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Old 6th Nov 2019, 01:27
  #10 (permalink)  
aa777888
 
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There are no good solutions for presbyopia where refractive surgery is concerned. Your only choices are multifocal correction and monovision. Both really screw with your depth perception. You can try both by going to your eye doc and asking for contact lenses that do the same things.

Indeed, I've tried both myself. Monovision wasn't bad. I put the near vision lens in my non-dominant eye. It was fine for day to day stuff, and for driving, but it was not at all optimal for flying. And it will not meet the FAA medical standards, you'd have to request a waiver. I also tried multifocal contact lenses. The multifocal approach requires a lot of "brain training". I stuck with it for a few weeks but just couldn't make it work, not even for day to day, ground based stuff. It was so bad I never tried it in the air at all.

I've also tried progressive lenses. Again, I did not care for them, although I can understand how some might prefer that, especially with the FAA requirement for older pilots to demonstrate visual acuity at both 16 and 32 inches distance.

For flying I still very much prefer a set of plain old bifocals with a line set a little lower than what might be normal. I can easily meet the FAA requirement for 20/40 at 16 inches using the lower section, and 32 inches with the upper section. I've got bifocal sunglasses, too. They are the cat's meow and I wear them for everything, not just flying.
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