For example, could a person with leg prosthetics qualify to be a fighter jet pilot?
Douglas Bader managed it back in WW2. I am sure that it is technically possible, but no doubt health and safety would prevent it.
Just “a” jet? Basic health.
Fighter jet? Some fitness is needed.
I fly a light jet, and the medical clearance varies for the type of operation. Since I work for a charter company, I need an FAA class 1 or 2 medical (the former for captains, the latter for first officers). I could fly the same plane with just a class 3 if it were privately operated. But the fact is, none of the FAA medical exams are terribly difficult to pass. Basically, if you’re not color blind and don’t have a medical condition that could cause sudden incapacitation, you’ll probably pass (there are some exceptions, as with cancer).
My plane requires very little of the pilot, physically. It’s probably harder on the body to fly a Cessna 172 since it doesn’t have air conditioning or a lav.
But I’ve also flown some warbird jets, and that’s another matter entirely. Aerobatics and combat maneuvering put a strain on you. And in a jet the G forces are likely to be more prolonged than in an aerobatic prop plane. I’ve come back from flights in say, an L-39 trainer, feeling like I’d gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson.
As for the prosthetic leg… I’m not sure.
When I was a flight instructor I actually trained a one-legged pilot. The FAA has a process in place in which a candidate demonstrates their ability to meet the flight standards either with, or without their prosthetic. My guy just used his one leg. I don’t think that would fly (heh) in a tailwheel plane, but he got by OK in a Piper Cherokee.
I suspect that would not meet the requirements for a commercial operation, but someone here may be able to answer that part better than me.
I believe access to a working jet aircraft would be the answer. Some knowledge of that model is a strong plus, and that the aircraft has an easily accessible runway, or is already airborne.
Tim Wallis is a New Zealand business man who used to be heavily into the warbird scene until he suffered severe head injuries in an accident.
Due to a helicopter accident he had a paralysed leg, left one I think. He owned and flew a Mk XVI and a Mk XIV Spitfire, as well as a Tiger Moth, a Hughes 500 helicopter, and a Cessna 210. He owned other warbirds but didn’t fly them.
I believe he used the rudder pedals by using some kind of strap to secure his good foot so he could push or pull with the good leg to achieve rudder deflection in either direction. The Spitfire has an open style of pedal so he could just slip his foot through the gap and push/pull as required. Most aircraft have brakes actuated by pushing the top of the rudder pedals with your feet. The Spitfire and some other warbirds, notably Russian designs, have a hand brake that can be biased to either wheel by applying rudder in the desired direction. Aircraft such as his Cessna 210 had to be modified with some hand controls for brakes.
His paralysed leg just got tucked back and out of the way.
So, it is possible to fly without four functioning limbs, but most aircraft are designed in a way that requires full use of arms, legs, feet, and hands, so normally some kind of modification is required for somebody without the full compliment of usable limbs.
You wouldn’t qualify to be a fighter pilot today with a prosthetic limb, but you could certainly modify a fighter jet to be used by someone with a prosthetic limb.
There’s a world of difference between
A) the medical problems that you could possibly have after getting the job and still retain your job.
vs.
B) The medical problems you could have and still be selected / hired to train for the job.
My experience is with USAF> * spent a few minutes Googling and reading, but was not finding the actual ref to the actual document for you. It’s been enough years since I left USAF that all the bureaucracy and regulations have been massively reorganized & I’m pecking at a haystack looking for a needle to find the relevant regs.
So going by practical experience:
There is no way a candidate would be accepted into USAF as a pilot trainee with a prosthetic limb.
It’s massively implausible one could be already be an journeyman fighter pilot with an intact body, lose a limb, get a prosthesis and be allowed. back to work.
There are civilian pilots who have prosthetic limbs. Some even fly jets. Some are even paid to fly jets, as opposed to flying their own.
It’s massively implausible one could get hired into that job at a fancy airline already having a prosthesis. Some junk outfit with 3 leaky 727s? All they care about is that you’ll show up for work mostly sober most days and you have the appropriate FAA medical certificate.
Actually, there are colorblind pilots who fly jets. Being colorblind is not a complete bar to piloting although it may interfere with being hired or getting into military pilot training. I’ve heard of a colorblind pilot flying freight so at least one landed a commercial jet job. At least one military pilot managed to cheat the vision tests and get into a military slot anyway. I’ve heard that if I went in for a first flight physical today with my non-standard color vision they would no longer require me to get a SODA as they’ve figured out that my version of the condition doesn’t interfere with safety. Some types of colorblindness are more debilitating.
One of Dick Cheney’s pilots back in his VP days, Andrew Lourake, had a prosthetic leg. Well, presumably Mr. Lourake still has a prosthetic leg, he’s just not flying Cheney around anymore. His prosthetic is state of the art, which probably helps a lot.
The FAA’s concerns are that 1) you can control the airplane and 2) you are not a hazard to anyone else (and that, in a nutshell, are the physical requirements fly any aircraft). So in the US there are a number of pilots with a variety of disabilities out there flying around. The next obstacle is the employer, who may be more skeptical than the FAA about having a disabled pilot at the controls.
I once asked a friend who used to fly fighters (she did 7 years and left) and her answer was basically what** LSLGuy** said, what might be a mandatory DQ if you are applying for fighter selection can be ignored/condoned/accepted if you develop it after you are qualified. I suppose once they have spend money on you; they are more flexible.
Interestingly she told me that one dirty secret was that if you were a woman, there really was no safe ejection envelope (or whatever the official term is), apparently the seats were designed with young men in mind, and ejections which men would sail through might kill women.
As for Bader; he was already a fighter pilot when he lost his legs and he was medically retired; he was allowed to come back after the start of the War, when they were probably glad to have a guy who knew how to fly.
“SODA”?
Statement of Demonstrated Ability. The FAA’s fancy name for the process of an applicant demonstrating that despite having medical condition X the applicant can still do tasks Y & Z acceptably well. Wherein the underlying reason the FAA prohibits pilots with condition X is the assumption that in most cases they’ll be unable to do important tasks Y & Z.
As with Broomstick’s example of colorblindness that doesn’t materially affect the color perceptions that matter to piloting.
Ultimately, in a performance-based regulatory structure what matters is results, not which processes you check or don’t. For all the whining about the FAA, in many, many areas they are better at regulating for results than most other agencies I know much about.
See http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/ame/guide/app_process/exam_tech/item23-24/
Sorry, should have spelled out Statement of Demonstrated Ability.
From what I hear, they’ve handed out so many over the years for my form of colorblindness that they basically threw up their hands and said “You know, this really isn’t a problem” and changed some of the testing requirements so they changed the number of false positives for “significantly impaired color vision”.
Anyone with vision in just one eye will need a SODA - but most folks with one eye can past the test.
Anyone with a prosthetic limb will need a SODA - but it’s doable. Ditto for wheelchair using pilots and a lot of other folks with various conditions and limitations.
The SODA is actually well-named - the test is demonstrating that you can actually do the job. So, for mine, they took me to a spot some distance from a control tower after dark and flashed a bunch of colored light signals at me. Sure, the colors I saw weren’t exactly what someone with normal color vision would see, but I could easily and accurately distinguish and read all the signals. Who cares if what I see is different from what you see as long as we can both get the same results from the input?
For someone with an artificial limb, an examiner would sit in the cockpit while the person demonstrated controlling the airplane and performing maneuvers that might pose a difficulty for a person with that condition. If the pilot can perform all such maneuvers to specifications the FAA will let them fly. There will be limitations to the effect that whatever additional devices you use will be required for you to fly an airplane - so, for example, if a one-armed pilot used an artificial arm/hand/whatever during the SODA flight they would be required to use the same prosthesis any other time they flew. If the one-armed pilot passed the test without an artificial arm then they would be allowed to fly without a prosthetic.
Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in combat, took her fixed-wing test post-rehab with just one artificial leg strapped on rather than two. Hey, it works for her. (So far as I know, she has not regained helicopter privileges. Whether that’s because she’s unable to, or is not interested I don’t know).
Does a 787 or an A35 actually have any foot operated controls?
Yes.
The aircraft rudder is controlled by fore and aft movement of foot pedals. The primary use of rudder in flight (in big aircraft) is correcting for thrust asymmetry after an engine failure, or maintaining a forward slip (AKA “crossed control”) state during a crosswind takeoff or landing.
As well on the ground the nosewheel steering is controlled in a narrow range by the same motion of the foot pedals. Augmented by a separate hand-operated steering tiller for sharp turns at low speeds.
Finally, the wheel brakes are controlled by a different motion with the foot pedals. Each side’s brakes are independent and a depressing/pivoting motion (like the gas pedal of a car) triggers increased wheel braking force on the respective side.
Parking brakes are typically applied the same way: After stopping the pilot will apply full foot pedal braking with both feet then engage either a mechanical lock or electrical switch to clamp the brakes continuously in that state.