I have had two episodes of a spontaneous pneumothorax, one in each lung. After each episode I underwent Video Assisted Thorascopic Surgery which was a mechanical abrasion pleurodesis. I understand these will require a waiver and lots of patience, but are there any flight doc’s that could tell me what the chances are that I’ll actually get a waiver? After both these episodes I have still maintained my FAA class 1 medical and have completed hundreds of flight hours and gained my commercial pilots license as well as multi-engine and instrument ratings.

 

*currently applying to the new CPW program for the USAF. I should also note that I haven’t had any issues in relation to the individual episodes and have full ling expansion/ no residual blebs 

Edited March 16, 20223 yr by jjsh03

After my first spontaneous pneumothorax in '07 I got bi-lat mechanical pleurodesis.  I had another pneumo in '18.  Full recoveries.  To the suprise of my flight doc, the AF waived me to fly after each--I'd expect it's tougher to get that waived before pilot training, though.

I retired a couple years ago, and have so far failed (to the surprise of my AME) to convinced the FAA to approve a Special Issuance for any class of med certificate.  The FAA Aeromedical Certification Division has been much more painful to work with than the military...and that's saying something! 

FWIW, the VA rates my pneumothorax history at 0% service-connected disability.