Hey guys and girls
I'm just another one to join the group as i was on my way to (try) getting a C1, and was found color unsafe...that so
annoying and frustrating, our dreams destroyed because of something the Doctors themselves are not really in full understanding. I say that they are not, because from what i understand there can be many little deviations from the "real" perceptions of colors, and i admit it, i mix the colors (light green and light yellow) when they're 4/5Meters (13/14ft aprox.) away, and have the diameter used on those machines. I do not make any mistakes if the colors are in the normal wave length and i do not change one color with another(I've checked this quite a few times in different conditions with the help of my (non color defective) girlfriend and friends.
I've done the exams and the Center for Aeronautical Medicine at the Air force Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal and they were quite friendly i must say, but i still feel that I'm being put aside for a reason that is not that fair. I use contacts to correct my vision, and i was able to use those (as i am inside the regulations restrictions) but i hear that one cannot use the color correcting lenses (colormax or stuff like that), isn't that just something idiot ?? wtf, i can sit back on a pilots seat and not be able to read the instruments(without the corrective lenses), but if i cant tell the difference between mild green and mild yellow i cant have a C1?
As i stated earlier, i don't know how much they really understand or better yet, what they "think" we see, the doctor there wouldn't explain to me what my problem was, what colors i mixed (was she afraid i'd go somewhere else and cheat the system?) that's just idiot, they would just have to show the lights in a different order and i would not be able to tell the difference (I think...) anyway, I was unsafe to fly a plane, I would surely be the first one to say that I would not want to be in control... If i wanted to kill myself i can really think of cheaper and easier ways to do it...
It's really a shame that we cant just have a practical test like in the states, where at the very least we would understand why we are sooo unsafe. I'd like to do a test where they would stage a dangerous situation where my safety would depend on distinguishing between those two shades of green and yellow and se how i would do. And then, i would be satisfied after earing that " well, you see, this situation happens some times, and you would have been
because of your color unsafeness's, so thank us for being good to you and not letting you have the C1. After that i would send them a fruit basket and we could all be friends.
oh well, i will not give up, i think i'll try a different color test as soon as i can, but they surely screwed up my plans for the future, and i know that as most of you, if this wasn't such a unfair thing we would be alright with it and just move on. The general idea is, as someone already said, that ppl like us change colors, or just cant see them...i had to explain and prove to my friends that i can tell the colors just as well as they can, i just cant tell the difference between mild green and mild yellow if they are the size of the guy who decided this test's brain and it's flashed at me from 4 meters...
I will continue to try and pass the C1, and at the same time continue my life as a Software Engineer....maybe i'll just make some software that receives the output of all those light tests and programs the colors to flash at a different wave leght in order for us to "see" it properly. If they rely their lives on all those computerized systems the new jets and air control units have, they must accept something like this...
Sorry for the long rant, i think i could just steal all the JAA regulations and burn them, so that they would have to re-write them
hehehehe anyone up for a bbq?
Keep up the hope
Rui (I see the colors, really...) Daniel