MOSAIC Announcement consequences

[Anticept]

Jim:

There is something called EXIF data in images. When a photo is taken, either the camera will rotate the image, or it will save it as is and set the orientation variable.

Some photo programs rotate after reading the orientation variable. Some do not.

It's one of those modern things where electronics are trying to be helpful, but in a non obvious way, leading to this confusion.

The file has to be opened in an editor and manually rotated.

[sandpiper]

Thanks for clearing up the fuel issue. I learn something almost every time I get on this forum.

[Warp 10]

I was at Sun n Fun a few weeks ago and spoke to the VAN's rep and asked if they have any news on MOSAIC.  Sadly no news that we have not seen before.  He did mention that VAN's has requested that all of their aircraft be included in the LSA MOSAIC regulation.  I suspect that VAN's has some respect from the FAA and might even be tightly included in the MOSAIC Team.  Would be nice to see more than the RV 12 be included in the ELSA category.  All of the aircraft have very docile flying characters and at least a few of the RV planes, with a slight weight increase, would be included in the MOASIC.   He also didn't think any news will be announced at Air Venture 2022, more like the end of 2022.  

[FlyingMonkey]

32 minutes ago, Warp 10 said:

All of the aircraft have very docile flying characters and at least a few of the RV planes, with a slight weight increase, would be included in the MOASIC.

A good friend of mine just finished flying off the 40hrs on his RV-7.  He told me the stalls in that airplane really grab your attention -- the nose pitches down sharply and steeply.  It also tries to roll off pretty hard on one wing in power-on stalls.  60% of off-airport landings in the RV series (probably excluding the RV-12) end in fatalities, according to an article on the RV series in Aviation Safety Magazine.

I think the RV series are wonderful airplanes with great performance, and I hope they are allowed in the new MOSAIC rules.  But I don't think I'd call them "docile".  Then again, I guess it depends on your definition and experience. 

[Warmi]

5 hours ago, FlyingMonkey said:

A good friend of mine just finished flying off the 40hrs on his RV-7.  He told me the stalls in that airplane really grab your attention -- the nose pitches down sharply and steeply.  It also tries to roll off pretty hard on one wing in power-on stalls.  60% of off-airport landings in the RV series (probably excluding the RV-12) end in fatalities, according to an article on the RV series in Aviation Safety Magazine.

I think the RV series are wonderful airplanes with great performance, and I hope they are allowed in the new MOSAIC rules.  But I don't think I'd call them "docile".  Then again, I guess it depends on your definition and experience. 

RV 9 stalls with full flaps at about 40-45 knots … that’s pretty docile and with stall speeds being pretty much the primary factor as far as survivability in off airport landings …..I am not sure whats up with these accident stats.

[Anticept]

RVs have short, skinny wings. I cannot speak authoratively on them, but I can speak to a certified aircraft also with skinny wings: Mooneys. It too has stall characteristics that drop out from under you. I have never power on stalled it, but that really has me thinking it too would probably want to turn hard to the side (more than a few thousand feed climb, and my right leg was TIRED).

As a general rule, the larger the performance envelope on an aircraft (that doesn't just mean pushing high speed, but also if it has real slow flight too), the more unforgiving it can possibly be. Some RVs don't have a lot of horsepower, some do, which means that p-factor and slipstream could really yank it over.

As RVs are typically not used in flight training either, jumping from a classic 172 to an RV would have me really stressing emergency ops and recovery from stalls. Just because it can fly slow doesn't mean it's docile!

[Jim Meade]

5 hours ago, Anticept said:

As a general rule, the larger the performance envelope on an aircraft (that doesn't just mean pushing high speed, but also if it has real slow flight too), the more unforgiving it can possibly be. Some RVs don't have a lot of horsepower, some do, which means that p-factor and slipstream could really yank it over.

This is a really interesting statement.  It is attention getting, but upon inspection not very precise.  Can you provide some references to further explain your point?  I am not familiar with this concept.

 

[Warp 10]

The RV9A has this fat Hersey bar wing that makes this aircraft non aerobatic.  HP is limited to 160hp, and is very stable.  Now flying one for a number of years as a low time pilot and comparing this to other LSA, I can tell you it is more docile than .. like a Flight Design.  Try to land one in a 10kt cross wind and you will understand.  The stats that someone posted are not from the RV9A, maybe some of the early RV 3 & 4? 

Europe has LSA that are fast, heavy, CS props and retracts.  Are our pilots not as good as theirs?  

[Madhatter]

1 hour ago, Warp 10 said:

The RV9A has this fat Hersey bar wing that makes this aircraft non aerobatic.  HP is limited to 160hp, and is very stable.  Now flying one for a number of years as a low time pilot and comparing this to other LSA, I can tell you it is more docile than .. like a Flight Design.  Try to land one in a 10kt cross wind and you will understand.  The stats that someone posted are not from the RV9A, maybe some of the early RV 3 & 4? 

Europe has LSA that are fast, heavy, CS props and retracts.  Are our pilots not as good as theirs?  

Probably not. We had a flight school at KJZI years ago that was training students from the Netherlands.  I was amazed at how much these students had to know to qualify for a license in their country. They had to pass very difficult exams that included a lot of maintenance knowledge.  One of the students came to me for some of that information.  He said he had to draw a complete diagram of a generator charging system and an alternator charging system which was just one of the exam requirements. I'm afraid a some of US pilots I know have no clue on how their plane works (we are mostly button pushers).

[Anticept]

@Jim Meade

I want to put a huge disclaimer here because I didn't really stress it enough: this is a correlation, but design principles can work around some of this.

Because this is a complex topic, I am going to write up this post in an examples format, but making various demonstrations so we can think about some of the aerodynamics involved. I am going to make my arguments in three sections. I am really "spherical cowing" this, if you will, so that we don't have to take years of aerodynamics in school just to have this discussion.

I am going to group this into three areas.

1: Foundational Aerodynamic Principles

2: How modifying a design can create other changes, and their impacts.

3: How all this is brought together and why I made my broad generalization.

 

Onto the theory. I'll expand on this with different aerodynamic principles. For the purpose of this discussion, let's think of an RV-12. As I present different theories and arguments, I will take our RV-12 and modify it to help you imagine what happens with changing designs. This will be our "traditional design".

 

1: Now, I need to set some aerodynamic principle foundations before we go into changing designs.

For control surfaces to be effective, they must generate a torque, so that they can induce a movement around an axis. Since our control surfaces are traditional, and part of our aircraft structure, we can, in general, reduce the complexity to just force times radius (radius being how far from the axis of rotation, which passes through the center of of gravity, roughly). So, one component is where we put the control surface physically.

Force is dictated by the size of control surfaces, the amount of deflection, and the speed of the air moving over the surfaces. We can further augment this with some design shapes, vortex generators, etc, but let's just keep in mind the basic concepts we established for the purposes of this discussion.

There's one more important point though: We have to consider that control surfaces have to be mounted to the aircraft somehow. Often it's a couple bolts or a hinge. Control surfaces cannot take a lot of force without risk of damage, so this is one of our limiters here about how we can design it.

Moving on, let's also think a bit about p-factor. If an aircraft is close to stall, p-factor increases. It isn't just in a climb that it occurs, but this is where we are most familiar with it. The reality is, we just need a high angle of attack, and power, to have p-factor become significant, no matter the phase of flight. If we are pulling high Gs in a turn, there is a lot of p-factor there, but the vertical stabilizer helps to compensate along with just a little rudder.

Next up is airfoils. This is a super complex topic that I really don't want to brutalize as there's people far more qualified than me, so again, let's just spherical cow this and think about some basic principles. If we take one of the simplest airfoils, a plank of wood, and anchor it and aim the edge towards the wind, pressure will be equal on both sides. If we angle it slightly upwards into the wind, it will now generate lift, as the air moving over the top will begin to move faster. One problem with a plank of wood though, is that the critical angle of attack, which is the moment a stall begins, is very shallow. It takes very little for turbulent vorticies to form, disrupting the boundary layer, leading to a stall. If we shorten the chord, but lengthen the span of the plank, we can get the same amount of lift, but it would require a higher AoA to stall because there is less surface for the air to travel over before it's behind the wing, and thus more of the wing can generate lift for longer. we can also change the shape of the airfoil to change and improve the desired characteristics, such as delaying the stall a little more. RVs seem to use a pretty traditional airfoil as well, so I don't think there is anything exotic going on.

 

2: Now that all that is established, let's think about our RV-12, and different things that can change.

Let's say we put an engine on it that's twice as big, and a propeller to go with it. It's going to generate a *lot* of p-factor and torque. If the engine is rotating to the right, it will try to rotate the airframe to the left. That means, left down aileron to compensate, which means adverse yaw drag. we also have p-factor trying to rotate the aircraft to the left too, and a LOT of it with that bigger engine. Double whammy! There might not be enough rudder authority to compensate on takeoff! We might have to make the fuselage longer, put on a bigger rudder, beef up the structure a bit but we don't want to add too much weight... So we can see a lot changes with engine and propulsion choices.

However... keep in mind, there are limits too. We can't put too big of a rudder on, or we'll have a very low maneuvering speed due to risk of damage, or we have to spend a lot more in weight to really beef it up. So, chances are, we'll be using a combination of airframe lengthening and rudder size, maybe some additional anchors in the midsection of the rudder for strength.

Now, if we have all that fuselage length, chances are we can just go ahead and put in some extra seats too, since we have the power for it now!

Well... with the seats in... we have a wider CG range. Aft CGs let you go faster and more efficiently, because the elevator doesn't have to push as hard to keep the nose up. More force = more load on the wings, and a little more drag. A more aft CG also slightly reduces empennage control surface effectiveness, since axis of rotation tend to be very near the CG.

My Mooney had a relatively small rudder, but a long fuselage. With the 200hp engine, it still took a lot of rudder force on takeoff, and a lot of rudder travel. I stress again I cannot speak authoritatively on RVs on this, just something to think about.

Now, let's take our modified RV. We want MORE SPEED. So we go with even skinnier wings for even less drag (a strategy used in some other aircraft designs, such as fighters). We're expanding the top envelope. But, AoA limits will probably change too. Not a problem for cruise because we have the speed we need. But on takeoff and landing... We don't want an 80+ knot stall speed, that would be terrible! So we put in flaps, maybe some leading edge slats too. We're pushing the bottom envelope of what is now possible while keeping our top end speed too.

Alternatively, we could make the wingspan a little shorter, we'll lose some lift, but we can keep the AoA limits.

Oh but there's also a problem... we have a lot of speed, and again, we don't want low maneuvering speeds, so we might have to shrink those ailerons a bit, or beef em up and add more mounting. We don't like weight, that means less speed, and again we're focused on cruising here. We just provide enough control surface authority for safe normal flight, and at slower speeds, but that should be fine, right?

What about spins? Oh boy. We might not have as much authority as we want to compensate now, but that's a whole ball of worms that I am unqualified to discuss, but there are two major factors: the tailplane design, and how far aft the CG is.

3: How all this is brought together and why I made my broad generalization.

Aircraft design has compromises everywhere. The venerable 172 is a low speed, highly stable, highly controllable aircraft with extremely docile behavior. The piper warrior, same. Extremely forgiving to first time fliers, which is why they are so popular, you really have to develop some BAD habits to make these things behave poorly. RVs often make circles around them though (a regular RV-12 being a light sport, is the exception).

Our mutant RV-12 just had a bunch of performance numbers pushed to extremes, expanding our envelope a lot, but we sacrificed a lot to get there. As a result, it is now less forgiving than the original design.

Someone with lower time and less training can get themselves into a lout of trouble quickly. Again, this was spherical cowed, there's a lot of other things we can do to offset the issues we developed, but that's outside of this discussion; it's not to dog on RVs, but rather to illustrate what happens on a general, basic level if we push envelopes. RVs have a lot of things that they do to get the performance numbers they have without pushing to such extremes that I illustrated, but compromises have to be made somewhere regardless.

 

Wrapping up:

Going back to Mooneys: They push the upper envelope. Statistically, they are a difficult aircraft to fly, but really what that means is that they're not hard to fly, but rather it is unkind to ineptness. When I had my mooney renting out at the flight school, our insurance company required 10 hours of dual given, or 25 hours *in that type* to solo (there had been 3 fatal accidents in a single year requiring full policy payouts in either 2011 or 2012). That should give an idea about how even insurers feel about them.

I think you can train an inexperienced pilot for flying a Mooney just fine, just like you can train them for RVs. They're not dangerous, just perhaps a little unforgiving, possibly in part from their larger performance envelopes (I don't consider something unforgiving to be dangerous, the danger is the ineptitude of handling). RVs are not training aircraft, so that also puts pressure on lowering the amount of time in type and training someone receives in one. There's a lot of lower time pilots flying RVs around. Accident statistics seem to show that a lot of the accidents are from pilot mishandling the aircraft, typically among the lower time pilots, but the higher time (1000+) weren't immune.

I will finally, one more time, really stress: this was spherical cowed. My generalization had the disclaimer that it is a general rule. There are exceptions to every rule, and being aviation, that "general" rule becomes a bit less and less... generalized. ❖

[Minesotamachi e]

Just eliminate the medical for ppl and get rid of sport and recreational certification. Make medical mandatory for anyone going comercial or just wanting to cary more than 6 people ( including pic )  The damn airplanes will sell themselves if they are built well and a joy to fly no matter how many seats or gross weight! 

[Anticept]

Getting rid of certification would require people to have to take another checkride to up their certificate. It's very, very rare for the FAA to grandfather certificates, especially given that private allows night flight, and neither sport nor recreational pilots require any night training. Though I agree with the sentiment.

Regarding medicals: Partially agree. I would be completely open to very loose medical certification with the caveat that you can only fly over sparsely populated areas and away from events. Very loose being basically driver's license loose, and periodically a recheck with a CFI to make sure you can fly the aircraft safely. This is a type of "if you're gonna get anyone killed, it's just going to be you" approach.

Third class/basic med: now your limitations for private use are removed. I would never agree to no medical checks at all, people act like these things aren't necessary, but they're not doctors either.

Regarding built well: Unless you know what you are looking for, it would be hard to tell what is "built well" vs not. It was a wild west for aircraft decades ago and we've learned a hell of a lot, and one point of regulation and oversight is to make sure people don't forget those lessons, inefficient as it can be sometimes.

My personal belief would be as follows: Tiers of standards, with different limitations. Externally visible stickers and an airworthiness certificate certifying the level of compliance.

if the aircraft is built and maintained to the highest standards, no limitations. Think airliners, air taxi, air tours, etc. Everything requires careful and thoughtful engineering review and oversight for any structural repairs and alterations, etc.

If it's built and maintained to an industry consensus standard designed for safety, then it can be used for flight training and private use, and can still fly anywhere. Many kinds of repairs and alterations could be field approved by FAA inspectors or manufacturers, and must be followed with extended flight testing for safety checks. However, if approved engineering data is created, the flight testing can mostly be skipped as allowed by the engineering data (like STCs).

Private use only: Be it homebuilt or to an industry standard, an owner without an A&P* can maintain their own aircraft if they have had recurrent specific type maintenance training. Repairs or alterations are lenient in oversight, but require extensive testing if it isn't backed by engineering data before you can carry passengers or fly over congested areas.

*A&Ps and repairmen should require reviews just like pilots do. Hell, IAs have to. Why are A&Ps and repairmen an exception despite their critical role?

[FlyingMonkey]

19 hours ago, Minesotamachi e said:

Just eliminate the medical for ppl and get rid of sport and recreational certification. Make medical mandatory for anyone going comercial or just wanting to cary more than 6 people ( including pic )  The damn airplanes will sell themselves if they are built well and a joy to fly no matter how many seats or gross weight! 

That has been my take for a long time.  Third class serves little purpose, and I know a lot of guys who are walking time bombs who get a pencil whipped 3rd class physical with a wink and a nod.
 

You don’t even have to eliminate the ratings, just make the pilots abide by the limits of those ratings, or upgrade to PP.

[Warmi]

A guy in a Cessna having medical event and going down is quite unlikely and furthermore not more dangerous than the same guy in a truck or suv losing it on a highway ( or a town street ) 

In any case, I think various personality flaws , rather than medical issues, are much more likely to result in accidents both in the air and on the road …

[Anticept]

The issue as well is how to punish people who walk away from an accident unscathed, yet are clearly flying with a major deficiency or handicap. Even moreso when they have passengers.

These rules don't necessarily address safety directly in all cases, sometimes it's about deterrence and punishment if and when someone is caught.

Since a private pilot is a blanket rating to do a very wide range of aviation activities, the medical requirements must also address the riskiest of them. Hence my idea of tiering said activities and limitations, so that we can unburden recreational flying.

On the other side of the spectrum, there is also the issue of policy makers who have no investment or interest in aviation who walk in, white knight an issue for approval points, then walk away having lost nothing while aviation is burdened with new laws.

That's why I hold the position where zero regulation is a poor idea, but, if someone is a higher risk individual, they should only be risking themselves, so keep them away from everyone else.

As for how you *define* high risk... That's the million dollar question!

[Towner]

As you get older, you have a higher chance of medical issues. Does this mean we shouldn’t let pilots fly over the age of 65? Of course not. If I can drive a 4000 lb SUV down the road at 80 mph, why can’t I fly a small plane. 
 

A large percentage of people flying LSA are private pilots who have chosen not to deal with medicals any longer, normally because of concerns they won’t pass. The LSA incidents shown to be caused by medical conditions is very low. Why can’t someone fly a docile 4 seat Cherokee with 2 passengers vs a touchy LSA with one passenger? There have always been a large number of private pilots who have been flying their personal aircraft for years without a medical.

Most crashes of small aircraft have no injuries or death to people on the ground. Anyone getting in a plane with you should be doing so willing. Obviously, flying large aircraft or flying people for hire changes this, but let the little guys fly if you let them drive.

If aircraft incidents related to medical issues was shown to be higher, then we should re-evaluate. The stats are low, especially related to other causes of crashes, so let ppl fly with a driver’s license medical.

[Anticept]

Comparing a car to a plane is not a reasonable comparison. I can give you a particularly good reason: oxygen at altitude. A lot of seemingly innocuous long term medical conditions increase risk a lot in thinner air, and not just medical events, but just even a loss in the speed and accuracy of judgement due to a less effective circulatory system.

I've seen plenty of old people who shouldn't still be allowed to drive

But yes, as i said above, i am OK with lenient medicals for private flying away from congested areas, and as you said, if they're getting in the aircraft, they're probably doing so willingly.

[Towner]

It’s the over congested areas part I’m not comfortable with. For pilots flying, in flight issues are rarely medical problems, but usually poor decision making. Oxygen issues can show themselves to supposed healthy people too. Simply being healthy 40 year old, but that has smoked for years, can cause oxygen related problems. Even people that have no known health issues can easily have oxygen related issues below 10k feet. People living in Denver handle 10k feet better than those living at sea level.

Fatigue can be just as big of an issue, as it is much more common. People driving while fatigued get in accidents all the time. In an airplane, if you drift a mile off course due to fatigue, it usually means nothing. In a car, if you drift 10 feet into the next lane, or opposite lane, it can have a horrible outcome. Sadly, this happens all the time. 
 

We have to address the the situations that lead to a high percentage of the incidents. Medical issues is not one of these. We can start picking things apart until nobody can fly. We can allow somebody sitting next to us, who has never flown, to take control of the airplane. Should we ban that? I read about an LSA crash which they believe was caused by a dog interfering with with copilot controls. Ban animals in planes? No more flying over mountains cause it’s dangerous. Every airplane should have a parachute cause it’s safer. This list can go on and on. 
 

All I’m trying to say is the stats show medically related incidents are small. Private pilots should self evaluate, but if you can drive, you should be able to fly under normal PPL rules. Sadly, neither self evaluation nor a medical certificate stops the real issues of alcohol, drugs (legal and illegal), fatigue, the stress to get there when it’s a poor choice, etc. The stats from these “medical” issues are much higher than issues found during a medical exam from an MD.

[Anticept]

The one part that I don't like about these medical statistics is that they are framed within the modern age where people don't fly because they're afraid of getting in trouble, not necessarily because they feel they are unhealthy/healthy.

I would be willing to yield on the non-congested area stuff if there were a medical tier that educated people on self assessment, symptoms and causes, how common medical issues can inhibit pilot ability in certain circumstances, and had them experience oxygen deprivation in a chamber first hand, etc. Give them the tools, knowledge, and experience so they can be better able to self assess. It's amazing how opinions change to more careful consideration when experienced first hand how these affect a person, and education is a powerful tool.

Regardless of the "low medically related accident" rate, we're talking about people's lives and loved ones. For the most part, those that choose to climb into the airplane with you know what they are getting into. It's the people on the ground with absolutely nothing to do with your flight that should be guarded with the utmost care, if not for the fact of keeping them safe, at least for the fact that if an airplane goes through their front window and it's because the pilot has a medical issue, we can point to the efforts of trying to prevent such things from happening. We know the media will have a field day and it will be the talk of the nation for a week.

[Towner]

Then every pilot should wear a heart monitor, just in case. Don’t forget their O2 sensor. Gotta have a carbon monoxide detector. Pretty sure we should use a EPAS on the pilot to check alcohol levels before every flight. Better do a quick blood check for drugs.

All of these are issues that causes accidents in airplanes. When does it stop. How far do you go. 
 

I lost my son in a motorcycle accident when he was 18. Not his fault, as he was not speeding and an lady simply turned left in front of him.  He was doing less than 35 mph, had a helmet on, and had a fair amount of experience on motorcycles. Motorcycles, like airplanes, have a higher risk than many other activities, lower than others. A very high percentage of motorcycle accidents are caused by driver’s of cars. Should we ban cars where motorcycles are allowed?.

I was a cop for 26 years. During my time at the Sheriffs Department (16 years) I was also a deputy coroner. That means we had to respond to most deaths outside of a medical facility, do a quick investigation, and relocate the body to the appropriate place. I’ve seen a lot. Life is inherently dangerous. Guns, cars, swimming pools, fires, stairs…everything is dangerous. While we shouldn’t randomly jump in front of cars, we shouldn’t lock ourselves in a closet for safety either. We should ask the same from others.

[Anticept]

Sorry, but I don't see how any of that is relevant. You are making decisions for yourself, but when asked to at least be well educated on how your medical state can effect your flying to make sure you really understand how it affects you, you're going to give me all this evidence of being a cop and a coroner as a substitute? These aren't related to flying, and trying to feed me a bunch of slippery slope arguments and whataboutisms isn't appropriate. Especially since coroners are *not* medical examiners in many states and in quite a few, they're an elected position with no training required. That's not to downplay your experience, but coroners and aviation medical examiners don't overlap much except at the scene of an accident.

I'm going to put my faith in the doctors who actually deal with these issues in aviation. That DOES NOT mean I agree with the current overly conservative situation that is out there right now, but again, education education education. Make sure you ACTUALLY understand the signs and effects of medical conditions and how they affect piloting. THEN I am OK with people self-evaluating and giving the freedom to fly. Basic med is a step in the right direction at least, and it needs to go further, but risk that is acceptable to you may not be acceptable to others. Aviation is incredibly safe in general, but we need to keep it that way. Let's make sure we have the tools to be safe AND free.

[Towner]

You know, I was just trying to discuss a different point of view without being rude. 

[Anticept]

It's not fair to the person you are in a discussion with to start throwing vaguely relevant arguments around and use slippery slope arguments on top of them. You waste your their time and your own, because it effectively shuts constructive conversation down. There's no more discussion that can be had when that happens. So I called it for what it is. It's rude, but so is wasting time with irrelevance.

I understand where you are coming from, but I am not going to agree with totally removing medicals period. I don't mind self assessment. I do mind it though if self assessment is not guided or educated in any way.

Maybe you yourself have the training to reasonably assess your own health. A lot of people don't.

[Anticept]

Alright so towner and I had a bunch of discussing in private messages relating to this topic.

I am going to give the courtesy of an open apology to him in for using the harsh language that I did earler (and have edited out) and the personal attacks. I outlined why it happened, and what in particular got me to lose my temper a bit, but in the interest of extending an olive branch and returning myself to civilized discussion, this is that apology.

Sorry about that, Towner.

[FlyingMonkey]

Let's look at the current situation.  Currently, a 16 year old can get a Class 3 medical, then fill out the BasicMed paperwork.  That pilot can then fly until he dies without ever talking to an AME again.  If he lives to be 100, he can fly for 84 years unimpeded by the medical process other than the same self-certification that Sport Pilots undergo.  Incidentally, ALL pilots must self-certify they are fit to fly before every flight, that is part of the pre-flight process.

Given the above, what purpose is served by the Class 3 medical?  I'd submit the answer is "none".  There are very few 16 year olds that can't pass a Class 3 medical exam, and most medical issues that the FAA considers grounding appear in a pilot's 30s or later.  But under the current regime we're not testing this pilot when he's likely to have issues, only when he's *least* likely to have a problem.  The current rule is basically "if you can pass a medical at any one point in your life, you can fly forevermore with no medical oversight other than your own."

IMO, A small airplane is no more dangerous than a average large pickup truck or SUV.  Sure you could have a heart attack and fly into a school and kill a bunch of kids, but you could have the same problem in a 4500lb pickup and hit a school bus.  Also, I don't know of a single incident where a sport pilot or somebody flying under BasicMed without a medical had a proven medical event that killed anybody, much less anybody not in the aircraft.  It's just not something that happens with any frequency.  Given this, I'd say that having a system as it is where "you can fly without a medical forever if you pass one once" is broken.  

My suggestion would be to treat flying a lot like we do driving.  You don't need a medical to drive for personal use in normal-sized vehicles, but you do if you want to drive for hire or drive vehicles above a certain weight.  There's no reason not to adopt something similar -- If you are flying an aircraft for personal use, no medical required if the airplane is below the gross weight of airplanes that are generally used for commercial-only operations (not sure what that might be...10,000lb?).  If you want to fly for hire in any airplane, or fly airplanes above that weight, you need to have a commercial ticket and maintain a medical to exercise those privileges.

I recognize that airplanes are not automobiles, and there are medical factors like altitude that have aeromedical safety implications. But the FAA could take some of the money it now uses to enforce and approve class 3 medicals, and use than money in education.  I would not have any issue with pilots that self certify having to attend bi-annual medical training (say a 4 or 8 hour class) to make sure they are reminded of medical concerns to pilots and how to *properly* self certify before flight.

This is my opinion on the matter, I don't expect everybody to agree.  I do think I have laid out the problems with the current scheme though.