Can profoundly deaf people become either commercial or private pilots of helicopters/planes?

Question

For example, if a profoundly deaf person wanted to become a private/commercial pilot of helicopters/planes, would they be stopped by airspace officials such as FAA because of their deafness?

Answer 1

If they can afford to fly they can afford to get a cochlear implant

Answer 2

Profoundly deaf, I am not too sure, but Apollo seems to have provided some good links. As far as I know, the three parts of the test comprise written, verbal, and practical skills. You do have to be at least eighteen years of age and be able to speak, read, and write English fluently. There are alternative arrangements for people who do not have the necessary fluency. I have not come across rules regarding the profoundly deaf, yet, but of course, there are the links from Apollo.

Answer 3

I stumbled across a couple of sites and happened to remember your question.

Here is some information about deaf pilots from the FAA:

http://www.faa.gov/pilots/become/deaf_pi...

This one looks interesting too:

http://www.deafpilots.org/

I hope they help. Good luck!

Answer 4

if you fly ifr. you have to be in contact with a controller..

if you use controled airports you have to talk to the tower.

you can fly but you need someone that can hear instructions and take the aircraft over at that instant.... you dont have time for sign language.. if you just want to fly local .. without going into a controled airport.. or fly ifr. youj will be ok.. but without hearing.. i would take another pilot that can hear .. but myself i dont go to many places and very seldon use the radio. ok .

Answer 5

I'm sure the rule is the same in the USA, but in Canada I know for 100% certain that the commercial pilot medical includes an audiogram test every 2 years.

My private medical didn't have that, but there was some minimal level of hearing check.  Profoundly deaf I don't think would get approved.

I agree with the cochlear implant guy.  If it can get you through the audiogram.  I would check with a flight medical doctor to see what the pass/fail criteria are because I would expect the implant might be limiting in some specific frequencies.

Answer 6

Believe it or not, no. There is a pilot local to me who is deaf, and managed to get his private certificate. He must have somebody else in the plane with him at all times to monitor the radio and relay it to him, but he is allowed to fly. You can get a waiver for anything these days. h**l, I know a cfii who is blind in one eye

Answer 7

There is a deaf pilot flying where I used to live (and trained for my private).  Also, believe it or not, he is instrument rated.  He worked out some form of communicating via a whiteboard with a co-pilot.  He can fly solo VFR from non-towered airports, however he must have a safety pilot when flying IFR.

I admit that I don't know all the details, only that he did get his instrument rating.  In fact, there was an article about it a couple years ago.  Here's one, although not the one I was thinking:

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/briefs/1...