Sanford

Hi there,
I just got an invitation from a Chinese airline through a recruiter to fly to China and do a screening for a commuting contract. First part is to do a Medical. Everywhere I read that it's insanely difficult to pass.
Now I hear two different stories as far as Body Mass Index goes, one is that with a BMI over 30 you will fail automatically, and another saying there is no limit as long as you are in good health. Anyone have an answer on what is true ? I don't want to waste my time going to China if I don't stand a chance to begin with.

Probe

I don't know if there is an official BMI limit. Part of the medical is a EKG while on a treadmill, and they put the treadmill at a pretty good tilt.

Every medical is a roll of the dice. It never gets better.

Typhoonpilot

Read all the threads here on China before making the decision to go there for a job.



TP

NEDude

There is no standard Chinese medical. It is different for every CAAC region and different every time you go in. Each region of the CAAC has a lot of autonomy so they pass/fail on different things. I failed the medical in Beijing and passed in Chengdu just a few months later. I know a guy who failed in Chengdu and passed in Shanghai just a few months later. One guy was told he had a stroke, only to be told a month later that no he did not. Each year they seem to have a different thing they like to catch on foreigners. A couple of years ago it was arteriolosclerosis (hardening of the arteries in the neck), last year every foreigner I know was being told they had a fatty liver. I had a friend who was repeatedly told he had high blood pressure. He would go home, have it checked and they would say he was fine. China would check it again and tell him it was high.

The bottom line is there is virtually no way to be sure you will pass the medical. Quite often the Chinese find stuff that is not there, paperwork gets lost or mixed up (we had a guy who was out for three months for a medical issue only to be later told the CAAC hospital had mixed his paperwork with someone else), and the chain smoking Chinese doctors will ALWAYS tell you that you are too fat, even if you have 2% body fat.

CloudSpirit

NEDude and Probe hit it on the head: there is really no standardization in China as far as... well, anything really. It's all luck of the draw. I had a buddy go in once and they told him his blood work was bad. He went back to the US and fixed it, went back and the second time they told him his eyes were crooked. Go figure.

PLEASE do yourself a huge favor and do some background work on China. It sounds like you're excited to go, and the promise of a lucrative contract can blind anyone to some harsh realities. I have a thread here called "Working in China" whereat our book Flying Upside Down is posted for download; it was compiled by me and colleagues covering the stories of several captains who went to China and did it ALL. Inform yourself, it will soften the landing. Keep a healthy spirit of adventure and frosty coping skills. Most importantly, keep your head on your shoulders and watch for the bullets. You'll see 'em coming.

C.S.

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/fo...lot-china.html

Sanford

Thanks CloudSpirit,
I downloaded your book onto my iPad, I have a nice 14 hour flight in the morning to read it all, but for what it's worth, what I did read so far made me think twice about going there...
I am pretty sure that If I where to go for my medical, they were to conclude that I died over a year ago and somebody forgot to tell me!

Probe

My standard advice is China is best for a pilot that has another job to go back to when (not if) your time in China is over. That was my situation, and it made going for medicals a lot less stressful.

I only failed 1 medical out of 4. That was probably a bit better than average. We had a couple pilots that failed every time, for the same reason. They had another job to go back to, so they just considered it more time off, which they wanted anyway.

My last medical, I had the dreaded "broken or too small blood pressure cuff". It was brand new, but only big enough for a 6 year old. I was told to hold it in place with my other hand. The 20 year old (with little to no medical training) ran the automatic test, which read 170/120. She looked at the reading, looked at me for a second, and wrote down 120/70 on my medical record.

It could have easily gone the other way, and I could have failed it.

A local FO told me this happened to over 100 China Eastern pilots in a single day. All of them failed, and were Med down until they did a 24 hour blood pressure test. The local CAAC hospital only had 2 of these, so it took a couple of months for all of these pilots to pass their medicals.

You can't make this $hit up. LOL

Iron Maiden

When I went to the Eva Air interview I saw a lot of BIG pilots, it wasn't because they were chiseled from stone. Yes it was Taiwan, but it seems like they do the same things. I have a list of what the Taiwanese CAA does in the medical, but I'm not going to post it for everyone.