Originally Posted by
lossiemouth
Am coming back to private flying after about 20 years away! What are the differences in the eye test from the old PPL, and the new JAR PPL?
I'm pretty sure it's the same eye test whether you want to keep your old PPL or change to a JAR one (and why on earth would you want to change??)?
The old rules were: if you could see well enough to fly whilst wearing your glasses, you pass.
The new rules have got all sorts of numbers in them as others have explained.
However ... my eyesight is outside the new numbers. When I came back to flying after (only) 13 years away the AME said he'd give me a medical anyway, as the change in the rules wasn't supposed to make someone stop flying if they'd been flying perfectly happily before.
So, I've got this medical with a "not JAA compliant" stamp in it, ie in theory I can expect this medical to be valid in the UK only, and I now fly around on my original UK PPL (not any nasty new-fangled JAR thing).
So ... I go to Canada, show them this medical, and they accept it as valid for the issue of a Canadian licence, even though my eyesight is also way beyond the Canadian specificiation!
The impression I get is that if you're new to flying the numbers might matter, otherwise they don't seem to matter very much at all.