A few of us have been having a discussion, but don't know any real answers. Here's the question: If you have a Private ticket but have voluntarily dropped the 3rd class medical and are flying with a driver's license medical, have you thereby forced yourself to fly totally by Sport Pilot rules, i.e. day only vfr, only light sport qualified aircraft, no vfr flight over cloud layers, etc.

I'm sure some of you CFI's and other knowledgable people out there know the answers. My take is yes, you have turned yourself into a Sport Pilot even though your ticket still says Private on it. Otherwise why wouldn't everybody forget the medical and keep flying Private with no loss of priveleges.