Originally Posted by
2close
FAA accept the Farnsworth.
CAA accept both Holmes Wright and Anomalscope.
HTH
2close
CAA also administer the Holmes Wright, and from my experience it's a complete farce (I failed the Ishihara Plates but fancied getting a Night Rating for my PPL, so I went for the H-W). I paid my fee, trekked down to Gatwick, and got five minutes into the test before being told that because I'd got one red/green combination wrong, the test must cease immediately.
On one hand, that's fair enough - if that's what the procedure says, that's how it should be.
On the other hand, it's damned annoying. First of all, you're sat quite a long way from the tiny light pin-pricks (I know it's called a "lantern" test, which makes you think of carol singers with socking great candles in metal boxes, but we're talking tiny points of light) and so distance vision is being tested just as much as colour vision. Second, the test begins in ambient light - in this case fluorescent light in a windowless room - and after a while they turn the lights off. Third, I'd paid my fee so I damn well think I was entitled to go through the entire test just to see how I'd done in the dark (this was never tested, as the tester stopped the test during the ambient light phase).
So after a day off work and a fee to the CAA, I know that I have trouble picking out tiny points of red and green under a bright fluorescent bulb (not exactly the conditions I come across in the sky all that often). Sadly, I have no idea whether I would be able to meet the standard that matters - red/green requirement in the dark. If the test had carried on to the "dark" stage and I'd failed, I'd have been OK with that - at least I'd have known that there was a problem. As it is, I have no idea whether my colour perception in the dark is up to scratch.
The other thing that annoys me is that the guy doing the test basically said: "Sorry, you've failed". He actually thought I was aiming for commercial flying (he didn't know I was just a PPL wanting a night rating) yet there was nothing in his manner that was even close to "letting me down gently". And in fact, as I was sat outside waiting for my taxi to the station, he even came out and asked me to go in and let him check my distance vision, as it had suddenly occurred to him that the problem may be the inability to see the lights, not the inability to distinguish the colours. Didn't make a difference though.
When I told my AME about my experiences at my last medical, I think the word "furious" pretty much sums it up. And I agree with him. Since then, I've been told that I have a "slight" colour vision problem by an optician who did a City University test on me. All I really want is a realistic test that I can come out of with a verdict of whether my colour vision is crap or not. So I think I'll track down an Anomalscope test and see how I go.
David C