Perfect Vision for Aircrew Applicants

[sp6]

Given that my new issue specs don't fall down my nose when pulling g, and that contact lenses are allowed (despite a few issues) - do we still need to insist that new Aircrew applicants have to have good uncorrected vision?

Aptitude standards have both gone up and down, but medical requirements seem fixed (in the past?). Given the need for new Aircrew, are we excluding a group of otherwise suitable applicants?

I buy into the need for the 9g Typhoon mate to be (initially) free of glasses, but I question 20/20 for ISTAR, 2 Gp or JHC assets. Those desirable Playstation systems operation skills come at a price - myopia and vitamin D deficiency.....

[Pontius Navigator]

sp6, applicants are streamed after recruitment. On eye sight it is not known to improve with age.

[Heathrow Harry]

just another very easy way of cutting down the list of Applicants

If we needed 100,000 crew to fly 1000 Lancasters they'd have a place in the cockpit to store your white stick

[Tankertrashnav]

I was rejected for aircrew training on eyesight grounds in 1964, which is how I initially became a Rockape. When I applied for nav training in 1968 I was accepted, even though my eyesight was below the standard normally required. As I spent most of my time as a nav staring at an H2S screen less than 3' away from my nose it never presented a problem!

When I was luckily enough to get a ride in a Lightning T4 I was somewhat surprised to see the pilot complete his start up checks and reach into his pocket and put on a pair of aircrew specs (not sunglasses). Somewhat spoiled the "steely eyed fighter pilot" image, but he seemed to manage ok.

At the age of 60 I passed my flying medical for a PPL with the stipulation that I wore specs when flying (and carried a spare pair). I was surprised to discover that eyesight requirements for a PPL are somewhat less exacting than for an HGV licence.

[gedney]

I've always been confused about the entry standards for eyesight.

When I went through OASC in the late eighties I recall being called in for a chat after the medical by a gp capt medic. He asked me if I realised that I was short-sighted, to which I replied no. Nothing more was said and I toddled off for the hangar exercises.

Some weeks later the brown envelope dropped through the door offering me a bursary as a pilot, and not long after accepting that offer an appointment to see the optometrists at Kelvin House came through the post. I was fitted for corrective flying spectacles before starting the UAS syllabus and went on to have a 24 year flying career wearing specs, and contact lenses after they were authorised. IIRC there also a baby nav on my UAS in the early nineties who wore CFS. I remember that to be able to see properly did come as a real revelation after spending the first 18 years of my life unknowingly short-sighted!

Either I was deemed to be supremely gifted by the selection folk at Biggin Hill and they felt that they couldn't miss the opportunity to employ me, or the entry standard did not require perfect uncorrected vision. I suspect it was the latter sadly.

[MPN11]

I'm personally delighted that contact lenses are now authorised ... I spent an inordinate amount of time in MB staffing the subject ['cos that's what DAFSD did - pick up the bits and pieces] including inviting the gp capt Medic to let me re-draft his scribble of a 'paper' before passing it up the pipe to ACAS.

[Willard Whyte]

NTOLAE
EALOTN
LNETHOA

Last Aircrew Medical seven years ago. Local optician, quite by chance, is called Memory.

My railway medical, bottom line:

HURNDFENZ

Had to do it backwards too. Proper Krypton Factor stuff (as I remarked to the nurse...)

Always remember my raf medical at Biggin Hii, GC doc wore milk bottle lense glasses and two hearing aids. I thought "I'm IN!"

[Sandy Parts]

"perfect vision for aircrew applicants"? wonder how long before THAT picture pops up (BofB, Ms York) - well, she was a perfect vision at the time!

[teeteringhead]

"perfect vision for aircrew applicants"? wonder how long before THAT picture pops up (BofB, Ms York) - well, she was a perfect vision at the time! But Section Officer Harvey may also have contributed to blindness in some ........ :E

[Courtney Mil]

^^^ :D:p:D ^^^

[sp6]

Hmmmm, intelligent interpretation of the rules in some worthy cases then. Myopia is more prevalent no doubt due to the use of electronic devices. I wonder how long before harsh statistics invoke a rethink of med standards!

[camelspyyder]

Lots of aircrew students around wearing glasses these days. I don't think perfect eyesight is an entry requirement any more.

[Rosevidney1]

There was a time when they were worried that repeated exposure to loud disco music was the cause of some of the failures on the audio test.

[PlasticCabDriver]

Once went out with a girl who wanted to join the police but her eyesight was below the required standard (which is of course why she was going out with me, I'll get that one in before anyone else does...), went an optician who was a close family friend, who said "shortly I'll be asking you to read this line on the chart, but I just need to nip out for a moment ".

Strangely enough when he came back she was able to read the letters perfectly...

[John Eacott]

I joined the RN as a helicopter pilot in 1967 having spotted the loophole which allowed HSP with 6/18 vision. The DCI upping the eyesight standards was issued while I was at Dartmouth, closing the loophole!

50 years (first PPL in 1965) and 15,000 hours later it hasn't made a blind bit of difference, so I sympathise with those who miss out on their dreams because of a somewhat unrealistic restriction. Although I do have a set of "plain" glasses to wear instead of multifocals when firebombing; it was embarrassing not to be able to properly see the bucket on the end of a 100' line ;)

[MPN11]

@ John Eacott ... same here, HSP, albeit 1963. At the time it was the only pilot option for those with slightly deficient eyesight, which made it a bit tricky at BRNC as I wasn't really that keen on an RN career. Anyway, my cr@p flying skills solved the problem quite easily :)

I was never quite sure what the exemption was based on, but subsequent work on contact lenses later in my career [see previous post] certainly suggested that several factors may have been in play.

[Union Jack]

I joined the RN as a helicopter pilot in 1967 having spotted the loophole which allowed HSP with 6/18 vision. - John Eacott

I was never quite sure what the exemption was based on - MPN11

By no means an authoritative answer, but I would hazard a guess that the "loophole" or "exemption" arose around the time that General List officers of the Supply Specialisation (now the Logistics Branch) were being encouraged to volunteer for service as helicopter pilots, with a consequent variation in the required visual standards, and presumably applied to all specialisations until the door was subsequently closed.

Just for the benefit of our light blue colleagues, I would add that the Supply Specialisation and the Royal Marines both produced helicopter pilots who attained four stars, long before the light blue caught up......:ok:

Jack

[Mustapha Cuppa]

it hasn't made a blind bit of difference

Excellent choice of words!

[charliegolf]

There was a time when they were worried that repeated exposure to loud disco music was the cause of some of the failures on the audio test.

Pardon?

CG

[melmothtw]

I'm personally delighted that contact lenses are now authorised

Can they really be allowed for air crew? Speaking as someone who wears contacts lenses, I know that they need to be changed regularly and that eyes become very tired and irritated when they remain in for more than a few hours.

I can't imagine a pilot needing to find the time to put eye drops in while flying a mission, or having to escape-and-evade for any prolonged period of time if they're ever unfortunate enough to have to eject over enemy territory while wearing their lenses.

[John Eacott]

The eyesight standards when I applied were 6/6 for FW pilots, 6/12 for observers and 6/18 for helicopter pilots. As mooted already, it was surmised that the reduced HSP standard was to allow those perceived as otherwise capable to become part of the flying elite :ok:

I have recently tried contact lenses as an option, but as they haven't the ability to give as sharp a correction as prescription glasses plus have shown to be difficult to fit one of my eyes, I've given up on the idea. The first attempt had me riding home on the motorbike with one lens off the middle of my eye with commensurate blurring of vision. I wouldn't have liked that when flying :=

[dagenham]

Out of interest is permanent correction via intraocular lenses an option. Perhaps two benefits.... No need for contact and no need for cataracts when they keep you all in to man the p8.

[MPN11]

@ John Eacott ... Ah, yes, the 6/18 rings a bell! Curiously, I never wore/needed specs subsequently ... although I now find reading glasses helpful on occasion.

@ melmothtw ... Well, the subject had been grinding on with trials for some years when the papers landed on my desk in about 1991. Usefully, one of my colleagues in MB had been a trial participant. No major issues had been identified during previous trials, but the Medics wanted to embark on a further 5-year trial with an even wider pool of test subjects. ACAS was of the view that this had gone on long enough, and been adequately evaluated, and at some point after my departure it was clearly signed off by the AFB. Clearly, at this remove, I can't recall any of the details of the pros and cons.

[60024]

Willard,
<<<Local optician, quite by chance, is called Memory.>>

If the Memory Opticians is the same one in Wiltshire I went to, Mammary opticians would have been more appropriate! My new specs became steamed up up on issue....

[Maxibon]

Surely not the Memory opticians in Amesbury; there was nothing worth steaming up from what I remember (no pun intended).

I got my glasses in BFTS and it wasn't until TWU where the sweat would drop onto the lenses where it became an issue; one skull cap later the prob was solved. That said, the glasses of the 80s and 90s were far from flattering, particularly for an aircrew ego and the phrase of 'better dead than bad' springs to mind.

Referring to the earlier post of Section Officer Harvey; I never really saw the attraction but that said, I went to develop an unending quest for female PBX operators so perhaps it was a subconscious yearning....?

[NDW]

I know of a candidate (who was on my CBAT sitting) who passed his medical/ophthalmic test for WSOp albeit with specs!

I certainly hope this doesn't come across ignorant by any means, but say in the case of a WSOp candidate (with specs) passing his generic at 45(R) - would the specs potentially hinder rotary compared with another candidate who doesn't require corrective eyewear?

Best regards.

[teeteringhead]

Max
I never really saw the attraction but that said, I went to develop an unending quest for female PBX operators Which reminds me....

I'm sure I've told this story before on here, but it always warms my heart (and other organs :E) to retell it.

Many years ago - even before the BoB film - young APO Teeters was Orderly Officer at an FTS somewhere on the A46 ......

As ever, I was well looked after by the Orderly Sgt. One item on the Duties list was something like: 2200 - Call Commcen/PBX in advance of inspecting [certain documents].

Come 10 o'clock, we aproach Commcen .....

APO Teeters: Aren't we supposed to have 'phoned first?

OS: Trust me Sir, this is the way to do it.

On entering the Commcen/PBX, there were 5 or 6 young WRAFs having a brew (Duty WRAF, Commcen and PBX overnight shifts were all bunked in the Commcen), and frying bacon (hmmmmmmm ) on a little electric ring.

In those days, WRAF No 2 skirts were of the same "hairy mary" (no pun intended!) material as the then battledress, so skirts had all been removed for comfort ... :eek: ..... and of course this was before tights were common ....:eek::eek::O

Nice little PBX WRAF: Hello Sir, want a brew? Or a bacon butty?

If you can imagine Section Officer Harvey being improved upon, just think of her, with 4 or 5 similarly attired chums, making you a bacon butty ......:ooh:

[Maxibon]

Teeters,

I certainly recall one PBX operator dressed somewhat similar to said section officer, or at least she was after I'd read the signal....:E

Oh, and the facetious comments from the OS with "there seems to be a lot of signals tonight sir"; " yes, doesn't there just...."

[Wander00]

Many year ago at a station in Norfolk I was in the drama group (another member was an RN pilot, Wedge Thorpe, who had been a few years ahead of me at school). There was only one changing room, and one of our number was a very pretty WAAF, ISTR from the Comcen. Having seen this young lady down to bra, knickers, stockings and suspenders (I was a very young plt off), a couple of nights later I was OO and she was on restrictions. 2200 parade and she turned up looking like she had slept in her uniform. The look in her eyes was "you have seen me in my undies and I dare you to do anything about how I look now". Deep breath, and to Orderly Sgt - "SACW Bloggs will be back here at 2300 for your inspection." I suspect I had a very red face too.

[MPN11]

All together now ...

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows ... anything goes"

[teeteringhead]

And not just a "glimpse of stocking" MPN.

"If driving fast cars you like,
If low bars you like,
If old hymns you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If Mae West you like
Or me undressed you like,
Why, nobody will oppose!
When every night,
The set that's smart
Is intruding in nudist parties in studios,
Anything Goes."

I do so like thread drift ......... eyesight standard to Cole Porter lyrics! Classic.

[ShyTorque]

But Section Officer Harvey may also have contributed to blindness in some ........ :E

I think Beagle also suffers RSI thanks to her..... :p