Nope. You’re better positioned than I, operating Part 91 and through so many more of those less-than-fully-equipped places.
The super-short answer to @Johnny_L.A 's question is that the Feds thought of that and there are procedures to launch when the weather is such that you can’t return. Even if there is no tower or approach control where you are and the weather is less than VMC. If the terrain or airspace is sufficiently challenging there’ll be a published IFR procedure (SID or ODP) to transition from the runway to a safe altitude and direction to proceed enroute. If instead the geometry is benign, then the “diverse area departure” applies as @Llama_Llogophile said.
I agree that I never do a low-wx departure from memory. My mental notes amount to: Vis greater than 1 mile? If yes: go. If not: look it up. And the rules differ in the USA, Canada, and some, not all, other countries.
@Broomstick: Yeah, the whole thing is real silly as you so neatly outlined. Historically the practical reality was that the actual intent as enforced by FAA was a best-effort basis on your medical history as long as your motive wasn’t hiding something you knew all about and knew was disqualifying. I have a log stretching back decades of every doctor (lots) or hospital (thankfully few) visit I’ve ever had.
Whether we are entering a new more Big Brotherly era is an open question. Certainly the public and bureaucratic pressure is in that direction. Medical privacy is a touchy subject though, with lots of sharp thorns to bite any politician or bureaucrat wanting to break down that wall.
As to this bit:
This is mostly an artifact of how this recent investigation / witch hunt got started.
The Government has the medical records of everyone using the VA medical system, but not of anyone else. The VA let the FAA have access to those VA records under some appropriate disclosure law. And in comparing the two rosters FAA came up with a lot of positive hits for VA diagnoses made and care provided that weren’t disclosed to FAA by the pilots on their medical applications.
The FAA has no legal method to obtain e.g. your or my or @Llama_Llogophile’s medical records. If they could get everyone else’s records, and they ran the same cross-checks, they’d find another heap of people with undisclosed known and treated medical conditions.
Essentially the FAA went looking for its car keys under the streetlight and all the bums passed out there got caught, while the many, many more bums sleeping in the dark alley were ignored. And the streetlight bums are now complaining they were singled out. Which is true but not because of who they were, but because of where they were sleeping.
From my contacts in or recently retired / separated from the military, I learn that it has become a cultural norm for most vets to apply for, and be approved for, VA disability regardless of their actual damage. It’s just a free paycheck every month, plus lifetime free medical care, that they’ve persuaded themselves they’ve “earned” by being heroes, not mere (cough) civilians. Color me disgusted, especially while they rail on about “welfare cheats” stealing all their tax dollars.
Another factor not made clear in that article is that military pilots can receive an FAA civilian commercial license simply for filling out the application and taking a trivial test on Part 91 regs. So substantially every military pilot does that even if they have no intention of flying for a living. If they truly never intend to fly anything ever again they would not bother getting an FAA medical. But if they’d maybe like to fly a Cessna some time, they apply for an FAA 3rd class. Don’t mention that VA disability they’re recieving and now they’ve sprung the trap on themselves. Oops.
My point being that while all these people are rated commercial pilots, the vast majority are not actively flying for a living. So the number of positive VA/FAA hits is a scary large headline that overstates the actual number of folks hauling unsuspecting people around en masse with a significant skeleton in their medical closet.
As to the drunk bizjet pilot, the AW&ST article had a bunch of detail not present in the NTSB docket I linked to. Whether that was a result of the reporter talking directly to the investigators and witnesses, or was artistic license on his part I can’t say.
But if that article is to be believed, the guy had had legal trouble with booze before, and was clearly an alcoholic. You or I would be unconscious at 0.288. A hard-core boozer can be semi-coherent at that level. He evidently had been actively drinking during the flight.
