CVD nils You are correct being colour deficient has no effect on air safety. To give you a rough idea between 1 in 8 and 1 in 12 men are colour deficient (depending on your racial background) Northern Europeans have the highest rate and curiously enough the closer you get to the equator the lower the rate among the populations. There was an interesting hypothesis a number of years ago that linked the differences in the rates to the differences in the amount of twilight at the various lattitudes and a correlation was established suggesting that colour vision deficiency is a selective advantage, giving our ancestors better vision during the twilight and dark hours and possibly better hunting ability. This would appear to have a basis in fact as I know quite a few colour deficients (myself included) who without exception see better in the dark than colour normals. However this does not mean that we are unable to distinguish colours as I'm sure all reading this topic will agree. With approx 1 out of every 10 men (global average)affected by this it would be a significant cause of auto accidents around the world if in fact as the aviation authorities would have you believe we are unable to tell the difference between red and green. In fact to my knowledge no car crash has ever been attributed to this and I have searched the NTSB database for north america on this one.
In the US the final test to decide if you are cabable of distinguishing the colours used in aviation signal lights is the aviation signal light itself. The FAA take you out onto an airfield and first at a distance of 1000ft they show you the signal lights in random order you name them as the show them and then they repeat the test at 1500ft again you name them as they show them. I took this test a few years ago and after I had passed I asked the guy who gave me the test two questions first how long had he been giving people this test and secondly how many people had failed the test? He told me that he had been doing this test for twenty years and in all that time NO ONE HAD EVER FAILED.
True Colour blindness is very rare indeed and is usually accompanied by very poor visual acuity due to other factors.
Ishihara's test is just an arbritrary test failing it does not mean you are colour blind. All the other tests are also arbritray they just draw the line in a different place.
The FAA are right about this one if you can tell the difference between the signal lights at an airfield (and from the evidence everybody can) then you should fly.
Good luck with your case if you go ahead and take one. Probably the best place to take a case maybee to the European Court which would have authority over the JAA. All the evidence is on your side and the precedents set by DR Pape in Australia are very strong, as well as the fact that many thousands of colour "defective" pilots are currently flying all over the world safely.
One Further note.
The JAA and The FAA are currently in negotiations to harmonise pilot licensing does anybody out there know if medical standards are on the table?