Diabetes pilot license license#

Getting the special issuance for a third class was not difficult but required many specialist visits and lots of time. I was able to get a special issuance in 2002 however for other non-diabetes reasons, I stopped flying shortly thereafter and did not continue in the special issuance program. This was before the first practical CGM devices. I developed type I about 20 years ago and went on an insulin pump just afterwards. I too am a Type I on a pump, fly a C162, and am a LSRM-A. Visit The Bakersfield Californian (Bakersfield, Calif.) at Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.It looks like we may have several things in common. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: The Bakersfield Californian (Bakersfield, Calif.)

'I believe there are flyers and there are aviators,' Sacco said. The poetry of flight: It's as important to him as the practical benefits. It's a high every time,' he said of the feeling he gets flying past the Grand Tetons or across a snow-covered Grapevine. Because when the wheels lift off the tarmac, and he communes with the clouds, it's a good day. 'It makes me want to stay good with my blood sugars,' Sacco said. One big help is what he calls, 'the pump.' It's a continuous glucose monitoring device that not only checks his blood sugar levels every five minutes, it delivers insulin directly to his system as needed.

Diabetes pilot license license#

'I have to see an eye specialist once a year - but I go twice a year.'Īnd he has to renew his pilot's license annually. 'I have to see my endocrinologist every 90 days,' Sacco said. Federal regulators were concerned that diabetic pilots could experience episodes of high or low blood sugar and lose control of the aircraft.īut in 1996 the federal agency began granting third-class medical certificates to private pilots who use insulin, as long as they can show they have a history of controlling their diabetes. Indeed, he flies the skies between Montana and New Mexico and everywhere west, averaging about 120 hours flying time per year.įor decades, the Federal Aviation Administration's policy was to block insulin-treated pilots from any kind of pilot certification. 'I just feel like it's inherited from my dad.' She believes her son became heir to his grandfather's passion for flight. Sacco's mom, Marla Sacco, said her late father, Anthony Muzinich, flew more than 70 bombing missions in a B-25 during World War II.

'Philip's story shows people they can do just about anything,' he said. Patients wonder if they will still be able to play sports, or be allowed to drive a car, Freeby said. Matthew Freeby, an endocrinologist at the UCLA Gonda Diabetes Center who is treating Sacco. 'One of the first questions patients ask after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes is, 'What am I not going to be able to do?'' said Dr. Employing a combination of self-discipline, knowledge of the disease, cutting-edge medical technology and plain old determination, Sacco has so far been living the dream.Īnd with wife, Amelia, and their nearly 2-year-old daughter Alana, waiting at home, he's got a lot to live for. 'Now to be able to use my love of flying to help me in business, it's huge.'Ī graduate of Bakersfield Christian High School, the Bakersfield native decided long ago that he would not let his diagnosis hold him back. 'I come from a family of pilots and aviators,' he said. 'It's always been a dream of mine to fly,' Sacco said Friday morning, just minutes after landing his company plane at Bakersfield Municipal Airport in the city's southeast.

These days the 31-year-old Canadian and West Coast Sales Manager at Bakersfield-based Sierra International Machinery is still breaking through artificial limitations and barriers. In the cockpit of an airplane? Most definitely.ĭespite being diagnosed at the age of 2 with Type 1 diabetes, the kind that requires regular treatment with insulin, a decade ago Sacco exploded stereotypes by playing football for the Bakersfield College Renegades and the Azusa Pacific University Cougars. On a hiking trail in the Sierra? Oh, yeah.