We’re Going Back.

We are officially registered, and we are going back.

This is more than another conference on our calendar. It is another opportunity to be present where the HIMS program is taught, discussed, and shaped. It is an opportunity to listen carefully, ask informed questions, build professional relationships, and ensure that the experiences of pilots are not absent from conversations that can affect their medical certificates, careers, families, and futures.

Over the past year, Pilots for HIMS Reform has grown from a shared concern among affected pilots into a serious and increasingly visible reform movement. Pilots and families from across the country have contacted us. They have shared records, experiences, frustrations, successes, and deeply personal stories about navigating a system they often describe as confusing, inconsistent, expensive, and nearly impossible to challenge.

We carry those stories with us.

We Are Returning With a Different Perspective

Last year, we attended to learn. We wanted to better understand how HIMS professionals are educated, how the program is described internally, what assumptions guide the system, and how decision-makers view the pilots who are required to participate in it.

This year, we return with a much broader understanding of the issues.

We have spent another year speaking with pilots, physicians, attorneys, aviation professionals, investigators, policymakers, advocates, and families. We have examined policies, medical certification decisions, monitoring requirements, special-issuance conditions, legal arguments, scientific literature, and the consequences that arise when important standards exist only as unpublished expectations.

We have also seen the remarkable strength of pilots who continue doing everything asked of them, often for years, while receiving little or no explanation of what they must accomplish to finally return to unrestricted medical certification.

The Questions Are Not Going Away

The fundamental questions surrounding HIMS remain as important as ever:

• Why is there no clearly published, objective pathway to unrestricted medical certification?
• Why can monitoring continue long after a pilot has demonstrated years of documented stability and compliance?
• Why do unwritten standards appear to influence decisions that can determine whether a pilot may continue earning a living?
• Why are similarly situated pilots sometimes treated differently?
• Why are pilots not routinely given complete written explanations for the requirements imposed upon them?
• Why is there no genuinely independent and accessible process for reviewing disputed HIMS decisions?
• How can the system protect aviation safety without unnecessarily sacrificing fairness, dignity, transparency, and due process?

These are not anti-safety questions. They are questions asked by people who believe that a safety program becomes stronger, not weaker, when its standards are transparent, scientifically defensible, consistently applied, and subject to meaningful review.

Showing Up Matters

Real reform rarely happens from the sidelines. It happens because people continue showing up. It happens through persistence, preparation, professional engagement, difficult conversations, careful documentation, and the willingness to remain in the room even when progress feels slow.

We understand that not everyone attending the seminar will agree with our concerns or proposed reforms. That is not a reason to stay away. It is precisely why our presence matters.

Pilots for HIMS Reform intends to continue engaging respectfully and professionally. Our mission is not to dismantle recovery support or weaken legitimate aviation safety protections. Our mission is to help build a system worthy of the tremendous authority placed in it.

A fair HIMS program should be capable of protecting the public while also recognizing recovery, individual progress, medical evidence, and the right of every pilot to understand the standards governing his or her career.

Representing the Voices That Have Been Missing

For too long, discussions about HIMS have been dominated by regulators, program administrators, medical professionals, employers, and other institutional stakeholders. Those participants have an important role, but the pilots living under the program must also have a meaningful voice.

That includes pilots who have successfully recovered. Pilots who have remained abstinent and stable for many years. Pilots who have complied with every examination, test, report, meeting, and monitoring requirement. Pilots who support aviation safety but question whether indefinite oversight remains medically necessary. Pilots who have been afraid to speak publicly because the people administering the system also influence whether they may continue flying.

It also includes spouses, children, and families who experience the financial strain, emotional toll, uncertainty, and fear created when a pilot’s livelihood remains tied to requirements that may never be clearly explained.

Pilots for HIMS Reform will continue working to bring those voices into the conversation.

What We Hope to Accomplish

During the 2026 HIMS Basic Education Seminar, we intend to:

• Listen carefully to the educational presentations and discussions.
• Engage respectfully with HIMS professionals and aviation stakeholders.
• Continue developing relationships that may help advance constructive reform.
• Better understand how current HIMS policies and practices are being presented to new program participants.
• Identify areas where pilot experiences differ from the system as it is officially described.
• Advocate for objective standards, written explanations, reasonable time limits, independent review, and a genuine pathway to unrestricted certification.
• Bring what we learn back to our members and the broader pilot community.

We cannot promise that one seminar will transform the system. We can promise that we will continue showing up, asking responsible questions, gathering information, documenting what we learn, and refusing to allow affected pilots to remain invisible.

The Movement Is Growing

The growth of Pilots for HIMS Reform demonstrates that these concerns are not isolated. More pilots are speaking out. More families are sharing their experiences. More professionals are privately acknowledging that the system can be improved. More people are beginning to recognize that indefinite, unexplained, or inconsistently applied requirements do not necessarily make aviation safer.

Reform will not happen overnight. Government agencies move slowly. Institutions resist change. Longstanding practices can become deeply entrenched, even when those practices were never formally published or subjected to meaningful outside review.

But awareness is growing. The questions are becoming harder to ignore. And Pilots for HIMS Reform is not going away.

We Will Report Back

Following the seminar, we plan to provide our members and supporters with updates, observations, and insights from the event.

Some discussions may appropriately remain private, particularly when individuals speak with us in confidence. However, we will continue sharing as much information as responsibly possible about the direction of HIMS, the issues being discussed, and the opportunities we see for meaningful reform.

Transparency is one of our central values, and we intend to practice it in our own work.