How AMEs Find Pilots Whose Medicals Are Coming Due

The short answer

Why renewal timing matters to a practice

Every pilot who flies under an FAA medical has to renew it on a fixed schedule, and the expiration month is public. That makes AME demand unusually predictable: you can know, months ahead, roughly how many pilots near you will need an exam and when.

How long a medical lasts depends on its class and the pilot's age at the exam (14 CFR 61.23):

The first-class figures are how long first-class privileges last. When they run out, the same medical still counts as a lower class for the longer period. Airline captains need first-class privileges, so a captain over 40 is back for a new exam every six months.

That's the real value of a new pilot patient: not one exam, but a pilot who returns on a schedule. A first-class pilot over 40 who stays with your practice is two exams a year, every year. Multiply your own exam fee by that, and one recaptured pilot is worth far more than a single visit.

What's in the FAA file

The source is the FAA's Airmen Certification Releasable Database. It's free, needs no account, and is updated monthly, usually in the first days of the month.

• Two formats: comma-delimited (CSV) and fixed-width text. Use the CSV download; it opens in spreadsheet and database tools.
• Inside the ZIP are four files. You need PILOT_BASIC.csv: one row per airman, with name, address, medical class, medical date and medical expiration. PILOT_CERT.csv lists each airman’s certificates and ratings, linked by a Unique ID, if you want to know whether a pilot is, say, an airline transport pilot. The two NONPILOT files cover mechanics, dispatchers and others and can be ignored.
• Medical class is 1, 2 or 3. Medical date and expiration are a month and year (MMYYYY). A medical expires at the end of that month.
• The file also carries BasicMed course and exam dates (more on BasicMed below).

What it doesn't include: airmen who asked the FAA to withhold their address, certificate numbers, and anything medical beyond the class and dates. The column layout is documented in the FAA's file description; check the header row of your download against it, since column names are occasionally adjusted.

Doing it yourself, step by step

This is the whole process. A spreadsheet works, with one caveat in step 2.

1. 1

   Download the file

   Go to the FAA releasable airmen download page, download the CSV ZIP, and unzip it. Note the month: you'll repeat this after each monthly update.

2. 2

   Open PILOT_BASIC.csv with a tool that can handle it

   The file has hundreds of thousands of rows. Opening it directly may hit your spreadsheet's row or cell limits, and Google Sheets is likely too small. In Excel, use Data → Get Data → From Text/CSV (Power Query) and filter there before loading. Microsoft Access, or any database, also works.

3. 3

   Keep pilots with a medical and a U.S. address

   Filter out rows with no medical class, and rows with a blank state (the FAA leaves State blank for foreign addresses). Trim the ZIP code to its first five digits; some carry ZIP+4.

4. 4

   Keep the pilots near your office

   Simplest: make a list of the 5-digit ZIP codes you consider your area and filter to those.

   For a true radius, download the free Census Bureau ZIP Code Tabulation Areas Gazetteer file, which gives a latitude and longitude for every ZIP. Look up your office ZIP and each pilot's ZIP, then compute the distance in miles:

   =3959*ACOS(COS(RADIANS(90-lat1))*COS(RADIANS(90-lat2))
   +SIN(RADIANS(90-lat1))*SIN(RADIANS(90-lat2))*COS(RADIANS(lon1-lon2)))

   Keep rows under your radius. 50 to 100 miles is typical; pilots will drive further for a specialist.

5. 5

   Pick the expiration months to mail

   Convert the MMYYYY expiration into a date, then keep the month or months you want to reach. Pilots usually book 30 to 90 days before their medical expires, so mail in the month before the expiration month, and at least two weeks before that month ends. Mailing during the expiration month itself is usually too late.

   This is also where you choose classes. A Senior AME might mail first and second class only; a Regular AME can only examine second and third class.

6. 6

   Clean the list

   Remove duplicates and your own current patients if you have them. Before printing, run the addresses through CASS address standardization and NCOA (the USPS National Change of Address database); most mailing houses and print-and-mail services do this for you. FAA addresses are whatever the pilot last reported, and some are out of date.

7. 7

   Design, print and mail

   Design a postcard with your name, practice, phone and a way to book: a QR code to your booking page works well. Then use a print-and-mail service or local printer that accepts a mailing list. USPS Every Door Direct Mail won't work here: it delivers by route, not to named people.

8. 8

   Repeat every month

   Each month a new set of pilots comes due, and the FAA's file changes as pilots renew and move. Download the new file and run steps 2 to 7 again, so you don't mail pilots who already renewed.

What it takes every month

None of the steps is difficult on its own. The cost is that all of them have to happen, correctly, every month:

• Setting it up the first time (the radius lookup especially) usually takes most of a day.
• Each monthly repeat takes a few hours: download, filter, clean, send to the printer, check the proof.
• It has to be on time. A list that goes out late reaches pilots after they have already booked.
• Printing and postage are on top of the time, and you need a postcard design.

For most practices the doctor isn't going to do this between patients, so it falls to a staff member or someone hired for it. Whether that's worth it depends on what an hour of their time costs you, compared with having it done for you.

Third class and BasicMed

Since 2017, many private pilots who would otherwise hold a third-class medical fly under BasicMed instead. BasicMed doesn't need an FAA medical certificate, but it does need an online medical course every 24 months and an exam by any state-licensed physician every 48 months, using the FAA's Comprehensive Medical Examination Checklist.

Two practical consequences. Some third-class pilots coming due will move to BasicMed instead of renewing, so third-class mail can see lower response. And BasicMed exams can be done by any licensed physician, including an AME, so some practices welcome these pilots.

If you'd rather focus on first and second class, simply leave third class out at step 5. In the PlaneLists calculator and campaigns you can choose classes the same way.

The done-for-you option

PlaneLists AME does steps 1 to 8 every month. We load the FAA file when it's published, find the pilots within your radius whose medicals expire in the months you choose, by class, and mail each of them a postcard designed for your practice, with a QR code to your booking page. Self-Service is $149 a month, and postcards are $0.97 each, printed and mailed. You see the pilot count before every campaign.

Full details are on the pricing page and in the FAQ.

Common questions