Test your own eyes
Here is a method of making your own eye chart to see if you make the grade for your class one. Of course they test for a zillion other things on the actual medical, but this is a good home made test to be used for what it is......a home made test for shortsightedness only, carried out by oneself with, I assume, no medical expertise whatsoever. (That’s the disclaimer for the types that dry their wet cats in the microwave).
I will assume you have a computer with Microsoft Word and a printer with a basic understanding of same (well you are reading PPRUNE). Open Word and set the font to Arial with BOLD switched on. Go to options and switch on the 'ruler' so you can see a height measurement panel on the left side. In the general tab in options select measurement unit as millimetres. What you need to do is type in a selection of letters making them progressively smaller as you see in your optitions charts. This is what you are aiming for
line 1;strength 6/60; height 87mm; suggest font size 348
line 2;strength 6/36; height 52mm; suggest font size 208
line 3;strength 6/24; height 35mm; suggest font size 140
line 4;strength 6/18; height 26mm; suggest font size 104
line 5;strength 6/12; height 18mm; suggest font size 72
line 6;strength 6/9 ; height 13mm; suggest font size 52
line 7;strength 6/7.5;height 11mm; suggest font size 44
line 8;strength 6/6 ; height 9mm; suggest font size 36
line 9;strength 6/4 ; height 6mm; suggest font size 24
Print this off and measure what you've got and adjust as necessary. Then hang it on the wall in a well-lit room and stand 6m away. Cover one eye and read it. Then the other eye and read it backwards. You need 6/9 in each eye independently and 6/6 with both eyes together. You can wear lenses up to a maximum of 5 dioptres to achieve this.
To make a bit more professional looking, select the entire document and centralise the characters. Then select font size 10 with the cursor at the end of a line and hit return, then type in the strength for that line eg 6/24. Repeat this for all the lines.
FAQ
1/ but somebody said that I need 20/20, what does that mean?.....If you cannot convert between meters and feet then don't become a pilot
2/ yes, 4 points of a Aerial bold is about 1 mm but I felt everybody wouldn't understand so I listed it off.
3/ but my font size only goes up to 72 ?.... just type the font size into the box
4/ My characters are smaller when I print them out?......Have you selected bold like you were told too. If that doesn’t work then experiment for your computer/printer combo.
5/ I did your test and thought I had perfect sight, so I drove my car and crashed it killing my wheelchair bound grandmother. Can I sue you?....Read the disclaimer idiot, and don't dry you cat in the microwave.
[This message has been edited by Bomber Harris (edited 24 December 2000).]