Thanks. Yes, that does help a great deal. And I'm not at all surprised
that this whole topic is a very grey area (that topic being piloting gliders
and medical conditions and medications and so forth).

My work involves dealing with US and state government regulations in a
totally different discipline (motor vehicle emissions), but my experience
there has also been the government regs are often very unclear and subject
to a great deal of interpretation.

Off this topic but sort of related: I know this is stating the obvious, but
I'll do it anyway. Even if someone has no illness and is taking no
medications, it could very well be that at some given times they are not
"fit to fly". Reasons include mental duress due to work or personal
reasons, lack of sleep, and so forth. I'll not get into the old age issue
as I believe that has been adequately covered on r.a.s. before.

Thanks again.

-Doug

Bullwinkle wrote:


Doug,

You're having trouble finding the FAA medication list, because it doesn't
exist. Various groups, such as AOPA and Virtual Flight Surgeon's at
http://www.aviationmedicine.com , have UNOFFICIAL lists of approved and
disapproved medications, but they are swags which don't bear the approval of
the FAA. All such unofficial lists contain errors, because the FAA policies
are in such a constant state of re-review.

The FAA won't publish such a list because their internal, secret, but
official list changes so frequently (new drugs to either be approved or
banned; old previously approved drugs with newly found side effects, which
are now banned; etc).

Groups trying to publish such lists do so by submitting a waiver request
for, say, Zestril (a blood pressure medication). When it comes back
approved, they put zestril on the list. Then they submit someone for
depression with, say, Zoloft. It comes back disapproved, and they put Zoloft
on the no-go list. Over time, a rough approximation of FAA medication policy
is built up, but it is never 100% accurate.

Hope this clears things up.

Bullwinkle

On 6/12/04 3:24 AM, in article , "Doug
Hoffman" wrote:

B. Iten wrote:

Here is the scoop. I spoke with my medical flight examiner some time
ago about the use of medications that treat bi-polar syndrome and
taking them while operating an aircraft or glider. He was not 100%
sure on the ruling even though it is stated on the FAA's medical pages
that those drugs used to treat bi-polar syndrome are not allowed.

Brian,

I am having trouble finding this FAA list of banned medications. Could you
point me to it? A URL or specific section in the FAR would help.

Thanks.

-Doug