SEVERE TESTS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 86, 2 December 1931, Page 7

SEVERE TESTS

MEDICAl CERTIFIC ATION FOR COMMERCIAL PILOTS - GUN FIRED IN EAR. SYDNEY, Saturday. Can you stand an Air! Board doctor creeping up hehind you with a loaded revolver and firing it with an awful bang in.your ear? How would you liks to be strapped in a chair and tossed up and over, and round and round, till your brain became dizzy and you felt like a seasick sailor in a rough blow in the Bay of Biscay, and then be asked to pick.up your hat? All these things and many other stunts are expected and the would-be passenger-carrying airman — and apparently Air-Commodore KingsfordSmith has failed to satisfy the Air Board medical men that he can do all this — after his nervous breakdown on the flight to England. For Australia's champion airman has had his B ticket cancelled and will not he able to carry out his job as a commercial pilot. Every Six Months. Commercial or B pilots are medically examined every six months, This is how Captain Bill Leggatt : of the Aero Club describes his last examination: — "After being sounded all over, my hearing* was tested in different ways, and the eyes reccived special attention. "Then you are tested for balance, having to stand on one foot, with one eye shut, then both shut. The nerves are then examined by holding a piece of hardwood 12 inches by three inches with a rifle cartridge balanced on it. "If the cartridge is dropped— well, the nerves are not O.K. "Another test is that for reaction. There is a row of coloured lights with a row of coloured buttons opposite. The operator lights up one of the lamps and you have to switch off the corresponding coloured button.