Spectacles???

[Who do you Call]

Unfortunately horror of horrors Im going to need to get some glasses for the first time?

If any pilots out there wear them as a matter of course, what type would you recommend?

clip-ons/ Magnetic or othewise?
contacts?
Has anyone tried "transition lenses" are they clear enough to fly around at night with?

1 normal, 1 prescription sunnies?

Any other advice would be much appreciated

[YYZ]

I have just started to wear glasses so i cannot recommend which are best, but i have standard frame glases & they let alot of noise in through my headset, very annoying i can tell you!
So i will sit on your thread & hope someone can suggest what is better because you can only fly so long with a constant noise in you head!

YYZ
Ps generally the noise goes when the girlfriend does?? never managed to work out why:8

[Aerodynamisist]

G day, I wear glasses and didn't know I needed them till my av medical, there is a requirement somewhere in the regs that if you have the vision correction required endorsement on your medical then you must carry two pairs. I have a pair of clear glasses and a pair of sunies. I had transition lenses originally and they were not clear enough at night, also they are set of by utra violet light to go dark so when driving my car which has uv tinted windows the tint would not kick in. As for the head set I have filed back the plastic under the gell seals where the frames go through which has made a big difference. The only other piece of advice is get a cool set of frames to keep for going out on the town.

[redsnail]

Been wearing specs for most of my flying career. What most people do wrong is leave them over their ears and then plonk the headset over the top. Ouch and noisy. What I do is move the spec arms to above the ear piece. It makes very little difference to the vision (if any) but doesn't break the ear piece seal. This does work. Worried about how you look? Is it that important to the person sitting next to you? No. So, now you aren't so constrained by metal arms etc. When getting the specs take your headset in and try them on with the headset. I also do this with the bike crash helmet. Don't worry what you look like, you're the customer.

[ITCZ]

Been wearing glasses since I was a kid, so a few of my humble opinions.....:cool:

Photochromic/light sensitive lenses. Not really worth the effort for me. The photochromic covering requires direct light to effect the colour change. Sometimes they will not darken in the cockpit even if you are looking into a Red Centre glare, the light hitting them has come thru the perspex/glass, and you are also effectively in the shade. You cannot also control the rate at which they change back to clear. And they eventually lose their full ability to go completely clear and completely dark.

Contact lenses. Excellent vision in most cases, but expensive and a pain in the @rse if you are a bush pilot, when keeping anything clean is a challenge, and hygiene is a big issue with contacts. If you have astigmatism in either eye, they can correct for that now in contacts, but the correction is only to the nearest 5 degrees instead of less than 1 degree in specs. You may find that when you blink or when you are tired, that the lens rotates and puts the astigmatic correction out of alignment, which means that if you are reading your ops manual or scanning 2" engine gauges that you get a 'ghosting' effect like a TV not correctly tuned. Advantages -- you can buy normal sunnies off the shelf at a servo, wraparounds, anything you like. Disadvantage, you still have to buy a pair of specs for your navbag to satisfy CASA requirements, and the tax deductability of those is not clear cut.

Most optom shops will give you a pair of soft contacts as a free trial to see if they work for you. I got my free trial through Laubmann & Pank. There are several varieties of contacts, so don't accept the first option you are offered, ask the optom why he/she thinks they would suit you. Have a go.

Most practical and easiest to live with for me has been just to get a decent pair of regular specs and a decent pair of prescription sunnies. Having both with you satisfies CASA requirements for spare specs within reach, they are too easy to look after (wipe with a cleaner cloth once a day if you are motivated!) and the prescription sunnies are fully tax deductible.

Reddo talked about how the arms of the specs affected headset earseals and reduced noise attenuation. This is true, when I wore Dave Clarks you could notice a difference, so I always tried to buy frames that had the thinnest and most flexible arms. This seems to be 'in-style' at the moment so you shouldn't have a problem. The thinnest are the titanium unbreakables which are less than 1mm diameter, but they are expensive. I never had too much problems when I consciously selected thin, flexible arms, matched up with gel earseals on the DC's and earplugs, and that included 2000hr in Metros (What, Pardon?, Speak up will you...? :) ).

Try to find an optometrist who is also a Designated Aviation Medical Examiner. They don't charge extra (at least the one in Darwin does not...) and although you will still need to 'lead' the discussion, he/she will at least have an idea of what you are talking about when you start talking about the aviation environment.

With specs, you will be offered a choice of lens material. You will be introduced to aspheric lenses, high index lenses, polycarb etc. Always better to spend a couple of extra bucks and get the highest refractive index lenses you can get.

The high refractive index lenses mean less change in 'apparent size' of an image and less of the convex/concave appearance of flat surfaces and straight lines that you get when you first get glasses or change prescription.

The higher index lenses are also stronger, thinner and less likely to shatter into sharp peices -- talk to your optom about the relative safety of different materials. My specs have saved my eyes from injury on innumerable occasions -- mowing lawns, playing squash, working on and around dirt strips, etc. A flying stone might hit with a 'ping' leaving a scratch where an eye injury might have been. If you can get a safer material for another $20 i reckon its worth it.

Also if you opt for specs over contacts, ask for an anti-reflective coating on the lens front and back, and please polish the edges!

Anti-reflective coating can mean less irritating reflections during night flying. Also means that you lose the ability to have your own 'rear vision mirror' and spot someone sneaking up behind you! Also, it means that people you talk to can see your eyes and not the reflection of the buildings behind them, etc etc. Polishing the edges costs nothing and means that if you have a strong-ish prescription, the edges of the thickest part of the lenses are less obvious, and look less like 'coke bottles' to your mates!

If you are in Darwin, go see John Crimmins at Laubmann and Pank in the mall, he is a DAME. If you are in Alice Springs, see Blair at L+P in the Yeperenye centre, he is a CPL/MEIFR in his spare time.

PM me if you think I can help further

Cheers

ITCZ:8

[On Track]

Yep, I've been wearing glasses since I was a teenager - long before I learned to fly - and endorse everything ITCZ has said.

I experimented with light-sensitive lenses a long time ago and found them rather unsatisfactory.

[Who do you Call]

Thanks everyone especially ITCZ I appreciate it.:O

[Dogimed]

I wear contacts, with a spare set of glasses in the nav bag... No dramas yet. Maybe a little dry after a few hours in the seat but otherwise fine. Excellent as I can still wear sunnies.

Dog

[Ozgrade3]

I've been wearing contacts for 20 years. Two years ago, I was invited to participate in an experimental trial period of the latest generation contact lenses. The ones I have been wearing since then are Bausch & Lomb "Pure Vision" soft contact lenses.

These new generation lenses, unlike older ones, are made of a new material, I think much less water content than before, and, most importantly breath much, much better than previous generations of contact lenses. so well infact, I leave them in 20 hrs a day, 365 dayas a year. These lenses are marketed as extended wear, meaning you can leave them in for as long as 30 days straight. However, i strongly discourage this practice. its fine for 2 or 3 days at the most to sleep in them if you have to, but you should remove them and rinse them with the normal solution and clear you eye of the gunk that does build up over night. When you take a shower is a good time to do this and you will be amazed at how better your eyes feel.

One potentially serious problem with long ternm 20 hrs a day wearing of the older contact lenses is that thay dont breath very well. the cornia is unique in the body as it doesnt take in its oxygen from your blood supply, it absorbs oxygen directly from the atmosphere. Wearing the old lenses for more than 12 hrs or so make the cornia hypoxic, thats why you often get a headache or feel almost out of breath untill you take them out.

Over time(months or years), the body tries to counter this by supplying more blood to the whites of your eyes causing the blood vesels to be come larger leading to more bursting, ulsers, sores and more. This condition is called vascularisation and is considered serious or potentially so by the optometrists.

So far, I have had none of this with the new lenses.

Remote operations, you just have to take the trouble and be disciplined with your eye hygene routine. You dont have to go overboard, just clean hands and a dust free space. A clean hanky works fine.

I also encourage, half a day a week of no lenses if you can, gives your eyes a rest and can do no harm.

Most importantly, find an optometrist that is experianced or speciallises in contact lenses. Not all are up on the latest info on them.

I'm more than happy to help anyone if you need some advice. PM me if you want.

OG3.

[ITCZ]

When I say remote area, man I mean remote. Like walking out of your front door at Elcho Island in the morning to find a used disposable nappy on your porch. Complete with hungry, mangy camp dog eating the contents...

Eeeeyyuurk! THAT is a hygiene challenge!
----

Just trying out a pair of Pure Vision now as 'spare' thing for the beach, etc. So far, excellent, but not quite as good vision for close up work as either my specs or prescription sunnies. Horses for courses i guess.