Originally Posted by
Billy Baroo
It appears to me that none of the questions in block 18 of the 8500-8 pertain to a joint injury, as well as many other conditions that could drive a disability rating. An injury that is healed should not drive one to check "Yes" for box "x." which lists the condition as "Other illness, disability, or surgery." Nothing in any of the boxes asks about tinnitus or hearing loss, so there is a wide range of conditions that would garner a disability rating from the VA that are not even questions on the FAA form.
I think you could make a good case about joint issues....
All of the questions start with: HAVE YOU EVER IN YOUR LIFE BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH, HAD, OR DO YOU PRESENTLY HAVE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING?
So 18(u) and/or (x) would get you if surgery or hospitalization was required, but doesn't look like it would apply otherwise. Reasonable, as long as you don't fly until the swelling in your knee goes down.
But 18(y) will get you for ANY disability benefit, regardless of whether the condition is covered by any other questions. I suspect that means payments for a rating greater than 0%.
Also keep in mind, the standard for prosecution is "beyond reasonable doubt", and DA's and US Attorney's don't like to lose so they are not going to trial with anything that's not pretty open and shut. So grey areas help you there. But for the FAA the standards are much lower, they can pretty much revoke your tickets just for suspicion of falsification and then you can try to get them back by appealing all the way up to a real US federal court (all the FAA/NTSB steps in the process typically rubber-stamp whatever the FAA did originally). The kindler, gentler FAA seems to be very real so far, but it does not apply at all to fraud/falsification.