Sunglasses for aviators
Previously, I wrote about the new optical outlet for aviators at Coventry. I must declare an interest in this as I'm one of the directors. However, we put this together as no-one seems to be doing this for aviators. We have set up a facility to deal specifically with the visual requirements for pilots. We have built a flight deck on which we simulate all types of flying conditions as part of the eye examination (night, snow on the ground, IMC and bright VMC. This includes very bright conditions so that people can try out different types of sunglasses and see how each type measures up when confronted with a bright environment with different VMC conditions projected on a screen. Our customers can see how different lenses fare when trying to see little white gliders against a backdrop of clouds. The effect is really very good and helps people assess the efffectiveness of diffrent sunglasses in different glare conditions before they buy. We stock Serengeti, Oakley, Bolle and others. To clarify a few points - polarised lenses are discouraged, photochromic lenses are also discouraged. The military recommend neutral grey tints, helicopter pilots and many VFR pilots seem to prefer yellow tints as subjectively these provide better contrast definition. We're at Coventry Airport