Length of class III Medical certificate

For a Class 3 Medical certificate
- over 40 yrs old - it's good for only 2 years

But -

If under 40 yrs old - is it 3 yrs or 5 years good for ?

Ive read/heard conflicting info on the under 40 part.
When did they make this change of under/over 40 yrs ?
Or has FAA always had this year cutoff difference ?

-- jim kenn, March 5, 2010

Answers

Jim: If you hope to be a certificated pilot, how can you have "heard" conflicting info? Your flight school should have a copy of FAR/AIM 2010. The same information is available on the Web from official U.S. government sites. FAR 61 is supposed to be written in plain English that every pilot can understand. On a Private checkride the examiner would expect you to be able to answer a question like this yourself by flipping open the FAR/AIM book and finding the relevant regulation within less than one minute. Since humans do not have perfect memories, the FAA expects a pilot to be able to find, read, and understand the regulations.

[To answer your question more directly... As far as I know the age 40 distinction has been in FAR 61 for many years.]

-- Philip Greenspun, March 5, 2010

Yep - just kinda lazy - thought I'd ask to get a quick answer on this one. I've noticed sometimes some CFI's dont have all the "correct" answers and sometimes they give out some not 100% correct info Ill look it up - I know it is in the FAR - that book is so fat and Heavy now getting kinda ridiculous

-- jim kenn, March 5, 2010