Sure, they are not looking to just fail all cvds, as clearly some people with the condition pass the tests. But, then again....maybe these people who pass the lantern tests only fail one or two plates on the Ishihara test...Over the last year, I have encountered 2 people that passed a lantern at LGW, both of them only failed the Ishihara on a couple of plates.
"Oh dear I fail 1 or 2 pages of the Ishihara book, I have CVD! I can't be a commercial pilot
"
Well, actually my friend according to Ishihara's standards, your colour vision is acceptable as 'Normal', providing you make no more than 2 mistakes (or is it 3?
I forget) on the first 15 plates of the 24 plate set. Oh well, what does old Ishihara know anyway, he only designed the best and most widely used CVD screening tool known to man.
So, seeing as you've only made 1 or 2 mistakes (and are colour normal) you may as well go and take the tests at the CAA, you'll probably pass them. Then again, out of a study group of 24 colour normals, 12 of them failed the Beynes! So even though you have good colour vision, 12 people who passed all the Ishihara plates failed one of the lanterns, so I wish you the best of luck, you're gonna need it.
To be fair, out of that study group of 24 colour normals, they ALL passed the HW type A....however 3 also failed the Swiss Spectrolux, and 12 of them failed the Cadillac of CVD testing devices, the Nagel Anomaloscope. So basically, the Beynes, which is by word of mouth the 'New, Improved, Easier Lantern', is actually as hard as the Anomaloscope....nice one.
This is really strange, 12 people with so called 'Normal' colour vision couldn't meet the JAR standards for commercial flight....Guess you just have to have that extra special something over here, that uhhhhh 'ow do you say, je ne sais quois?!
I'm not coming down on the folks at the CAA before anyone says so, as I know that they are an absolute first class bunch of people
They do their job, and they do their job well.
But the rules some of us find ourselves surrounded by, and the supposed attemtps to alleviate us of them, leave something to be desired.
Thank God for the CAD test coming in soon, a fair, practical, aviation environment based test, things are looking up, money well spent!
