Not really my experience. My AME is pilot friendly in that he cares, is available to answer questions and give advice at any time. But I do get an exam per the manual.

Docs handing out 1C for cash isn't the norm in my 25 years experience. There are always outliers, and obviously they could get in big trouble... they sign the same form we do, with warnings about federal felonies and prison time.

 

In my experience, over a lot more years, the AME's who give airmen any trouble don't see much business. Pilots choose doctors to do their medicals who don't pose a rick to the pilot's career. Pilots tend to go to other doctors for anything of note. Or they simply conceal it.

AME's aren't going to whitewash a serious problem if they see it, but the FAA physical is seldom more than checking to see if the pilot physically exists. Blood pressure a urine stick, eye test, listen to the chest. The occasional EKG, less occasional as one ages. That's it. If nothing reveals itself there, the money changes hands and the airman bolts for the door, fresh paper for another few months. The doctor gets repeat business, cash, no malpractice issues, no chasing down the non-payers, no headaches, no fancy equipment needed, and very short visits at a couple hundred bucks a pop. Twenty of those a day at fifteen minutes each makes for a short day and nearly five grand through the door, eighty grand a month at four days a week, and a month or two in the Bahamas waterskiing. Not too bad for not discovering a lot of grief.

The AME doesn't normally see much to whitewash, and what does reveal is self-presenting and comes with documentation. Fail the eye test, fail the EKG, and it's an easy call.

The AME's who give pilots the third degree tend to be lonely and poor.

Who says it needs fixing?

Not everyone wishes to be a social butterfly. I couldn't give a **** about social connections, personally.

Some chose flying for a living because it was cheaper than renting, and flying is the passion. It's the hobby. It's also the vacation; those who look forward to going to work see the vacation ending when it's time to return home.

There comes a day when the vacation comes to a grinding halt. Sentenced to the remainder of one's life at home becomes a bleak prospect.

Life is full of cases in which one spouse dies, and the other follows shortly thereafter. The second spouse has no desire to go on, alone. Workers who put in a lifetime on the job, and keel over in their bean salad the day after they get the gold watch. It's not the watch, or the bean salad. It's being without the job. When one has spent more of one's life doing the job than anything else, and more of one's time each year, each day, week, month, then it's more than a little life change to walk away, and many don't walk far, or at all. White collar, or not.

 

I might enjoy a little more time at home, but definitely planning on having the means to travel, fly GA, etc. Probably going to be happy to be done with 121 at age 65, but can't rule out possible part-time 91/135 work. Maybe seasonal? I want the flexibility for travel... done a lot of that between mil and 121 but usually didn't to stay anywhere for very long. Probably do the RV thing as well.

Yeah, it can be a big deal and will be for me I think. I got a taste when I retired from the mil, but still had the airline gig of course. Just to need to plan for a transition to something else entertaining.

I'm pretty sure everybody does need social connections to one degree or another... you might get that at work and not realize what you'd be missing without it. I'm relatively independent but I know I wouldn't care to live alone in a cabin in the mountains for long. Social media is fairly one dimensional for me... it's a form of social interaction but a weak substitute for the real thing.