a pilot then type 1 set in. The FAA minimum standard of care is far lowe than mine.
If a type two keep your a1c below 6.5 and a medical certificate is.no problem. As soon as insulin is prescribed (type 1 or 2) you just need to prove 1 year without a hypo event requiring medical assistance. As soon as you have a medical of any class you can revert to basic med and have your pcp sign you off.
Being a diabetic of any type is easy to deal with and keep your medical. In a sick sort of way I attribute the possibility of losing my pilots license with being th thing that
Made me take diabetes as seriously as it should be taken… if you really do want to
Become a pilot give me a call, aviation is
The most magical thing in the universe and I want to share it with as many people as I can.
Thanks for that update. I can see where this is going. The sky is the limit, maybe not for all, but for many insulin dependant diabetics.