Whatever happened to the Good Old Fashioned Eyechart?

[Celtic Emerald]

Hi

I recently did an airline medical, not a pilot medical mind you but one aimed at us lesser mortals :) I pride myself on having almost perfect vision but the test confused me so much it took me about 10 very embarassing minutes to even figure what the puzzle was about. It involved staring into a microscope looking at tilted squares of various sizes which were each subdivided into about 9 or 16 smaller squares & one small square was always checkered at one corner of the larger square.

To solve the puzzle I realised I had to envisage the larger square as a diamond. This probably all sounds like double dutch but if it does sound familiar to anyone can they tell me what exactly are they trying to test or is just a deliberate attempt to bamboozle because it seemed mighty complicated to me for your average eyetest.

Ta

[Low_and_Slow]

Were the images to each eye different? Did they ask you to identify the location of dots, squares etc? Sounds sort of like the test they use here for Class 1 and 2 to detect lack of visual fusion (double vision).

-me

[This message has been edited by Low_and_Slow (edited 27 April 2001).]

[Celtic Emerald]

Thank You Low and Slow for your reply

Yes the images were the same for both eyes and you were asked to detect the location of a chequered square always located at a corner of the larger square, as to whether it was at the top, bottom, right or left coner (top right etc was not allowed). The problem started as the interpretation of it as a square meant it was unsolvable until about 10 minutes into the test when I began to visualise the shape as a diamond & I was able to solve the problem.

Why such a confusing test. I still don't believe there is anything wrong with my eyesight and does my slowness in solving this suggest otherwise? I really don't believe the test was very fair or easy to understand.

Ta

Emerald

[caqtas air]

What happened to the good old fashioned eye chart, we memorised it, thats what happened. Down here in OZ there was not a pilot who could not recite the whole thing parrot fashion, even the name of the chart maker down at the bottom....!!!! They wised up...

[Celtic Emerald]

LOL I should have guessed it was all the fault of an Aussie pilot :mad:

Not our Slash I hope :)
__________________________________________
Oh dear, I didn't see that lamppost BANG! :)

[This message has been edited by Celtic Emerald (edited 01 May 2001).]