Empire Strikes Back! on Colour Defective Pilots... Again.

[johnobr]

It's been discussed in some other threads recently that CASA have changed the way they deal with CVD pilots. Given the importance of this issue to so many current and aspiring pilots, I have started this new thread to highlight the topic and offer perspective on behalf of the C (https://cvdpa.com)olour Vision Defective Pilots Association (CVDPA) (https://cvdpa.com/).

10 years on from the Empire Strikes Back! on Colour Defective Pilots (https://www.pprune.org/pacific-general-aviation-questions/527897-empire-strikes-back-colour-defective-pilots.html) saga and the dark days of the AvMed Navathe era, it disappoints me to see that we're back here again. At the time, that PPRuNe thread ran for 36 pages and was highly successful in raising awareness of the plight of CVD pilots and our unjust treatment by AvMed zealots at the time.

After my own AAT win in 2014 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-24/pilot-wins-right-to-captain-airliner-despite-poor-colour-vision/6251102) (and two previous AAT wins in the late 1980s) it seemed like we were finally making progress, albeit slowly. New Zealand led the way with the introduction of the Operational Colour Vision Assessment (OCVA) and there was a brief period of enlightenment in Australia during 2020-2021 when former CASA CEO Shane Carmody and former PMO Dr Simon May followed NZ's lead and implemented the OCVA here too. Myself and many others were finally able to progress our careers to the fullest extent possible and get on with our lives again.

When CVDPA learnt in early 2022 that CASA had suspended the OCVA due to apparent concerns around lack of standardisation, we contacted the new PMO Dr Kate Manderson. She responded via email on 18/01/22 and advised:

This is something that came up in December last year, and we are still working through what the issues are and how they impact on people who have submitted their assessments recently, and what we need to do to be able to make sure the OCVA is acceptable and its results can’t be questioned in the future. Please be assured, there is no change to CASA policy, the OCVA is here to stay. These issues are, I hope, going to push us along so that the OCVA is as strong as it can possibly be for the longer term, and perhaps even for other jurisdictions.
This all sounded quite positive and despite early indications from the PMO that she wanted CVDPA to be involved in the working group tasked with reviewing the OCVA, we were quickly excluded from the process when the Deputy PMO Dr Tony Hochberg took over as the project manager and filled it with medical 'experts'. As of today, we still have no knowledge of the persons comprised in this panel (this information was redacted in recent documents obtained under FOI). However, I'd be willing to bet that at least some involved stand to make money out of the continued administration of clinical CVD tests, including the CAD.

Despite this, we continued to work proactively with CASA in an attempt to achieve a timely and satisfactory resolution. However, almost 2 years after the OCVA was suspended, it has become increasingly clear in recent months that AvMed wish to return us to the dark ages again and have proposed including restrictions on pilots' medicals, even if they pass the new test - to be renamed the ACVA. They're also refusing to recognise the pass results of some candidates who passed the original OCVA in the months leading up to it's suspension.

During the recent Senate Estimates hearing, CASA provided advice to Senator David Fawcett that this was incorrect:

Ms Spence : I think what we're saying is that we think our website's wrong. We will go back to review it, because that doesn't sound like our policy. As Dr Manderson said, we're working—and we're working internationally—looking at how we manage this issue. But the whole point, in the simplest terms, was that if you pass the test then you've got a permission to fly. Those sorts of conditions you've just described should not be applying. If you can bear with us, we'll review the website, because what you've read out just doesn't sound right.
CVD in Senate Estimates - 23/10/23

The responses provided during Estimates are contrary to the advice that CVDPA has been given by CASA in their communications with us and also contradict information contained in documents recently obtained under FOI, which make it abundantly clear that the AvMed seek to continue to impose restrictions on CVD pilots. CVDPA have raised our concerns directly with CEO Pip Spence and yet 7 weeks on, our emails have gone unanswered.

We can only hope that she is using this time to get the zealots back in check. Stay tuned for more!

John O'Brien
CVDPA

[johnobr]

In case anyone's in any doubt about CASA's true intentions to wind back the clock again, the below Aviation Safety Committee Paper from 18/01/23 obtained under FOI is revealing.

During Estimates questioning, the Exec Manager Stakeholder Engagement advised:

​Mr Marcelja: Could I jump in? The website and some of that information sits in my area. I think what you're describing, if that is correct, is not our policy. Our policy is that there are various conditions that we can put on medical certificates, depending on how you go in the test, but if you pass the test and can demonstrate that you're operationally safe there is no condition of a copilot. What Dr Manderson is saying, though, is that, because you have not met a medical standard that's internationally accepted but have proven you are safe, we will grant you a medical certificate. We can't say that you've met a standard but we can say you're safe to fly, and those conditions will be applied depending on the way you've gone. If that's on our website, I'll take that up, because that's not the policy.
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Interestingly, the CASA website (https://www.casa.gov.au/designated-aviation-medical-examiners-handbook/610-tests-colour-vision#undefined) was updated after Estimates to remove mention of the proposed restrictions, but perhaps Mr Marcelja forgot that he approved this paper (prepared by Dr Hochberg)?

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/745x1054/1a_f1b8fb44b1d034a9721a06c14927bd70cb69926c.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/745x1054/2a_19b13fd0164e30f39074e646c4a13223b64f26ba.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/745x1054/3a_e9b302b73ded2a5f63f91ba6699bb161e0802ab7.jpg

[Clare Prop]

How frustrating listening to these people!

The Senator: "Where is the evidence?"
CASA..."erm, that doesn't sound right"

A quick look at Google Scholar shows plenty of literature on the subject but have CASA ever given any references to scientific evidence?

What is attachment E? Doesn't look like a reference to me.

[Clinton McKenzie]

The following is my prediction of what’s going on with the Australian Colour Vision Assessment (ACVA) and why.

What CASR says

It is first necessary to understand what the CASRs say about the way in which a candidate must demonstrate compliance with the colour perception criterion in the class 1 and class 2 medical standards. I’ll quote the provisions relevant to the class 1 standard, but the provisions are effectively identical for the class 2 standard.

The criteria for the class 1 medical standard are in table 67.150. Item 1.39 of that table is the ‘colour perception’ criterion. That item says:Can readily distinguish the colours that need to be distinguished for the safe exercise of privileges, or performance of duties, under the relevant licence.

Note: For how to demonstrate this, see subregulation 67.150(6).This is what CASR 67.150(6) says:(6) A person must demonstrate that he or she meets the criterion in item 1.39 of table 67.150 by:

(a) in daylight, or artificial light of similar luminosity, readily identifying a series pseudo‑isochromatic plates of the Ishihara 24‑plate type, making no more than 2 errors; or



(b) for somebody who makes more than 2 errors in a test mentioned in paragraph (a), readily identifying aviation coloured lights displayed by means of a Farnsworth colour‑perception lantern, making:

(i) no errors on 1 run of 9 pairs of lights; or

(ii) no more than 2 errors on a sequence of 2 runs of 9 pairs of lights; or



(c) for somebody who does not satisfy paragraph (a) or (b), correctly identifying all relevant coloured lights in a test, determined by CASA, that simulates an operational situation.The plain words of CASR 67.150(6) are quite simple.

If a candidate gets a tick in the (a) box – the ‘first tier’ test – the candidate has demonstrated compliance with the colour perception criterion in the standard.

If a candidate gets a cross in the (a) box but a tick in (b) box – the ‘second tier’ test – the candidate has still demonstrated compliance with the colour perception criterion in the standard.

If a candidate gets a cross in the (a) box and a cross in the (b) box but a tick in the (c) box – the ‘third tier’ text – the candidate has still demonstrated compliance with the colour perception criterion in the standard.

As we’ll see, that plain meaning of those words is inconvenient to the CVD zealots and, therefore, the CVD zealots have been busily trying to create a structure to subvert and avoid that plain meaning. But first we need to understand what happened during the brief period of enlightenment after the Operational Colour Vision Assessment (OCVA) – championed by the NZ CAA in the face the CVD zealots – was implemented in Australia.

The brief period of enlightenment in Australia – the OCVA

The implementation of the OCVA in Australia brought an end to the crusade led by CVD zealot Navathe. He spearheaded the crusade which included letters sent to air operators about the presence of the unclean, dangerous CVD crew in their workforce. He also introduced the ‘CAD test’ as a purported test simulating an operational situation.

(I say ‘purported’ because – despite the sophistry I’ve read in various items of CASA correspondence – no court has ever found the CAD to be a validly determined ‘third tier’ test. Only zealots blinded by their noble cause could characterise the CAD as a test simulating an operational situation. For those not blinded by prejudice, the CAD test merely confirms what is already known about the candidate and simulates no operational situation known to pilots. And – hardly surprisingly, given the lack of corporate governance in CASA – my recent FOI request for access to the current document of determination of the CAD as a ‘third tier’ test by a delegate of the power to do that produced no document of determination by a delegate of the CAD as a ‘third tier’ test. The zealots are above all that pesky accountability stuff.)

Then the OCVA was implemented as a ‘third tier’ test. Enlightenment! (In fact, it was just a shift to compliance with the existing law, in the face of the wailing and gnashing of CVD zealot teeth.)

During the period of enlightenment:

- Candidates could choose to undergo the OCVA instead of the CAD. They of course usually chose the OCVA because it’s productive flying rather than an expensive test that reveals something the candidate already knows.

- Candidates who passed the OCVA were issued ‘clean’ medical certificates so far as colour vision was concerned. That is, after all, the consequence of having demonstrated compliance with the colour perception criterion in accordance with the law.

A return to the dark ages, again

Sadly, a change of personnel in CASA led to an opportunity for the CVD zealots to regroup and recommence their crusade. The recommencement was justified on the pretext of some concocted ‘new’ evidence of the dire consequences of CVD and the inadequacy of the OCVA.

Dr Manderson and Dr Hochberg said around 18 months ago that “it is determined that additional investment and leadership is now required to refine this assessment tool [the OCVA], and strengthen the OCVA as a reliable, defensible, and effective colour vision assessment for aviation, including in international jurisdictions”. Makes you feel safer already, doesn’t it, knowing these self-appointed leaders are going to refine and strengthen the OCVA?

Everyone was under the impression that the ‘refined and strengthened OCVA’ would supersede the original OCVA as a ‘third tier’ test. That’s exactly what people were told by CASA, after all. And it’s actually the only option accommodated by a thing called ‘the law’.

The zealots then set up a little echo chamber of people - whose identities and business interests have not been disclosed under FOI – to ‘refine and strengthen’ the OCVA. At some point along the way the name changed to the Australian Colour Vision Assessment (ACVA) presumably to recognise the selfless leadership of the CASA zealots and the invitees to its echo chamber.

But then the zealots had a Hotel Sierra Mike. They realised that if the ACVA were a ‘third tier’ test, there would be unacceptable outcomes for the zealots:

- Candidates could choose to do the ACVA instead of the CAD. That would deprive the zealots of CAD data to analysis and discuss in their echo chamber, and the administrators of the CAD would be deprived of income.

- Candidates who pass the ACVA would have demonstrated compliance with the colour perception criterion and therefore be entitled to a ‘clean’ medical certificate so far as colour perception goes.

That is anathema to the zealots! In their world, candidates with CVD must be outed, labelled and restricted. There are no other alternatives in their religion.

So what are the zealots trying to do, and have been discovered doing, so as to subvert and avoid the plain words of CASR? They’ve decided that they will try to ‘policy’ their way around the law.

I’ve seen it in black and white in recent CASA correspondence: “It is … Avmed policy that before consideration can be given to accepting an OCVA style test conducted in an aircraft, a recognised third level test – such as the CAD test – must have been undertaken and the results provided to Avmed.”

Brilliant! They’ve conjured up a non-existent ‘fourth tier’ for the ACVA. That way:

- The candidates have failed to demonstrate compliance with the colour vision criterion because they’ve failed the CAD (and the first and second tier tests).

- The providers of the CAD test continue to get income from administering it.

- The zealots continue to get data from the CAD test to feed their echo chamber.

- The candidates then become the plaything of AvMed’s “endorsements” (restrictions) and the ACVA becomes another data-gathering exercise and a means by which AvMed will decide how much the victims will be restricted.

(By they way: They also conjured up a ‘second tier’ test that isn’t actually in the regulations: The ‘Optec 900’. It will be interesting to find out who makes money out of administering that test and whether they were invited to participate in the echo chamber.)

This all fits within my definition of corruption. Public officials going out of their way to subvert and avoid the law, in pursuit of their noble cause. Opaque processes, undisclosed participants and misleading information propagated along the way. And the interests of pilots and aspiring pilots – and the hundreds of thousands of people with CVD in Australia - be damned.

I expect the zealots will now blame the likes of Senator Fawcett and the CVDPA for further delays in the unveiling of the ‘refined and strengthened’ masterpiece the ACVA, for having had the temerity – the utter gall – to expect public officials to be transparent in and accountable for their activities.

It’s now a test of Ms Spence and the CASA Board. Will they rally around and support the zealots? Or will they require the law to be administered in accordance with its plain terms?

By the way: I do not have CVD.

[johnobr]

And just in case anyone needs reminding of what the CAD (Colour Assessment & Diagnosis) test looks like, here it is:

CAD Test - simulating an operational situation?

Yep - this is what the AvMed zealots are currently using to satisfy CASR 67.150 (6)(c) - a test which is required under the law to simulate an operational situation.

Even the inventor of the test, Professor John Barbur, who gave evidence during my AAT appeal refuted this proposition:

“…Like in every study there are sort of strengths and weaknesses. The CAD system is mainly wasn’t designed specifically for aviation. It was designed for assessing colour vision, for detecting deficiency, both congenital as well as acquired, for quantifying the severity of colour vision loss, and for classifying accurately the class of colour deficiency involved. So from that point of view the CAD test, which is based on findings from camouflage studies some 25 years ago is an extremely good colour vision test and that’s as far as we go.”
“Yes, I mean the CAD test was not intended in any way to use direct information on operational tasks. What the CAD test does is to measure the colour signal strength. One needs to see red/green and yellow/blue colours and it does so very efficiently. If one doesn’t have colour vision one simply cannot carry out a test…”
“So that’s what the CAD test is. Just because it happens to predict a level of severity beyond which one cannot be considered safe within a particular environment. That does not make the CAD an operational test.”
:ugh:

[Bill Smith]

Can't they come up with anything new?
Instead they keep regurgitating the same **** that they have for years which has been debunked over and over again :ugh:

[prickly]

I wanted to be an astronaut, but they knocked me back because I'm overweight, dyslexic , have a chicken tikka and continuous flatulence. Miserable buggers.

[mt747]

For me this is a case of “long time listener, first time caller” and my first post on PPruNe after many years lurking in the shadows, I am now driven to action having watched CASA’s performance (and that’s exactly what it was…a performance) at Senate Estimates.

I felt it time for me to offer a critical review, so if you will indulge me for just a moment, my movie review would go something along the lines of:

“A masterclass in manipulation. Whilst appearing to make logical arguments, the chief protagonists expertly distort reality, creating a false narrative that is so believable, that even critical minds would be forgiven for believing elements of fiction. The viewer is at times unsure whether to laugh or cry. Sophistry in its purest form. 4 stars”

So amateur movie review out of the way…let’s dive deeper.



Sophistry - what even is that?

Other than a word I’ve found myself with increasing frequency this year, sophistry is defined as:

“the clever use of arguments that seem true but are really false, in order to deceive people”

In this instance, deceive people that:

There is a single, golden international medical standard to which we are inextricably bound
CVD pilots do not and cannot meet ‘medical’ standards
The OCVA was so badly broken that it needed to be redone from the ground-up
Noone has been disadvantaged by the 18month delay (and putative medical certificate restrictions)

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s break it down.

The Legislative Contest – Air Law 101

I’m not a lawyer, and short of a few subjects at university many years ago have no legal training, however this should really be a refresher for anyone who has done CPL Air Law.

In Australia, our standards (Medical, Flight Crew Licencing, Maintenance, General Operating & Flight Rules) are defined in the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations (CASR). This legislation is what the regulator (CASA) enforces.

For the purposes of this discussion – Part 67 (Medical Standards) is the most relevant. It is the Standard to which all Australian medicals are issued.

Ok, fine I hear you say…what’s the big deal about all of that? Well it’s important background to the first fallacy masquerading as truth, and that is…..



The myth of the “International Medical Standard”

ICAO as an international organisation, sets out the high-level standards for member states to review, refine and implement in their own jurisdictions. As a sovereign nation – Australia has adopted and codified the ICAO standards, as they apply to aviation in this country, and it is this which has found its way into the CASRs.

Whatever ICAO may include and amend from time to time in their standard – is not legally binding or enforceable in its own right, or relevant when it comes to making decisions in the Australian context. The only thing that is relevant is the content of the CASR’s that are enshrined in Australian law.

Which means…wait for it… every ICAO member state has implemented these standards and recommended practices differently. In fact, this is normal. Each member state is required to publish a document stating where and how they differ from the ICAO standard ore recommended practice. It’s so normal that there is an established process for it!

In fact, there are 19 different annexes which cover 209 pages of differences to the ICAO standards and what is implemented in Australia that are published and buried in the AIP.

Annex 1 is the relevant one here – as covers personnel licensing (including medical standards). As of the time of this post there are 26 pages of differences in that Annex alone, with 86 individual references to differences in the medical standards.

So…with almost half a reem of paper worth of differences to the ICAO standard….how’s that inviolable “international standard” holding up? It's OK... We're not done talking about 'standards' just yet!



The false narrative that there is a “Medical Standard” and a “Practical Standard”.

I really like this one, if you can’t beat them…create a new club of your own. In this case, create a narrative that there are two different types of standard by defining a new type of standard, that way you can decide how it gets treated…despite what the CASR says!

Andreas Marceljaj: Because you don’t meet the medical standard, a medical standard that is internationally accepted, but you’ve proven that you’re safe – we will grant you a medical certificate. So we can’t say that you’ve met a standard, but we can say that you’re safe to fly, and those conditions will be applied depending on how you’ve gone.

Let’s look at how AVMED are positioning this. A blanket assertion that pilots with CVD do not meet the standard despite there being 3 tiers of testing defined with a pass of any of these tiers meeting the standard for a ‘clean’ medical issue, and trying to limit “Medical” to clinical testing only:

Dr Kate Manderson: They (pilots with CVD) don’t meet the standard, but now we can in very detail and very safely effectively and consistently assess whether or not the way they meet the standard presents a hazard to safe air navigation.

This is a clear attempt to create a concept of two ‘standards’, so that additional restrictions can be placed on pilots with CVD, who would otherwise pass a practical, flight-based assessment of their colour vision.

Fact Check: There is only ONE medical standard, and that is the one defined in Part 67 of the CASR.



OCVA flight test consistency – a Trojan Horse of a problem

Let’s firstly look at the problems with the OCVA test as described by AVMED:

Dr Kate Manderson: So we had some difficulties where the forms and the flights were not being conducted consistently, to a consistent standard across the board. Where someone may have one kind of flight or assessment with one assessor and a completely different one with somebody else.

Ok, that’s the problem statement. So let’s look at how this has been addressed in an appropriate and proportionate manner:

Immediately stop accepting the OCVA test
Instruct examiners to longer offer it (long after ceasing to accept it)
Completely redesign the entire test from the ground up (remove night component, map reading, cockpit instrumentation, terrain identification, powerline and hazard identification) to make it solely about the recognition of PAPI lights by day.
Spend 18 months trying to find a way to position the test outside the existing legislative structure in the CASRs.

Imagine that there were inconsistencies found with the way that other flight tests were being conducted. Maybe an element of a CPL test with subjective assessments of airmanship, or possibly some inconsistency in IPC’s after Part 91 came out and changed a few things such as aid requirements. Would CASA do something similar to address it? Or would send out clarifications to examiners, along with updating training?

This isn’t a big task, especially when you take into consideration that that there were only ever 28 examiners trained and accredited by AVMED to complete OCVA testing. It becomes an even easier task when you take into account that only 8 examiners have ever conducted these flight tests. I’ve managed bigger WhatsApp groups than that!

From the outside looking in, this really looks like the hijacking of a convenient issue, to drive another agenda that was the complete redesign of the operational flight test. In no other cases would consistency issue with a flight test be handled in such a way.



Bending of the truth – understating the real impact on people’s lives

The final, and perhaps most insidious bending of the truth has to be one of the final statements made by AVMED:

Dr. Kate Manderson: There have been no refusals or cancellations for colour vision deficiency.

I’m sure this statement is 100% factually correct. However we must look carefully at the wording here, as there are many things CASA can do to destroy a career or livelihood, or even dreams of aspiring pilots without cancelling or refusing to issue a medical. And the obvious one is conditions.

CASA could technically issue a medical subject to the condition that the pilot could only ever operate on the 31st day of every month, where that day fell on a Tuesday, and only whilst wearing pink polka dot Oodie. Now fashion crimes aside, that would limit you to flying 2 days this year - but would not be considered a cancellation or refusal.

Issuing a medical with restrictions such as “DAY VFR ONLY”, “ONLY VALID AS OR WITH A COPILOT WHO HAS NO CVD” or “NO PASSENGERS AT NIGHT” severely limits and restricts pilots with, and AVMED have been quietly busying themselves with adding these restrictions to pilots with CVD and existing medicals as and when they can. I personally know at least one in this circumstance right now.


Final thoughts and disclosures

It appears clear that CASA are ramping up the fight (again) on pilots with CVD, and doing so in a way which is not just intellectually, but also morally dishonest.

From the construction of arguments trying to divorce what the actual medical standards are and what officials in CASA would rather they be, to using ‘consistency issues’ in a test administration by a group of 8 examiners as rationale to completely redesign it from the ground up, It is becomingly clear that personally desired outcomes are being put ahead of due process, and transparency.

Disclosure: I am a pilot with CVD.
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[Arthur Pape]

My observations:

· "The Empire": a coalition of true believers from various countries that see it as their duty and right to protect and defend the aviation colour perception standard, in the false belief that their actions will enhance the safety of air navigation.

· Arrogance: an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than others. CASA's arrogance on this issue is palpable. They disdain the AAT and the law in general, as well as their immediate predecessors, namely Mr Shane Carmody, Director, Dr Simon May, PMO, and Mr Rob Walker, Manager of Stakeholder Engagement. Each of these high-level CASA staff exercised due diligence in their deliberations and endorsed the OCVA. The present regime is utterly arrogant on this point alone.

· Zealot: The definition of a zealot is someone who is fanatically passionate about a belief. The zealots in CASA treat the colour perception standard as if it were a sacred religious belief.

· Insouciant: showing a casual lack of concern, in this instance, for the dire consequences of their beliefs on the career aspirations of many healthy actual and aspiring pilots. We are talking about a potential target population of perhaps as many as half a million citizens who, if they inquired, would be advised they cannot be or become career pilots.

· sophistry: using clever but false arguments to deceive or confound. In this instance, CASA's (i.e. Kate Manderson's) assertion that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is pure sophistry. It would have us believe that no evidence indicating safe performance by CVD pilots will ever lead them to conclude that CVD is not a safety risk.

· BS: a polite shortening of a well-known Australian term meaning lies, rubbish, nonsense, etc., etc. The posts above give many instances of BS perpetrated by CASA. Everything about this "project" reeks of BS

·Fraud: the fraudulent presentation on at least two occasions at aviation medical "scientific" meetings of an accident due purportedly to the pilot's colour vision defect by a senior medical staff member of the NZ CAA was a significant element in swaying the NZ CAA that there was a deep bias in their medical section. Complaints made to the Victorian and National organisers resulted in effectively no reprimand to the perpetrator. Here is the link to a report on this matter to the NZ CAA advisory panel on the topic: PMO review submission to CAA NZ (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kca4km8ixb4buyth5opk4/GD-VIS-1-2013-PMO-Review.pdf?rlkey=uxveg9mq7rqjpu2xhzunpw53e&dl=0)





What we have now is an unholy mess. It takes us back to worse conditions and restrictions than in the 1970's. Dr Manderson and her deputy, Dr Hochberg, are true believers and have learnt nothing from the three AAT outcomes that ultimately led Director Carmody and Dr Simon May to adopt and implement the OCVA.

The purpose of the OCVA test was to satisfy a duly qualified examiner of airmen that a candidate for a medical certificate could identify the information needed to perform a pilot's duties safely. The adoption of the OCVA followed extensive investigation, consultation, and consideration on both sides of the Tasman. Both the CAA NZ and CASA directors had face-to-face meetings with each other and the entire industry. The Aviation Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) supported implementing the OCVA unanimously.



A pass on the OCVA posed no threat of any description to the safety of air navigation, as it didn't qualify the candidate to perform any task involved in flying an aircraft. It made it possible to study, train and be tested in the same manner as a candidate with normal colour vision. Safe operation performance is a subject that medicos are not qualified to judge. This assessment falls in the domain of professional examiners of airmen.



Finally, I am not against medical standards. The safety implications of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and neurological diseases (e.g. epilepsy) are profound. A pilot having a fit, a heart attack, a stroke, or a hypoglycaemic episode is manifestly unlikely to be able to perform their duties as a pilot safely. Defective colour vision has no such dire consequences.

[Clinton McKenzie]

If there were any substance to CASA AvMed’s concerns about the efficacy of the OCVA and compliance with ‘the international standard’, CASA would be calling loudly and courageously for:

- Cessation of commercial flights into Australia by crew medically certified by the NZCAA. Those crew include pilots certified to have met the colour perception criterion in the medical standard on the basis of the OCVA.

- Cessation of commercial flights of Australian aircraft into the NZ. The fare paying passengers on board those Australian aircraft are being exposed to risks arising from NZ aircraft in NZ with crew medically certified by the NZCAA.

Ditto commercial flights into Australia by crew medically certified by the FAA and commercial flights of Australian aircraft into the USA. The FAA certifies crew as having met the colour perception criterion in the medical standard on the basis of an operational test.

The dire safety consequences of CVD know no borders. CASA AvMed’s selfless leadership and commitment to the safety of air navigation surely demands a complete review of the way in which every country tests and certifies compliance with the colour perception standard, and a ‘banning’ of all commercial flights to and from all countries which do not test and certify in a way with which CASA Avmed is satisfied.

[johnobr]

It's worth emphasising that although NZ CAA led the way with the introduction of the OCVA in 2019, this was not as a result of their AvMed unit. In fact, their PMO diametrically opposed any form of practical testing and according to CASA, the NZ AvMed unit still disagrees with the OCVA. Rather, we can be fortunate that the NZ CAA Director at the time and the Panel that was tasked with reviewing all the submissions and presentations from various experts (including medically and operationally) took an unbiased view and considered the facts:

NZ CAA - Report of the Colour Vision Deficiency General Direction Assessment Panel (https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/licensing/medical/colour-vision-deficiency-general-direction-assessment-panel-report.pdf)

15. ...In answer to a question regarding the reasoning behind the flight restrictions for a pilot who is CVD, the PMO answered that the “restrictions are historical”. This is a key issue for the Panel’s deliberations particularly in relation to the risk posed by a pilot with CVD, the different operational environments pilots operate in, and who should be determining restrictions to which a pilot is to operate.
16. The PMO also commented that he thought practical flight tests are unreliable. In the Panel’s opinion a flight examination has the same status as a medical examination in ensuring that a pilot is not a threat to the public and renewing their privilege to fly.
51. A substantial theme to emerge from the body of submissions is that the current PMO is biased and prejudiced against CVD pilots (25, 50, 41, 51, 54). The GAA, in particular, is vehement in its opposition to the current PMO and his views: “The PMO appears to be mounting a crusade for global bureaucratic conformity from his office in New Zealand, while conveniently overlooking his previously published, strong desire for evidence-based decisions in aeromedical matters” (50).
53. The CVA likewise state that the stricter testing and restrictions appear to be based on the personal views of the PMO, rather than on evidence. It notes “the continued suitability of the PMO for his role in regulating clinical test methods and medical restrictions for CVD pilots is questioned” (25). It is also argued by the CVA that the PMO’s presentation at the Australian Society of Aerospace Medical Annual Scientific meeting in Brisbane in 2014 was prejudicial, unbalanced, objectionable, and factually inaccurate.
128. There is no strong link between the office-based examination of CVD and real world realities. Under the proposed GD, the assessment of interferes with or likely to interfere with is ascertained from office-based assessments only. This assessment cannot be made from office-based tests only and can only be determined by an in-flight practical test. While both aviation medicine and flight operations specialists will need to be involved in the development of protocols for in-flight testing, only a flight examiner or flight instructor will be in a position to assess the ability of a pilot with a CVD condition to operate an aircraft safely. Thus the effect that a CVD condition will have on the ability of a pilot to safely exercise the privileges of a licence is a flight operations issue, not a medical issue.
As highlighted by Arthur, it's also no surprise then that the former CAA Director and the Panel chose to give such little weight to their PMO's opinions, particularly when considering his obvious bias against CVD pilots - as evidenced in presentations that he delivered to several aviation medicine scientific conferences.

PMO Review Submission to NZ CAA (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kca4km8ixb4buyth5opk4/GD-VIS-1-2013-PMO-Review.pdf?rlkey=uxveg9mq7rqjpu2xhzunpw53e&dl=0)

Despite the reasonably benign title, International Variation in the Assessment of Colour Vision Deficient Pilots, the presentation included a number of most disturbing slides including a plagiarized front page of The Times newspaper with a fabricated story which appears to be deliberately tailored to cast CVD pilots in a negative light.

Other slides containing false and misleading material in cartoon format were also displayed by the PMO, reflecting negatively on individuals with CVD. The public display of such humiliating and discriminatory material of this nature constitutes harassment of individuals with CVD.

The public display of similarly negative material about other minority groups would be unacceptable. It is particularly grave however that such material is being circulated publicly by the senior manager within CAA who is directly responsible for generating this GD, deciding the test and restrictions regimes that are applied to CVD pilots.

Aside from the use of misleading and falsified slides, the presentation contained factually incorrect text. It is not clear if this is due to a lack of knowledge on the part of the PMO or a deliberate intent to discredit CVD pilots.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1000x671/1_9ae49fdee0734f94df575704d6bbb1fc2b17707a.png

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1010x647/2_c867f3c07efa314e3c9bef903016e66c40b74fb4.png

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/882x547/3_2bddd1b13109a0831115595e5bd3622c7b685731.png


Fortunately, the former CASA Director Shane Carmody also saw through this obvious bias from the AvMed zealots in both NZ and Australia at the time, when considering our position to adopt the OCVA here in 2020.

Lets hope that Ms Spence is also giving it the same consideration again currently.

[Arthur Pape]

Thanks jonobr!

As I've stated over and over, I have been challenging this perfidious "standard" for over 40 years, and I want to make some further observations that I have made about the matter.

The church of the TRUE BELIEVERS that colour recognition and naming are essential and indispensable in acquiring awareness of operationally safety-relevant information and has a worldwide membership. I know all the senior clergy, and they are: Doug Ivan (Ret Colonel USAF), Sally Evans (CAA UK PMO), Tony Evans (long-time PMO in ICAO), and Dougal Watson (now ex-PMO CAA NZ). Each of these has had roles in the AAT cases concerning the colour vision standard, opposing relaxation in any form.
In NZ, Dr Watson trained his team well in matters of colour vision and then promptly encouraged their migrations at various times to become PMOs or deputy PMOs with CASA: Pooshan Navathe, Michael Drane, and Dr Tony Hochberg.
They are encouraged and supported by senior members of the various faculties of optometry, who feed them just what they want to hear. I'll mention a few: Prof. Barry Cole (Victorian College of Optometry); Dr Alys Vingrys (also VCO and a disciple of Barry Cole); Prof John Barbur (City, University of London). Last but not least, there is Dr John Parkes, an occupational physician, who has one of the two CAD machines in Australia. The second CAD is in Sydney and operated by an ophthalmologist I have never met. Each individual, except the owner of the Sydney CAD, has also played roles in AAT colour vision proceedings, supporting the CASA position.
Over the long years, I have collected and studied hundreds of works and documents derived from these people, including the many research projects commissioned by CASA and their overseas counterparts (NZ CAA, UK CAA and the FAA). Bringing them all into the spotlight would take more than a book. However, if and when they were relied upon as evidence in the AAT, I drew upon highly qualified research professionals to critically analyse the contents. These critics formed the backbone of witnesses for the appellants in the three AAT CVD hearings. I'll leave it there, but note that CASA did not fare well in the three proceedings.
A common theme I have found used by proponents of strong CVD regulation is that the matter is "self-evident". That is, you just need to show where and how colour is used in the wider aviation environment (i.e. colour is used ubiquitously), and it is "self-evident" that an individual who cannot reliably recognise and name those colours is going to be "unsafe".
CASA's medical staff like to parade "Evidence Pyramids" as evidence that their decisions are "evidence-based". Yet, in their professional conduct, they give scant regard to the truth or otherwise of what they present to the plebs. Ask, and I can provide many examples of this.
Truth has been a victim throughout the colour vision discussion, which leads me to the question: where is the ethics in all of this? The medical profession is supposed to be bound by a set of fundamental ethics. Now, granted that Aviation Medicine is not fundamentally a branch of the profession entrusted with treating sick people, I'll avoid referencing the "Hippocratic Oath" (I'm tempted to misspell the word). But there are other ethics relating to avoiding bias in decision-making and detecting and declaring a conflict of interest, to mention just a couple. The history of the debate over the colour perception standard is replete with glaring instances of poorly hidden conflicts of interest. They are particularly poignant in the current atmosphere, where lies and conflicts of interest can be easily demonstrated about the CAD test. The CAD is an expensive tool to buy, and the inventor of the CAD, Prof John Barbur, also conducted the validation process (which is a misnomer). He is the director of a spin-off company that markets the CAD worldwide. This marketing initially claimed that the CAD was "aviation specific" and that it would be a reliable predictor of performance by a CVD pilot on the PAPI.
Dr John Parkes' should declare a conflict of interest in current deliberations, as he makes his living mainly from his CAD testing. But no, Dr Parkes is the chief instigator of the move to discredit the OCVA and replace it with something far more beneficial to himself (the ACVA as a supplement to his CAD testing).
Finally, I congratulate John O'Brien on the way he has stuck to his guns and fought hard for his phenomenal career while staying in the fight. I know hundreds of pilots whose careers were salvaged from CVD obscurity by the likes of John and who took the rewards and vanished. As you can see, we are once again faced with a dreadful enemy that is immune to sound evidence and probably will not willingly make the right decision: to give us back the OCVA and stop harassing good, honest people who want to be professional pilots.
I am, and I know John is, determined to achieve that outcome, even if it means going to the Federal Court.

Please consider contributing to the fight with financial support for the CVDPA.
There is a PayPal link on our website at WWW.cvdpa.com

[Clinton McKenzie]

I encourage every pilot, every aspiring pilot and anyone who cares about them to consider providing financial support for the CVDPA. Ultimately, the only thing that keeps the CVD zealots in check is exposure to the glare of external scrutiny of courts and tribunals.

You may not have CVD, but your turn will come when the zealots decide that your ‘condition’ justifies the sorts of egregious, intellectually dishonest nonsense through which pilots with CVD are put.

And an important disclaimer: Neither Dr Arthur Pape nor John O’Brien nor I make a red cent directly or indirectly from fighting the zealots. In contrast, there’s an entire industry making money out of CVD, and some of the people who make that money are invitees to CASA’s CVD echo chamber.

The truth will out, one way or the other, again, but we’re again up against ‘Brandolini’s Law’, commonly known as the ‘bull**** asymmetry’. That ‘Law’ says that the amount of energy and resources necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude greater than the energy and resources it took to produce it.

Another analogy: The views of CVD zealots are like Paterson’s Curse or Salvation Jane, depending on where you live. They’re a noxious weed that propagates so easily and therefore take so much time and energy to get back under control.

[Sandy Reith]

Quote Clinton McKenzie:-

“ You may not have CVD, but your turn will come when the zealots decide that your ‘condition’ justifies the sorts of egregious, intellectually dishonest nonsense through which pilots with CVD are put.”

I’ve been victim of exactly this type of behaviour from AVMED. For over twenty years I’ve been required to make an annual cardio test against the written advice of the conducting cardiologist on the basis that I have no symptoms that would call for such a test. AVMED’s illogical regime leading to expensive and time wasting examinations are repeated for hundreds if not thousands of pilots and will continue while its authority and mindset goes unchallenged. CASA’s current move, at glacial pace, toward a self declared medical is presented with so many restrictions it will make the proposal barely useful only for a small percentage of private pilots. Again the same thinking that’s confounding the CVD pilots.

We all need to support the CVD organisation, including with our donations.

[papakurapilot]

Once again CASA AvMed sticks their head into a situation that was previously settled. Not a single person on earth would debate the fact that doctors can diagnose a Colour Vision Defect. This is where their knowledge on Colour Vision ends. They have not a clue on the first thing about how colour vision affects safe aviation. This should be left to flight crew licensing, real pilots not make believe pilots.

Seeing the above slides reminded me of a time where CASA AvMed thought it appropriate to send my employer an email saying that he employed a CVD pilot and he should consider the safety of that decision. This absolutely abhorrent torrent of attacks from CASA on a previously settled issue is at best a waste of tax payer money and at worst it's outright bullying and harassment of air crew. When I spoke on the phone to Tony Hochberg about what would happen to my medical as a result of this new "policy" I was given no answer and was told it would be on a "case by case basis". As someone with circa 5,000 hours this is lunacy.

This case has been fought again and again, and not once has CASA ever won a decision on it outside of their own dictatorship. When will the madness end.

[Sandy Reith]

The short answer is it won’t end until and unless there’s political willpower to recognise the abject failure of the governance model.
That is the creation of an independent Commonwealth corporation to oversee and administer our civil aviation. A make work salary factory that has in reality a primary responsibility to itself.

It was 1988 when Labor Minister Gareth Evans decided to rid himself of direct responsibility for aviation with the predictable consequences we see writ large today.

The action completely disregarded a fundamental principle of the Westminster system, that is that responsibility lies with a Minister for the various arms of government administration. Unfortunately not one Minister or government of either stripe has had the intestinal fortitude to correct this wasteful and industry debilitating situation.

Much as we love to blame our MPs, few bother to actually engage with our elected representatives, and this is our responsibility if we want our democracy to improve.

[Clinton McKenzie]

Some further ‘highlights’ from the documents disclosed under FOI and some comments arising from the content of the posts above.

When will the madness end?

When will the madness end? When some proper governance is applied again to CASA AvMed. As a consequence of inadequate governance, combined with how stressful and costly it is to take them on, CASA AvMed reckons the medical standards can practicably be whatever they reckon the standards should be, rather than what the law says the standards are. If the people paid to secure compliance of these zealots with proper governance requirements – Ms Spence and the CASA Board – won’t do it, it’s left once again to individuals to fight them in the courts and tribunals.

The awful safety risks and the change in name

The CASA AvMed echo chamber papers released under FOI list 3 ‘safety concerns’, the third of which is: 3. CVD cases recently cleared of all colour vision endorsements include:
- Cl 1 pilot who failed OCVA but passed Farnsworth - all CVD conditions/ restrictions removed
- Cl 1 pilot who fail PAPI but passed Farnsworth - all CVD conditions/ restrictions removed
- Cl 1 pilot with 0.5 hours flight experience severe CVD – passed OCVA which was incompleteNewsflash, zealots: A person who has ‘passed Farnsworth’ in accordance with either CASR 67.150(6)(b) or CASR 67.155(6)(b) has demonstrated compliance with the colour perception criterion of the corresponding medical standard in Part 67. Full stop.

It should not matter whether the CVD zealots have an attack of the vapours about that. If they understood their duties as public officials administering the law they would understand that their personal opinions as to what constitutes compliance with the colour perception criterion are irrelevant. Unfortunately, they don’t have proper governance around them and they’ve been left to their own devices to implement the system their religion dictates, despite the law. These are public officials in government agency in the 21st century.

Someone who has ‘failed OCVA’ may be plain incompetent. Have the zealots been running a control experiment requiring pilots with ‘normal’ vision to undertake the OCVA to confirm that no pilot with ‘normal’ vision will ever fail the OCVA? (And by the way: the person who failed the OCVA puts the lie to the suggestion that no one has failed the OCVA.) I’ve never passed the Farnsworth test, the CAD or the OCVA.

And in the case of the OCVA “which was incomplete”, whose fault is that? The candidate just did whatever the candidate was told by the examiner, for as long as the candidate was told to do it by examiner. Maybe AvMed should have a chat with the examiner who did not administer a ‘complete’ OCVA?

I initially attributed the change in name from OCVA to ACVA to a manifestation of the self-appointed leadership of the Australian zealots. But then I was reminded, by the discussion above, that it’s another manifestation of the zealots’ obsession with CVD being a medical issue not an operational issue. I’ve seen the proposed ACVA described in CASA correspondence as a “medical flight test”.

The zealots’ religion simply refuses to accept that the ability to interpret information from an environment with different colours is an operational assessment, because being a doctor does not qualify someone to test whether a pilot is interpreting information adequately. And the zealots can hold their breath and stamp their little feet until their faces turn blue, but the applicable CASR says – remember that mere bagatelle the law – that the third tier test must ‘simulate an operational situation’.

More from the CASA AvMed echo chamber papers released under FOI. And this is the gist of the ‘safety’ issue arising from CVD, in the zealots’ religion:[C]olour dependent cues are most important in critical phases of flight, add to this an emergency on-board, with heightened stress levels, the reaction time can become the determining factor between safety and accident.And there you have it: Twofold nonsense.

The first nonsense is that in the aviation environment the colour of something is the sole cue and sole source of important information. The second and most palpable nonsense is that pilots with CVD are never put through any stressful, emergency situations and tested against objective standards of performance.

You couldn’t make this stuff up. It would be laughable if so many people’s careers and career aspirations weren't on the line.

When the zealots can specify the number of milliseconds that marks the boundary between ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ recognition times for each piece of information in the operational aviation environment, they can get those numbers put in the MOS and get every candidate tested against those numbers. At the moment, their religion dictates that it ‘must’ take pilots with CVD ‘longer’ to interpret information and therefore they must be ‘less safe’ than pilots without CVD. Just like female pilots must be less safe than male pilots because female pilots can’t lift as much weight as quickly as males and physical strength can become the determining factor between safety and an accident in an emergency.

Compliance with ICAO

As was so eloquently pointed out earlier – with reference to the number of pages of differences filed by Australia – the claimed ICAO compliance issue is a smokescreen. As CASA is so quick to point out – correctly – when it is convenient for CASA: There is only one obligation on member states to the Chicago Convention, and that is to notify of differences from SARPS. That’s why Australia has ‘filed’ so many ‘differences’. But for the zealots on the CVD crusade, their interpretation of the Convention provisions on colour perception is immutable, holy writ. Any difference from that interpretation is, by definition, unsafe. (Yet strangely, as I pointed out earlier, CASA isn’t calling loudly and courageously for the ‘banning’ of anything that would expose us to the risks arising from those dangerous CVD pilots from the NZ or the USA, for example.)

Lying by omission

That oft-repeated statement by various CASA people, from various CEOs down, about the number of medical ‘approvals’ or certificates granted and refused falls within the scope of what I define as a “lie by omission”: Stating a fact but omitting another important fact in order deliberately to foster a misconception.

An ordinary member of the public would assume that if CASA has issued a person a medical certificate in fact, that person has nothing to whinge about. CASA issues (a claimed and oddly consistently round figure over years of) 25,000 medical ‘approvals’ or certificates (the word varies depending on who’s speaking) and knocks back fewer than 100. How could the holder of one of these approvals/certificates possibly have any ground to complain?

Of course, us guinea pigs in the process know the whole truth about the costly and dangerous tests imposed by AvMed which tests qualified medical professionals say are unnecessary, and the conditions imposed by AvMed which effectively destroy – among other things – careers and career aspirations.

The only way in which I am able to give Ms Spence the benefit of the doubt is to assume that she’s completely ignorant as to what medical certificate applicants are put through and what ends up on their certificates.

“We issued driver’s licences to all those aspiring race car drivers with CVD!” (Forgot to mention: all of those licences are subject to the condition that the holder never exceed 60kph.)

Intellectual dishonesty

I was first struck by the extent of the intellectual dishonesty of the CVD zealots when I read some of the stuff produced by Dougal Watson. I could not believe that someone so obviously blinded by prejudice and his consequentially flawed reasoning could be taken seriously in any forum of qualified academics and medical professionals. I literally could not believe it. Then through discussions with Arthur Pape I came to realise that these ‘forums’ are actually echo chambers in which the CVD zealots perform their religious rites.

Then I read the NTSB report on the Tallahassee B727 which landed short in 2002. That report is referred to and partially quoted at Annex C of the CASA echo chamber papers released under FOI. Conclusion 13 of 16 conclusions is that: “The first officer suffered from a severe color vision deficiency that made it difficult for him to correctly identify the color of the precision approach path indicator signal during the below-glidepath, nighttime, visual approach to runway 9 at Tallahassee Regional Airport.” I came to that report with an open mind and the presumption that it would be the product of cold, hard analysis by disinterested professionals.

I then read the report (https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR0402.pdf).

I commend the report to anyone who hasn't read it. I’ll cherry pick bits below, but everyone should read the entire report and form their own views. I would particularly like to hear from people who, first, do not have any direct or indirect interest in CVD and, secondly, consider that CVD had any causal connection with the accident.
The accident flight crew consisted of three reserve FedEx pilots. The accident flight was the first time all three crewmembers had flown together; however, the captain and flight engineer had flown together once previously.So pause there and note: 3 pilots on board. The first officer was the flying pilot, while the captain performed the non-flying pilot duties for the accident flight.So pause there and note: The pilot with CVD was pilot flying.
According to the CVR transcript, about 0511, the flight engineer received the TLH weather information from the Gainesville Flight Service Station, which indicated: scattered clouds at 100 feet, 18,000 feet, and 25,000 feet; wind from 120º at 5 knots; visibility 9 statute miles; temperature and dew point 22º C (Celsius); and altimeter setting 30.10 inches of mercury (Hg)So pause there and note the local time and the meteorological conditions - in particular the temp and dew point.
The flight engineer then briefed the captain and first officer regarding parking at TLH and, in accordance with company procedures, advised them that FedEx considered TLH a moderate controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) risk.Recall that the ‘flight engineer’ is also a pilot.

The flight continues, with discussions about what runway would be used etc. Ultimately they decide on 09. Then…
About 0530:32, the CVR recorded sounds similar to a microphone being keyed five times within about 1.3 seconds. About 7 seconds later, the captain radioed “Tallahassee uh FedEx fourteen seventy eight uh extended uh left base leg for runway nine.” The first officer indicated that he thought he saw the runway about 0530:56; he called for “flaps 2” about 0531:10 and “flaps 5” about 12 seconds later. About 0532:34, the first officer stated, “I hope I’m lookin’ in the right spot here.” The captain responded, “see that group of bright lights kinda to the south down there and you see the beacon in the middle of it? right over there you’re kinda on about ten mile left base or so.” The first officer then indicated that he had been “ìlooking at the wrong flashin’ light.”

About 0533:05, the first officer repeated, “I was lookin ‘at the wrong light,” and the captain responded, “yeah okay, yeah.” The first officer added, “yeah, with the direction I took, we coulda used [runway] 27, eh?”, and the captain responded, “yeah, it dudn’t matter. Yeah, it’s about ten miles south of the VOR.”

About 0534:11, the captain stated, “I guess the lights came on, if not I’ll click ‘em again here when we get a little closer.” About 20 seconds later, the CVR recorded a sound similar to a microphone being keyed five times within about 1.5 seconds, and, at 0534:35, the captain said, “there we go.” The first officer requested “flaps 15” about 0535:24. About 0535:31, the first officer stated, “gear down, before landing check;” about 2 seconds later, the CVR recorded a sound similar to the landing gear handle being operated followed by a sound similar to the nose gear door opening.
….
About 0536:20, the first officer said, “sorry about that. I was linin’ up on that papermill or something.” As the first officer started speaking, (at 0536:20.2), the CVR recorded the ground proximity warning system (GPWS) announce that the airplane passed through 1,000 feet above ground level (agl). About 0536:23, the captain said, “that’s all right, no problem.”So note: The captain (no CVD) effectively told the first officer (with CVD) that the GPWS warning was nothing to worry about.

It's about here that I started to get an inkling of the intellectual dishonesty that infects this report:About 0536:37, the airplane was slightly more than 2.5 nautical miles (nm) from the airport and was transitioning from an angled base-to-final leg to line up with the runway. The Safety Board’s airplane performance study indicated that, about this time, the PAPI would have been displaying one white light and three red lights when viewed from the cockpit. About 0536:40, the PAPI display would have shown four red lights. Note the words “would have”. Not “should have” or “would probably have”, but an expression of certainty: “would have”. The only people qualified to give first-hand evidence of what was being displayed at the time of the approach of the accident aircraft are the people who were looking at what was being displayed at that time.

PAPI used to have a latent defect. But it became a patent defect decades ago. The patent defect is that in some atmospheric conditions PAPI does not do what it should do. “The Safety Board’s airplane” did not fly the approach at the same local time in the same weather conditions as the B727 involved in the accident did.

I’ll jump forward a bit in the report to highlight these two tidbits:
The Safety Board notes that the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) submission on this accident stated that there was a “high level of physical particle contamination” on the runway 9 PAPI boxes at TLH. However, investigators who examined the PAPI boxes during the on-scene investigation (including the NATCA representative and other members of the investigative team) noted no such contamination, and the investigation developed no evidence to support this contention.Presumably NATCA just made it up. Presumably posters on this forum who report observing ‘four pinks’ on Australian PAPIs are making it up too.

Strangely, though, the report also says: On December 12, 2002, the FAA issued CertAlert Number 02-08, “PAPI Operation” which advised that 14 CFR Part 139-certificated airport operators should “rewire pilot controlled PAPI systems to make them operate continuously in order to preclude environmental contamination of the lenses.” The TLH PAPI lights were subsequently rewired in accordance with the CertAlert.Go figure. Why would that rewiring be necessary if there was never any contamination of the TLH PAPI lights just before dawn with the reported temp and dew point being the same?

But back to what the report says about the accident sequence:
During postaccident interviews, all three crewmembers described a normal flight until the last seconds of the approach. The captain stated that the airplane was established on final as it descended through about 800 feet. He stated that during the approach, he observed “white pink, going to white red” on the PAPI and that, as the airplane descended, “we started picking up a few little wispy, I want to say clouds or mist, but it didn’t obscure the airport.” The captain stated that his last recollection was of a “white red” PAPI indication, then “we started feeling a little bumping, and the rest of it I don’t recall.” The captain stated that the last thing he remembered about the approach was that “everything visually looked normal, based on the runway and that’s why I was somewhat shocked when I felt the thumping”.

The first officer stated the following about the approach:

“Everything was running exactly the way it was supposed to run. When we got down closer to the field and we had slowed down and the field was in sight and the wind was still prevailing down runway nine. And that’s when I mentioned should we go ahead and land on runway nine, since that’s where the wind is. [The captain] said okay, that’s fine. We were kinda lined up that direction anyway. And the speed was well within parameters Got the nose pointed to the airport, started slowing down, started dirtying up rolled out on the centerline on the PAPI I remember specifically adding a touch of power because I recall rolling out on centerline but 2 knots slow and a hair under the bug that’s the last I can remember I have no memory of the remainder of the flight.”

The first officer stated that when he first saw the PAPI lights, they indicated white next to red, showing that the airplane was on the glidepath. When investigators asked him to describe the PAPI system, the first officer described two white lights with two red lights next to each other. The first officer said that he would not have considered landing on runway 9 if it did not have the PAPI light guidance. He went on to state, “from the time I rolled out, I saw that I was on glideslope, added that power for the 2 knots, and it never changed. After that, since I have no memory of the remainder of the flight...I don’t know where the rest of the flight went.” When asked about power settings, the first officer told investigators that fuel flow for a normal visual approach would be 3,000 to 3,500 pounds per hour (pph) at 500 feet.

The flight engineer told investigators that he first saw the airport about the same time the first officer remarked that he had the runway in sight, when the airplane was on a modified left base leg for runway 9. The flight engineer stated that, when he first saw the runway, he observed a white, a pink, and two red lights on the runway’s four-light PAPI system. He further stated that, throughout the approach, he was scanning his instruments and looking outside for other air traffic and that, as they neared the runway, they could see the runway lights “plain as day, including the PAPI.” He stated that the visibility was good during their approach and indicated that he did not observe any of the low, scattered clouds that were reported in the TLH weather observation.When I read that, as someone without CVD and no direct or indirect pecuniary or other interest in CVD testing, I conclude that, to the extent - if any - that colour vision had any causal connection with the accident, it’s ‘normal’ colour vision that is the problem. Or maybe pilots with ‘normal’ colour vision, like the captain and flight engineer in this case, are more prone to lie about what they saw. Maybe the NACTA people who stated that there was a “high level of physical particle contamination” on the runway 9 PAPI boxes at TLH were liars, too.

And then you find out that the first officer also spent 16 years in the USN.

And then there’s all this analysis of military colour vision testing. And on it goes.

But when you scratch the surface of the cited authorities, you see the names of the ‘usual suspects’. The adherents to the religion. The same people in the same echo chamber.

Please read it for yourself and let me know what you think.

[Clinton McKenzie]

SITREP will be broadcast at 2pm (EADT) this Thursday (16 Nov 23): https://www.youtube.com/live/F1iPCHso0p4?si=garFNoY5ohH9PhOy

[Sandy Reith]

Anyone who has followed the some forty year saga of colour vision impairment in pilots won’t need to be persuaded.

Just as it appears that the sun orbits Earth so it is necessary (not) that all pilots must have exemplary colour vision in order to accomplish their flight duties in a safe and efficient manner.
In my view the lessor colour perception of around one in ten men should not be called ‘deficient’ because it’s so common as to be normal.

Whilst we do battle with The Empire in Australia, more correctly that we continue to be steamrolled and frightened into submission, we often look longingly to the US of A where their system is light years in advance of ours. But occasionally their ‘Empire’ has a slippage, some of their crew, hopefully a tiny minority, go the path of CASA.

One memorable example concerned the remarkable Bob Hoover who lost his USA medical because the FAA decided his red nose indicated he was drinking too much. He came to Australia and performed at the Avalon Airshow, having passed our medical.

It was my privilege to watch his incredible aerobatic flying routine which terminated after his rollout off the sealed strip onto the grass, both engines feathered, and he braked to a stop placing his left hand spinner in the upraised palm of the announcer’s hand.

He exited the Shrike to be interviewed by the said announcer, yours truly hanging by the fence just a few meters away, and he forcefully announced that he was grateful to Australia and that he could now fly anywhere in the world except in the USA because of an intransigent FAA medical officer. Not long after his return to the USA he regained his medical, they were shamed into restoring his flying status.

Asked to describe how it is to fly his airshow routine, he said in his Southern drawl, “well it’s like milking a mouse with big heavy gloves on.”

But that’s another story, the colour vision saga continues because the make work salary factory must keep on finding new and complex reasons for its existence, the truth or commonsense is too obtuse to the mind when power and money are the drivers.

[Arthur Pape]

Following Clinton's brilliant post, I thought I'd inform the debate further with the following links"Clark and Gordon Hazards of Colour Coding in Visual Approach Slope Indicators (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4xcv9mfilvlte1c5qcyfr/Clark-AJ-and-Gordon-JE-Hazards-of-colour-coding-in-VASIS-original.pdf?rlkey=7ncro1hqlannx2sgq9hh1bayk&dl=0)

This link is to a document, published by the Australian Defence Research Laboratories, which very clearly describes the inherent risks of contamination of the PAPI code, based on red/white discrimination, resulting in the distortion of the signal and ultimately, when it fails, it fails "UNSAFE".
When you've read this, and compared it with the NTSB report, it will be manifestlyclear that the crash was entirely due to a "fail unsafe" scenario with the Tallahassee RWY 9 PAPI.

The second link is to a paper, co-authored by myself and Boris Crassini, analyzing the dilemma inherent in the crash investigation, and proposing an alternative explanation (to that reached by the NTSB) of the crash. The Puzzle of the Crash of Fedex Flight 1478: Implications for Colour Vision Standards in Aviation (https://www.dropbox.com/preview/CVD/Pape%20and%20Crassini%20Papers/Pape%2C%20Crassini%20papers%20etc/Pape%20and%20Crassini%202013%20The%20Puzzle.pdf)

:Thank you Clinton for bringing on this discussion.

Do note that the Clark and Gordon document does predict that CVD pilots may have difficulties identifying the PAPI code in certain circumstances, a conclusion I don't have any problem accepting.

To me the Fedex crash circumstances were a perfect fit for the predictions made by Clark and Gordon

[Clinton McKenzie]

Here’s just one snippet from the Clark and Gordon document linked in Arthur’s post:
With colour-coded systems, the principal effect of lens scattering is the reduction of the colour differences between the signals. For instance, in a red-white coding scheme, the white signal becomes reddened and the red becomes desaturated, i.e. pink. Because the scattering is angle-dependent, the greatest effect is adjacent to the direction of the transition between the colours. The magnitude and angular variation of the effect depends on the cause of the scattering, viz. lens surface reflections, or dust-water deposits, and in the case of particulate scattering, on the size distribution and optical properties of the particles. Hald (1980) reported water condensation on both sides of the objective lenses in trial PAPI installations. The resultant scattering '. . . totally destroyed the signal, so that the light received over a certain distance happened to be only white with no red sector. In an operational system this will mean that the PAPI system would only give a full "fly down" signal at all angles.' Electrical heating elements have been installed near the lenses in some PAPI boxes in an attempt to overcome the condensation problem. The heaters will not overcome the dust problem: if anything they will exacerbate it because of the extra airflow over the lenses as a result of convection currents.(My underlining.)

[Arthur Pape]

The Clark and Gordon document above was not the only instance of highlighting short-comings of PAPI.
In April1983, the FAA produced a report "Evaluation of Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI)
It stated "It was found that during certain weather conditions, condensation could form on the PAPI lenses and produce transient false pink signals which must be eliminated by some means."

Here is the link to the full document, to enable further reading. Evaluation of PAPI by FAA 1983 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/smnwuyz92ib9i70/Evaluation%20of%20PAPI.pdf?dl=0)
I'm harping on the Fedex crash because it still today is quoted by the zealots (private and official) as THE example of a serious accident CAUSED BY A PILOT'S DEFECTIVE COLOUR VISION.
The NTSB report into this crash was fatally flawed because:

the only medical evidence requested by the Board was from an individual whose zealous promotion and protection of rigorous colour perception standards is widely known.. This person introduced evidence far beyond what was require for the forensic inquiry into the crash.
The NTSB's conclusions failed to consider the evidence from both the FAA's document (posted above) and the Clark ad Gordon Paper that had been circulated to the FAA.
The testing of the PAPI post accident was carried out in broad daylight with none of the meteorological conditions that were present at the time of the crash.


The ongoing obsession with PAPI by the zealots is based on this flawed NTSB report. The CAD test development was spurred by this crash!!
Offers to provide them with copies of the Clark and Gordon Paper amd tje FAA evaluation are rejected as unnecessary.

Watch this space

[Clinton McKenzie]

Today’s SITREP broadcast has been postponed from 2pm AEDT to 2:15pm, due to some last minute availability issues. Apologies for any inconvenience.

[Arthur Pape]

Apologies for the slowing down of the posts on the thread: A lot is happening in the direct communication space between the CVDPA directors and the CASA hierarchy, in particular the Director, Pip Spence.
I am working through the material that has come to me from the FOI section of CASA. It is disgracefully inadequate in that the lead players who were invited by CASA to help formulate their crusade, the identities of these individuals, as well as their qualifications that one would expect to be told, have been totally redacted (blacked out!).
In due course, we will be publishing the entire response obtained through FOI, but in the meantime, I intend to highlight some of the perverse logic promulgated by CASA to justify its equally perverse conclusions.
Example 1. CASA states: "There is a proposition that the absence of air accidents among CVD pilots could well be due to the fact that there ARE restrictions by way of the Colour Vision Standard.

Then there appears this gem, copied verbatim:
"Safety concerns:
For colour vision deficient pilots, while able to pass OCVA, the colour cues within and outside the cockpit (or flight deck) are vital during the critical phases of flight. During an emergency, with heightened stress levels, the reaction time can become the determining factor between safety and accident. This human factor aspect cannot solely be defined by medical certification, instead has a direct bearing on safe operations, in turn safety of air navigation.
1.
Deutan or Protan CVD defect is a lifelong disability with potential safety impacts:
i.
Reduced or absent ability to assess glide slope by reference to colour cues
Reduced or absent ability to identify and interpret colour cure as used in instrument landing such as PAPI and VASIS and where no redundancy systems can be employed
Reduced or absent ability to identify and interpret colour cues used at airports, including but not limited to, aerodrome markings, holding points runway lighting, marked obstructions, rotating beacons on ground vehicles and precision guidance systems
Reduced or absent ability to identify and interpret colour cues used in cockpit instrument including but not limited to electronic weather displays, indicator and warning systems" End of Quote

I offer you this. There have been three landmark AAT cases since the mid-1980s, and between them, each and every point made in the preceding paragraphs was rejected by the AAT. It is nothing more than pure sophistry, intended to deceive and blind the gullible observers of the debate. We have records of hundreds of pilots with severe colour vision defects that pass and keep on passing every operational test put to them, and I mean BIG TIME! These folk fly every conceivable modern RPT aircraft, and that's just the Aussie part of the sample. In the USA, no one cares to keep the exact figures, but there are thousands of severe CVD pilots representing many thousands of accumulated flight hours performed in safety, and thousands of check and training examinations.


More in a day or two.

[Clinton McKenzie]

CVD guinea pigs will be aware that the expensive CAD test is inflicted on them as a means to destroy their career aspirations and careers.

I submitted an FOI request for access to: “the current instrument determining the test commonly known as the Colour Assessment and Diagnosis for the purposes of either or both of CASR 67.150(6)(c) and CASR 67.155(6)(c)”. It's taken a while, including an internal review, but here is the outcome with bolding added:I refuse your request for access as I am satisfied the document you are seeking does not exist.

Through searches of CASA’s registry files and liaison with the relevant CASA business areas, there is no record of a document relevant to the scope of your access request.Pause to consider the expense and mayhem caused by the CAD, and the fact that CASA can find no written evidence of the exercise of the power to determine the CAD as a ‘third tier’ test, by a person with the power to do so. (There is of course another minor point: The CAD simulates no operational situation known to aviation.)

I anticipate the insouciantly arrogant response of the crusaders in AvMed: We say it, so it is done!

[Sandy Reith]

It’s really extraordinary that the CASA Board has allowed the CEO Ms P. Spence and AVMED to perpetrate its scheme to deny the facts and dislocate the lives of many pilots.

To the casual observer CASA can put to the uneducated that the sun revolves around Earth and achieve 100% agreement.

Flagrantly disregarding the law and logical practice is self serving and the Board should take action and restore the previously accepted standard. As usual the Board sits there taking the money and kudos but no action.

I wonder whether there could be a class action against the Board of CASA in order to compensate all those who have been put through the AVMED wringer? The media spotlight would concentrate some minds.

[airdualbleedfault]

The thing you have to remember about Avmed is that they are not there to help pilots continue/start a career, quite the opposite. Unless it's changed over the past 10 years they are a bunch of has been military doctors who couldn't make it in the private sector so gummint is their saviour. In the past most of them were from foreign military and would struggle to attain English level 4.. Combine all this with the fact they have nobody to question their often questionable judgements (other than the AAT at great expense to the plaintiff) and you have what most regard as the most toxic waste of taxpayer dollars in Australia, and not only that, you could be mistaken for thinking this pack of sea hunts actually enjoy inflicting misery on Aviators

[Snakecharma]

Interestingly, the CVD debate has a focus (at least from what I can read here) on interpretation (or more accurately failure of interpretation) of slope guidance from a PAPI.

Whilst the simplest view might be that a PAPI is a colour based device and therefore a CVD pilot may be “less safe” than a non CVD pilot, it is a distorted view, in my opinion.

Visual slope guidance is only one of many means of identifying slope. GPS can derive a distance and the old 3 times tables can be used, many approaches have a coded 3 deg slope to the threshold, in short there are multiple clues that any pilot (CVD or otherwise) can use to determine whether they are on slope, including the old Mark 1 eyeball as used in many strips that are, for example, dirt or don’t have any visual slope indicator. Looking out the window and judging the sight picture and acting accordingly is what many people did for years before we became children of the magenta.

I myself suffer from CASA surveillance that my urologist gets quite grumpy about as he has to subject me to annual probes to identify a non issue - but that is a story for another time and place.

Suffice it to say I would have no issues flying with a CVD pilot.

[Clinton McKenzie]

CASA's masterpiece ACVA is merely a day VMC exercise, involving flying at various fixed heights towards a PAPI during which the candidate has to identify the transitions in indications.

My (educated) guess is that the zealots' obsession with PAPI arises from the Tallahassee 727 NTSB report. They cling to conclusion 13 of 16 conclusions of the report, which conclusion is that: “The first officer suffered from a severe color vision deficiency that made it difficult for him to correctly identify the color of the precision approach path indicator signal during the below-glidepath, nighttime, visual approach to runway 9 at Tallahassee Regional Airport.”

Your refence to multiple clues remined me that the Tallahassee 727 had some sources of useful information: among other equipment, serviceable altimeters and RADALT. The latter is a particularly good indicator of height and should have been indicating 'not much' immediately prior to the impact with the ground short of the runway.

The simplest explanation for the incident, supported by the objective evidence, is that all of the crew were fooled by false 'too high'/'fly down' indications from the PAPI due to contamination from the prevailing atmospheric conditions. Up until the incident, the airport had never maintained or operated the PAPI in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. The disagreement between NACTA and NTSB as to the condition of the PAPI at the time of the incident remains a mystery, as a result of which I'm trying to contact the author of the NACTA submission to the investigation. The submission contains some remarkable information including this: "According to Air Traffic Control Specialist Mike Peymann when he entered the TLH ATCT there was such an unusual accumulation of dew on the tower cab windows that he had to use the tower window wash system before he could see outside.”

Fact is that thousands of commercial pilots with CVD have racked up thousands of hours in command of transport category aircraft, day/night, IMC VMC and whatever, world-wide. Some countries remain in the dark ages on the issue of CVD. The current crop of CASA AvMed zealots is trying to drag Australia back there.

(AvMed's demands in relation to matters urological are typical AvMed overreach in response to catastrophised risks, despite the weight of qualified specialist opinion to the contrary. I've said it many times: Any idiot with access to the internet can do what they do. Find the most terrible potential consequence of a condition. Extrapolate that into an aviation catastrophe. Find the 'Rolls Royce' means of testing and managing the condition and, most importantly, ignore the weight of qualified specialist opinion and instead prefer the outcomes of an internal echo chamber 'complex case management meeting' because 'the safety of air navigation' is something that only they understand.)

[Chronic Snoozer]

My (educated) guess is that the zealots' obsession with PAPI arises from the Tallahassee 727 NTSB report. They cling to conclusion 13 of 16 conclusions of the report, which conclusion is that: “The first officer suffered from a severe colour vision deficiency that made it difficult for him to correctly identify the colour of the precision approach path indicator signal during the below-glidepath, nighttime, visual approach to runway 9 at Tallahassee Regional Airport.”

Upon my initial skim through the accident report, that was my reaction too. How can they raise this without raising the fact that two others in the cockpit didn’t see anything untoward? Doesn’t make any sense. Whereas potentially contaminated lenses seem to be the single point of failure that could have fooled all three.

What went wrong?
Does anyone have CVD?
Find a link to CVD

seems to be the method of investigation.

[Clinton McKenzie]

The extent to which the NTSB went to try to refute any potential problem with the particular PAPI during the particular approach in the particular conditions, is very puzzling to me. The objective evidence of the patent defect in PAPI had been around for decades. This, too, from the NACTA submission to the NSTB:Testing of the same brand and model of PAPI lights by Transport Canada, as per Aerodrome Safety Circular No. 98~002 (Attachment #3) revealed that:

- Contaminants such as ice, dew or frost on the PAPI front lens surface does affect the projected signal.

- the testing concluded that false slope indication produced as a result of contamination on the lens is a design problem.That's why the manufacturer's instructions included that: "The PAPI system must operate continuously when the runway is in service." The Tallahassee PAPI was instead linked to the PAL. The pilots activated the PAL mere minutes before arrival.

The aircraft was on approach near dawn when the temperature and dew point were the same and the PAPI had only been activated for minutes. Yet the NSTB report makes a conclusive statement as to what the PAPI was indicating at the time.

I have to say it, because I see it so often in relation to pilot CVD: I believe the NTSB's conclusive statement to be intellectually dishonest.

[Clinton McKenzie]

Lots of news to report. There will be a CVDPA webcast on Wednesday 13 December from 1830 AEDT: https://www.youtube.com/live/QheSf9o0ypM?si=1sNxs22ZXJMqt04H

[Missing aileron]

Forgive me if any of this has been asked before.

Is there any way around doing the CAD test? I live in Brisbane and can't afford to go to Sydney or Melbourne to do the test; however, the ACVA is offered in Brisbane, and I would much prefer to do that. The optometrist who did my lantern test said, "There's no point doing the CAD; you're just going to fail it."

Also, is there any way CASA will issue a restricted Class 1 if the applicant cannot afford to go and do these other tests? Will they consider issuing a Class 1 with the night flight restrictions for someone if they have completed the Ishihara and the lantern test?

Additionally, what are the requirements around maintenance of the lantern test equipment, and can anything be done to improve the standard of the test? I did it at QUT here in Brisbane, and the machine didn't work until it got a solid thump, and then the white was more of a brownish-yellow rather than the white light I was expecting. The lights also were flickering as if the bulbs were close to failure, or the power source was being interrupted.

[Sandy Reith]

Missing Aileron - “Forgive me if any of this has been asked before.”

Sorry can’t help with specific answers but the only real hope of changing CASA’s capricious disregard for its own regulation, that third option specifying an operational test, is by creating political and media pressure. It would seem beyond belief that having at long last achieved a proven operational test, and written same into its regulations, that CASA has negated this and is causing unnecessary grief to so many pilots. I personally have good colour vision but watch with dismay how CASA’s irresponsible decisions have done such harm to GA in particular and so many individuals in the aviation community.

The independent corporate regulator, a concept that flies in the face of the Westminster system, is a failed model of governance. The main arms of government should be within Departments with a responsible Minister at head. If we want real improvements we must engage with our Representative MPs, if they don’t know what is happening then how does democracy work?

[Clinton McKenzie]

Missing aileron

The news is not good in the short term, but lots of work is being done behind the scenes to restore the OCVA as a – hopefully the – third tier test. The following is based upon what CASA has been doing rather than what it’s been saying.

Is there any way around doing the CAD test?At the moment, there is no way of doing the ACVA instead of the CAD as a third tier test, because the zealots have a ‘policy’ of not taking into consideration the results of the ACVA until the candidate has failed the CAD and, therefore, the candidate has already been assessed by the zealots as not meeting the colour perception criterion.

I live in Brisbane and can't afford to go to Sydney or Melbourne to do the test; however, the ACVA is offered in Brisbane, and I would much prefer to do that.I know this won’t help much, but you confirm an important point I made in recent correspondence.

As background to what I’m about to say, CASA recently sent the CVDPA a document described as an outline of “the process taken to review the CASA operational colour vision assessment (OCVA) and develop a proposal for a replacement.” One of the very telling parts of that document is under the heading “Validation and Future Work” at page 19, with my italics added:

It would be ideal, prior to making the ACVA available for use, to validate its performance by building up a data set of test results flown with colour normal pilots and colour vision deficient pilots. Unfortunately, this is beyond the scope of Phase I of this project.

If the ACVA is made available for use, this validation work could be included in the evaluation of the test at some point in the future. Of most use would be the ability to compare applicant CAD results with their ACVA test results. A large enough data set would allow determination at what CAD score an applicant is certain to fail the ACVA. The ideal outcome from this work would allow the ACVA (an expensive and time-consuming test) to be retired as a known pass/fail threshold using a lab-based test would have been determined.

It's worth reading all that quoted text twice and the italicised text a third time. The suggestion is that the ACVA results data will eventually be used as a validation and justification for using CAD results alone! That is not ‘strengthening’ the OCVA. That’s putting whitewash over a test that does not simulate an operational situation in accordance with the ‘third tier’ test provision in the law.

And I cannot help but point out what I assume is the unintended irony in the author’s comment about the ACVA being “an expensive and time-consuming test” as if the CAD – available at only two locations in Australia at around $500 a pop on top of travel time and expenses - isn’t expensive and time consuming. That kind of comment is the understandable product of a process in which those whose interests are directly affected have been completely ignored. If one were to ask the guinea pigs in this experiment – e.g. you, Missing aileron - what they would prefer as a ‘third tier’ test: the time and expense of an OCVA or the time and expense of the CAD; the entirely predictable outcome will not be overwhelming support for the CAD. Indeed, that has already been proven during the brief period of enlightenment during which CASA treated the OCVA as a ‘third tier’ test.

You go on to say:The optometrist who did my lantern test said, "There's no point doing the CAD; you're just going to fail it."And that demonstrates how the zealots have perverted the legislated process for demonstration of compliance with the colour perception criterion in the legislated medical standard. Instead of the third tier test being a simulated operational situation the results of which test demonstrate compliance or non-compliance with the colour perception criterion, the third tier test imposed by the zealots is a diagnostic test used to assess compliance with their personal interpretation of chapter 6 of Annex 1 of the ICAO Convention.
Also, is there any way CASA will issue a restricted Class 1 if the applicant cannot afford to go and do these other tests? Will they consider issuing a Class 1 with the night flight restrictions for someone if they have completed the Ishihara and the lantern test?I’d suggest that you write to CASA and ask. If the zealots were left to their own devices, I’d anticipate that the answer would be a categorical NO! But there has been and continues to be a flurry of activity in the wake of the exposure of the fact that the zealots had no intention of ‘strengthening’ the OCVA as a ‘third tier’ test.

Additionally, what are the requirements around maintenance of the lantern test equipment, and can anything be done to improve the standard of the test? I did it at QUT here in Brisbane, and the machine didn't work until it got a solid thump, and then the white was more of a brownish-yellow rather than the white light I was expecting. The lights also were flickering as if the bulbs were close to failure, or the power source was being interrupted.In my opinion, any professional purporting to administer a test the results of which can be used to ‘make or break’ someone’s career is under a duty to ensure the equipment used in the test has been maintained (and calibrated if necessary) and is functioning properly during the test. I’d be asking the QUT whether it is satisfied the equipment has been maintained (and calibrated if necessary) and is functioning properly. Is there any other administrator of the test within practicable reach?

All of that said: The best outcome for you and every other pilot and aspiring pilot with CVD would be the restoration of the OCVA as a – hopefully the – third tier test. So please write to all your Senators and your MHR and explain what you’re being put through, and support the CVDPA in its endeavours in your interests.

[Bill Smith]

I can't thank CVDPA enough for the continued efforts to challenge the completely outdated CV standard. I'm one of the lucky ones who, due top previous AAT decisions, has managed to have a fulfilling career at all levels of Aviation from GA to high capacity international RPT. Without Arthur and others paving the way this would not have been possible. Anyone that has doubts can PM me. Get behind these amazing people and give them some support

[Clinton McKenzie]

The standard isn't the problem, Bill. The colour perception criterion in each of the legislated medical standards (in Part 67 of CASR) and the legislated means of demonstration of compliance with the criterion (also in Part 67 of CASR) have not changed in decades. All that's changed is the people and their personal opinions in CASA.

CASA seems adept at leaving AvMed to its own devices to implement the personal opinions of the staff, rather than explaining to them that they are public officials with duties to, among other things, administer the law in its terms, whether or not the staff personally agree with the policy already given effect to in the law. In short, there's inadequate governance around them.

The latest crusade against CVD was mounted on a pretext and has cost a couple of years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce an outcome that bears no semblance to what outsiders were told was going on. Rather, it bears an uncanny semblance to the outcome sought to be achieved by mercifully long-gone zealots like Navathe and Drane (whom, I understand, are erstwhile colleagues of none other than Hochberg). (Our Kiwi cousins must laugh - diplomatically - each time CASA takes one of these people off the Kiwis' hands.) They haven't been working on strengthening to OCVA. They've ditched it. We're back to the CAD as a weapon to cull candidates who don't meet the zealots' personal interpretation of chapter 6 of annex 1 to the ICAO convention. Apparently, no one in a position of authority has tapped them on the shoulder to point out that the people actually responsible for deciding on how Australia gives effect to chapter 6 of annex 1 - including the colour perception criterion - have already done that in the form of a thing called "the law". That's what Part 67 is.

Apparently, Ms Spence was unaware of what was going on. Hence my point about governance.

One of the reasons for CASA AvMed's abysmal 'service delivery' metrics is the amount of time (and money) it wastes - to pick up on an earlier metaphor - dying on stupid hills like CVD. If they'd just concentrate on doing their jobs - administering the legislated medical standards in accordance with the legislation - rather than mounting crusades to save the world through implementation of their own personal opinions, the metrics might be less abysmal:

Class 1 medical certificate (target 20 days) – 56% (down from 61%)
Class 2 medical certificate (target 20 days) – 47% (down from 53%)
Class 3 medical certificate (target 20 days) – 43% (down from 59%)

[Missing aileron]

Thank you for your response, Clinton. That's all very valuable information. The work you guys are doing is fantastic, and I truly do hope CASA wakes up and implements some more modern medical standards. I am still a fairly new pilot (95ish hours). However, I've had the opportunity to fly all over the country in a variety of different aircraft from single pistons to multi-jets (most as a passenger). While doing that, though, I've been exposed to IFR and VFR conditions both day and night, and neither myself nor the pilot have found anything I can't see in an operational environment. When the ACVA becomes available as the next step, I am confident I will pass it.

In part 67, subpart 67.150 of the CASR, it says the following:
(6) A person must demonstrate that he or she meets the criterion in item 1.39 of table 67.150 by:

(a) in daylight, or artificial light of similar luminosity, readily identifying a series of pseudo‑isochromatic plates of the Ishihara 24‑plate type, making no more than 2 errors; or

(b) for somebody who makes more than 2 errors in a test mentioned in paragraph (a), readily identifying aviation coloured lights displayed by means of a Farnsworth colour‑perception lantern, making:

(i) no errors on 1 run of 9 pairs of lights; or

(ii) no more than 2 errors on a sequence of 2 runs of 9 pairs of lights; or

(c) for somebody who does not satisfy paragraph (a) or (b), correctly identifying all relevant coloured lights in a test, determined by CASA, that simulates an operational situation.
I'm just a dumb pilot, not a lawyer, but I don't see any mention of the CAD test in there... Is there a way to argue that the CAD test is not simulating an operational situation? In the video you posted above, you mentioned that the inventor of the CAD test has even stated in court that it does not simulate an operational situation. Again, I'm no lawyer, but to me, it seems like CASA is ignoring their own regulations to prohibit people from obtaining their medical, despite the fact that we can safely operate an aircraft... If I am right, shouldn't the law overrule the CASA policy?

I will contact QUT about their equipment; currently, to my knowledge, the only other place in QLD that offers the lantern test is Townsville. I will also contact CASA about issuing a restricted Class 1 medical and see what they say.
​​​​​​​

[Clinton McKenzie]

As I’ve noted before, MI, the medical standards haven’t changed in years. All that changes is the people and their personal opinions in CASA.

There was a brief period of enlightenment during which CASA administered the OCVA as a ‘third tier’ test. That occurred because there was a critical mass of people who understood their job was to implement the legislated means of demonstration of compliance with the legislated medical standards. Now there’s (again) a critical mass of people who believe their job is to implement their personal opinions on the colour vision requirements of the ICAO convention.

The CAD does not simulate an operational situation in fact. Everybody knows it.

Why do the zealots nonetheless pretend it does? Because they can. They know how prohibitively stressful and expensive it is for individuals to challenge them. And the zealots will die on the stupid hill of defending the CAD when that challenge comes. (This is one of the reasons the AvMed ‘service’ metrics are abysmal. They spend so much time on their personal crusades rather than their jobs.)

Don’t be fooled into believing the ACVA is some panacea. The zealots will only take the results of the ACVA into account after the candidate has already failed the CAD and therefore been assessed as not meeting the colour perception criterion. The ACVA is just an exercise in data gathering and justification for the restrictions that will be placed on you.

The zealots’ plan is that you will have to endure the expense and inconvenience of the CAD and the ACVA. You will then be extraordinarily lucky to get a medical certificate allowing you to fly at night.

CVDPA member Simon Choice passed the OCVA and the ACVA but AvMed still imposed a CVD-related ‘restriction’ on his medical certificate. Please read that sentence as many times as is necessary to convince you that you need to start fighting for yourself along with CVDPA.

[johnobr]

Last week CVDPA directors Dr Arthur Pape, Clinton McKenzie and myself met with CASA CEO Pip Spence and some of her senior managers in Canberra to discuss this ongoing CVD debacle.. During this meeting we made our views very clear that we will accept nothing less than the removal of the CAD test as a 'third tier' test and the reinstatement of a valid operational test in its place, which once passed will result in a full unrestricted medical insofar as colour vision is concerned.

CVDPA intends to host another live web broadcast on around the 14th February (TBC) by which time we expect to have more to report, but for now we can advise the following as a result of our recent meeting and confirmed in a follow up email from Ms Spence. Stay tuned for more details regarding our next web broadcast over the coming week.

Current Status:

CASA are considering our input and and are currently preparing to present a recommendation for sign-off at an upcoming Aviation Safety Committee (ASC) meeting in the first week of Feb
NO test is currently being applied as a 'third tier' test under CASR 67.150 (6)(c)
CASA purport to be considering each new applicant on a case-by-case basis and have not changed existing conditions for any pilots who renewed
CASA advise that they will engage with CVDPA again to confirm what they propose to do

Senate Estimates:

CASA's (non) answers to Senator Fawcett's questions on notice from the October Estimates hearings were recently published:

Q79 - Incorrect information on CASA website (https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadattachment?attachmentId=b3163060-cf28-40e5-8fa0-da2b89ea77c9)
Q80 - Follow up questions on evidence provided during 23 October 2023 Estimates hearing (https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadattachment?attachmentId=e7d4d8f9-c7df-4090-b336-f6fba246a888)
Q81 - Follow up questions on written communication from CASA to CVD stakeholders (https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadattachment?attachmentId=bacd3024-6994-46d8-931d-9b481b0b9fed)

CASA is next scheduled to appear before Senate Estimates again on 12/13 February during which it is possible that CVD issues will again be raised


CVDPA ADVICE TO ALL CVD PILOTS:

One of the remarkable statements by Ms Spence during her follow up email to us is that "no test is currently being applied as a 'third tier' test under CASR 67.150 (6)(c)."

Could anyone anyone who has received recent correspondence from CASA (within the last two months) describing the CAD as a 'third tier' or 'third level' test that must be undertaken and passed in order to be assessed as meeting the colour perception criterion, please contact CVDPA? Feel free to email me at [email protected].

In the meantime, we would advise:

Do not do any test other than Ishihara and Farnsworth, unless CASA has represented to you, in writing, that: (1) the other test has been determined as a third tier test in accordance with CASRs 67.150(6)(c) and 67.155(6)(c); and (2) if you pass the test you will be issued with a ‘clean’ certificate so far as colour vision is concerned (that’s what the law requires CASA to do). Any other test will merely be a waste of your time and money and be used by AvMed to decide how much to restrict you, having already decided you don’t meet the standard.
Prior to doing the Ishihara test using the paper book, confirm with the DAME that the book has not passed its ‘use by’ date (this is not a joke!) and ensure the the lighting conditions are adequate.
Before you do Farnsworth, confirm, with the administrator of the test, that the equipment is functioning properly.
Unless and until CASA has again determined a proper test simulating an operational situation in terms of CASRs 67.150(6)(c) and 67.155(6)(c) - such as the previously-administered OCVA - candidates with CVD are better off going to New Zealand or the USA to obtain/maintain their qualifications and medical certification

Hopefully we will have some more (positive) news to report soon if CASA ultimately comes to its senses and does the right (and legal) thing, but for now this is the current state of play.

John O'Brien

[poach]

Out of interest has anyone who’s passed the farnsworth lantern test in aus ever applied for an FAA class one?

[vee1-rotate]

Out of interest has anyone who’s passed the farnsworth lantern test in aus ever applied for an FAA class one?

You will still have to pass a medical in the US to hold an FAA class 1 medical, ie. go through all the usual tests for color vision if required. Nothing carries over.

I am a CVD pilot who moved to the US about 10 years ago and recently got my color vision restrictions removed from my FAA class 1 by successfully completing the OCVT/MFT.

[Clinton McKenzie]

I could write pages, but I’ll highlight just two examples which are emblematic of CASA’s lack of corporate integrity.

The first example is the contemptuous answers to the Senate’s questions on notice.

For those who haven’t delved into the detail, the background is that AvMed has been left to do whatever it likes, whenever it likes, despite the constraints and requirements of the law. The ‘DAME Handbook’ is used by AvMed as its compendium of bright ideas to achieve its noble cause. Just put it in the ‘DAME Handbook’ and bingo! The Handbook says it, so it must be a requirement. (To this day, the Handbook contains stuff that CASA has admitted is unlawful, but CASA leaves it in the Handbook because most of the people upon whom the unlawful action is inflicted are too scared and poor to challenge CASA. There’s some corporate integrity for ya..)

The AvMed zealots, who’ve been allowed to resume their crusade against CVD, simply put a bunch of stuff in the ‘DAME Handbook’ that implemented their preferred outcome. When questioned at Estimates, Ms Spence and Mr Marcelja claimed that the information on CASA’s website was inaccurate and not consistent with CASA policy, which policy they continue to say has not been settled.

Senator Fawcett asked these questions, among others, on notice after the most recent Estimates hearings: 1. Mr Marcelja indicated that the information on the CASA website did not reflect the intended policy.
a. Who has a role in authorising changes to the CASA website?
b. Does CASA have a policy or approved process for ensuring due diligence is applied to check for alignment with approved policy before changes are made?
c. If the answer to b. is YES, why wasn’t this process followed?
2. Ms Spence also indicated that the information was inaccurate.
a. Who drafted the information which was published on the website?
b. What steps have been / will be taken to ensure that individual employees are aware of their responsibility to curtail their personal views and support the agreed corporate policy position?Very simple questions. In effect: Who did this and why were they allowed to do it?

Here are the non-answers: Mr Marcelja and Ms Spence indicated that if information on the CASA website suggested that somebody who had passed the operational test would have a ‘co-pilot’ restriction applied, that this was not consistent with CASA policy.

A review of the website identified the Designated Aviation Medical Examiner handbook was published with some information about colour vision tests. The handbook was intended to give advance notice of impending changes. As the final policy is not yet settled, it has been removed and stronger processes have been implemented to ensure updates to the handbook are appropriately reviewed and approved.Here’s the paradigm problem exposed by those answers: CASA is confident it will get away with them. CASA is confident that the Senate will do nothing substantial to get to the truth.

And that, folks, is why we’re in the aviation regulatory and safety messes we’re in. Parliament just watches as the monster it created goes about doing whatever damage it chooses to do, leaving individual victims to fight for themselves.

The second example out of many is that the CAD has been disappeared as a ‘third tier’ test.

For those who aren’t ‘up to speed’, here are the very simple CVD provisions of the class 1 medical standard in Part 67. (The class 2 medical standard has equivalent provisions). Colour perception

1.39 Can readily distinguish the colours that need to be distinguished for the safe exercise of privileges, or performance of duties, under the relevant licence

Note: For how to demonstrate this, see subregulation 67.150(6).
…
[67.150](6) A person must demonstrate that he or she meets the criterion in item 1.39 of table 67.150 by:

(a) in daylight, or artificial light of similar luminosity, readily identifying a series of pseudo‑isochromatic plates of the Ishihara 24‑plate type, making no more than 2 errors; or

(b) for somebody who makes more than 2 errors in a test mentioned in paragraph (a), readily identifying aviation coloured lights displayed by means of a Farnsworth colour‑perception lantern, making:

(i) no errors on 1 run of 9 pairs of lights; or

(ii) no more than 2 errors on a sequence of 2 runs of 9 pairs of lights; or

(c) for somebody who does not satisfy paragraph (a) or (b), correctly identifying all relevant coloured lights in a test, determined by CASA, that simulates an operational situation.Each of paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) is described in the vernacular as a ‘tier’ or ‘level’ of test.

When Navathe was let loose to wage the crusade previous to this one, he inflicted the ‘CAD’ as a purported third tier test on CVD victims, even though the CAD does not simulate an operational situation in terms of para (c) of regulation 67.150(6). Even the designer of the CAD admits that it does not simulate an operational situation.

Many careers and career aspirations were destroyed by the CAD. The main reason it survived is the usual, practical one: In order to challenge its validity, a victim would have to endure the stress and cost of a Federal Court action. CASA’s decisions as to what test/s to determine as a ‘third tier’ test are not reviewable by the AAT.

Fortunately, some enlightened people in CASA followed the enlightened people in the NZ, and introduced the OCVA as a third tier test. Unfortunately, a change of people and opinions in CASA resulted in the OCVA being dumped, on the pretext of new evidence. CVDPA was told CASA was working on ‘strengthening’ the OCVA when CASA was doing nothing of the sort – or at least the AvMed zealots who ‘run’ the DAME Handbook and CVD testing requirements were doing nothing of the sort. Therefore, the CAD became their weapon of choice again.

I made an FOI request for the instrument evidencing the determination of the CAD for the purposes of CASR 67.150(6)(c). The result? Nothing. CASA cannot produce any evidence to show that the expensive test used by the zealots to destroy careers and career aspirations has been determined by anyone with the power of determination for the purposes of CASR 67.150(6)(c). There’s some more good governance for ya!

It may be pure coincidence that, in the wake of the meeting last month at which CVDPA indicated that it was organising a Federal Court challenge to the validity of the determination of the CAD, Ms Spence wrote to CVDPA and said, among other things: No test is currently being applied as a ‘third tier’ test under 67.150(6)(c) I should have learnt the lesson, long ago, that CASA will never cease to amaze with the many and varied ways in which it can pervert the regulatory regime.

CASA has one job in relation to CVD.

Just one, simple job: To determine a test, or some tests, that simulate an operational situation in terms of CASR 67.150(6)(c) (and CASR 67.155(6)(c) for class 2).

One job.

But CASA hasn’t stuffed that job up. No, it’s worse than a stuff up.

The zealots just don’t want to do the job, because the outcome of a validly determined ‘third tier’ test doesn’t suit their prejudice. (CVDPA will now have to organise a Federal Court application for a thing called a ‘writ of mandamus’, which is an order from the Court telling CASA to do its job under CASR 67.150(6)(c) (as well as a declaration that no reasonable person could determine the CAD because it does not simulate an operational situation).

The current situation is worse for CVD pilots than when CASA pretended the CAD was a valid third tier test. I’m looking at a letter from CASA to a CVD victim, dated 3 January 2024, which letter says this among other things:The result of your Farnsworth Lantern test shows you failed this test and thus you do not meet the current medical standard for a Class 1 certificate.

CASA requires the following information to continue the assessment of your medical certificate.

A report of further colour vision testing with the Colour Assessment and Diagnosis [CAD] test.There it is, in black and white, in a letter sent this year.

The zealots have already decided that the recipient of that letter fails to meet the medical standard because the recipient failed Farnsworth. That law about third tier tests is silly and inconvenient. But let’s add insult to injury: Make the victim undergo the expense of the CAD anyway because… we can.

That's one of the reasons for CVDPA's current recommendations.

Our only hope is that the OCVA is restored as a third tier test the passing of which will result in a ‘clean’ medical certificate so far as colour vision is concerned. That’s what happened during the brief period of enlightenment. But when judged by what they are doing rather than what they are saying, I wouldn’t be betting folding money – much less a career – on CASA doing that any time soon. I would be ecstatic to be proved wrong.

[Sandy Reith]

Thankfully there’s a few individuals willing to expose what the average person would struggle to believe. Perhaps the enormity of CASA’s wilful disdain of its critics, practical realities and the considered opinion of legal experts is half our problem.

That the corporate body CASA has been given the power and duty to administer civil aviation in Australia and cannot follow the law that governs its attention to CVD pilots is a National disgrace.

It’s nothing short of scandalous that CASA has allowed its ruinous policies to wreck the lives of pilots who are barred from flying unnecessarily. It accomplishes this by flagrantly ignoring its own regulation and the proven results and practice of the successful OVCA practical test for CVD pilots.

Our MPs must be made aware and take responsibility because it is very obvious that CASA is unwilling to correct itself or, in the broader context, end the colossal waste that’s ensued from its make work programs, fee gouging and ever changing rules of unbelievable complexity.

[Clinton McKenzie]

As I said in one of my recent posts, I should have learnt the lesson, long ago, that CASA will never cease to amaze with the many and varied ways in which it can twist the regulatory regime. Here’s another example from CVDPA’s recent interactions.

(Unfortunately, these posts have to be quite lengthy, because we’re up against ‘Brandolini’s Law’ (or, more crudely, the ‘Bullsh*t Asymmetry’): The amount of energy needed to refute bullsh*t is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.)

As background, I need to remind everyone, again, of the simple CVD provisions of the class 1 medical standard in Part 67 of CASR (effectively repeated in the class 2 standard): Colour perception

1.39 Can readily distinguish the colours that need to be distinguished for the safe exercise of privileges, or performance of duties, under the relevant licence

Note: For how to demonstrate this, see subregulation 67.150(6).

…

[67.150](6) A person must demonstrate that he or she meets the criterion in item 1.39 of table 67.150 by:

(a) in daylight, or artificial light of similar luminosity, readily identifying a series of pseudo‑isochromatic plates of the Ishihara 24‑plate type, making no more than 2 errors; or

(b) for somebody who makes more than 2 errors in a test mentioned in paragraph (a), readily identifying aviation coloured lights displayed by means of a Farnsworth colour‑perception lantern, making:

(i) no errors on 1 run of 9 pairs of lights; or

(ii) no more than 2 errors on a sequence of 2 runs of 9 pairs of lights; or

(c) for somebody who does not satisfy paragraph (a) or (b), correctly identifying all relevant coloured lights in a test, determined by CASA, that simulates an operational situation.Those provisions, and the rest of Part 67, were added to CASR in 2003. By my maths, that’s over 20 years ago.

The next key point to note well is that, in those couple of decades, not a single syllable of what I’ve quoted above has changed. Not a single syllable of the colour perception criterion at item 1.39 of table 67.150 has changed. Not a single syllable of CASR 67.150(6) has changed. Ditto the equivalent provisions for Class 2. (If you want to confirm my assertions are correct by reference to primary materials, here is a link (https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2003B00243/asmade/text) to the Civil Aviation Amendment Regulations 2003 (No. 6) Statutory Rules 2003 No. 232. If you want to go ‘all out’ you can have a look at Statutory Rules 2004 No. 345 and 2013 No. 5, which made minor changes in CASRs 67.150 and 67.155, but not to the provisions I’ve quoted.)

Why am I telling you this?

CASA keeps quoting a provision – CASR 67.150(7) - as being relevant to its current ‘approach’ to CVD issues. That CASR says: If a change is made to a criterion in an item of table 67.150, a person who held a class 1 medical certificate and satisfied the criterion immediately before the change, but fails to satisfy the criterion as changed, is taken to satisfy the criterion for 2 years after the day when the change is made.CVDPA asked CASA how that provision could apply to a criterion – like the colour perception criterion at item 1.39 of table 67.150 - that hasn’t changed.

Here is what Ms Spence said, in writing, in response (and - Safety Warning! - make sure you’re seated and your seatbelt is fastened before you read this:While the criterion which are defined in the table have not changed, the criterion for colour perception is the only one which the regulations specifically call out a method for how it will be established. Our view is that the intent of 67.150(7) could apply to the method.But for the awful implications of CASA treating CASR 67.150(7) as if it has any current application to CVD, I would have fallen on the floor laughing at that explanation.

See if you can follow and understand this logic and, if you can, please post a description of why it makes sense to you:

1. Fact: Not a single syllable of the colour perception criterion in the class 1 medical standard in CASR - item 1.39 of table 67.150 - has ever changed.

2. Fact: Not a single syllable of the CASR prescribing the means of demonstration with that criterion - 67.150(6) - has ever changed.

3. Conclusion according to CASA: CASR 67.150(7), which is expressed to apply only if “a change is made to a criterion in an item of table 67.150”, applies to an unchanged regulation prescribing the way in which compliance with the unchanged colour perception criterion in table 67.150 must be demonstrated.

And to anticipate the questions, 67.150(7) is not about changes in an individual’s physical and mental fitness. Those changes can - of course - result in non-compliance the (unchanged) criteria in the medical standard. That’s the justification for periodic DAME examinations. But a change in an individual’s physical and mental fitness isn’t a change to the criterion in the medical standard.

Further, I know colour vision can change over time. However, the causes of those changes will be picked up by other ordinary tests. (Dr Pape can explain all that to anyone who’s interested.) Again, that's not a change in the criterion in the medical standard.

Further still, 67.150(7) has nothing to do with changes in third tier tests. Either a test has been validly determined, or it hasn’t. It’s binary. And the regulatory consequences – under CASR 67.150(6) - of passing or failing a validly determined third tier have never changed. That’s binary, too. Remember: not a single syllable of 67.150(6) has ever changed.

I’ll use an example to demonstrate the kinds of circumstances to which CASR 67.150(7) does apply in its plain terms. This example also demonstrates that Ms Spence was not quite correct when she said (my italics): “the criterion for colour perception is the only one which the regulations specifically call out a method for how it will be established”. Hearing requirements

1.29 Is not suffering from any safety‑relevant hearing defect

1.30 If suffering from a hearing loss (measured in a quiet room using a properly calibrated, compensated audiometer) in either ear of more than:

(a) 35 dB at any of the frequencies of 500 Hz, 1 000 Hz or 2 000 Hz; or

(b) 50 dB at 3 000 Hz—

passes a speech discrimination test, or an operational check, carried out by an approved person in an aircraft of similar ambient noise level to that in which the person being tested is or will be operationally involved.Item 1.30 looks to me very much like it has a ‘built in’ means of demonstration of compliance, through an operational test. Table 67.150 is in the regulations. Table 67.150 is the class 1 standard! But that issue aside…

Let’s assume item 1.30 was changed such that it prescribed maximum hearing loss limits that are more restrictive than are currently stated, without any operational test being available. That would be a change within the plain words of CASR 67.150(7).

After that change, a person who satisfied the ‘old’ hearing criterion but doesn’t meet the new, more restrictive criterion, is nonetheless deemed by 67.150(7) to satisfy the new criterion for 2 years from the change. That gives the person reasonable time to work out what to do to meet the changed criterion – perhaps hearing aids could be used to attain compliance - or to find a different job. And that outcome seems to me to make reasonable, practical sense.

Why would the zealots want to rely on CASR 67.150(7) as being currently applicable to colour perception? There can only be one reason, so far as I can see: They want to ‘cull’ pilots with CVD who’ve previously demonstrated compliance with the colour perception criterion through means with which the zealots personally disagree. The zealots want to write to those pilots – citing 67.150(7) - and say you’ve got 2 years to comply with the “changed” colour perception standard – in truth, the zealots’ personal opinion of what the standard should be - and, if the candidate can’t, too bad for the candidate. Off to the Federal Court for you, if you can stand the stress and cost.

The situation has deteriorated to the bizarre point at which CASA is preventing candidates from complying with the law. Candidates who fail Ishihara and Farnsworth cannot comply with CASR 67.150(6)(c) because CASA says there is currently no third tier test! You couldn’t make it up. The Civil Aviation Safety Regulator is preventing people from complying with the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations, because CASA doesn’t want to do its one job and determine one or more ‘third tier’ tests.

As far as the zealots are concerned, it doesn’t matter whether or not a candidate passes a third tier test. CASA currently says, in black and white in letters to candidates, that the candidate fails to satisfy the colour perception criterion before the person has even attempted a validly determined third tier test! That renders any further test – third tier or otherwise - an expensive, inconvenient waste of time for the candidate, because CASA’s already decided that the candidate does not satisfy the criterion. Again, hence one of CVDPA’s current recommendations. Don’t do any test other than Ishihara and Farnsworth unless CASA says, in writing, that the other test has been determined as a third tier test and, if you pass it, you will get a ‘clean’ certificate so far as colour vision is concerned.

CASA’s citing of CASR 67.150(7) as somehow being relevant to the unchanged regulation prescribing the way in which compliance with the unchanged colour perception criterion in table 67.150 is to be demonstrated, is another example of what I consider to be a perversion of the simple and plain words of CASR. And CASA deciding that a candidate fails to comply with the colour perception criterion before the candidate has even attempted a validly-determined third tier test seems to me to be a matter of pre-judgment and refusal to give effect to the plain words of CASR 67.150(6).

Request: If you have received correspondence from CASA about colour vision deficiency and the correspondence cites CASR 67.150(7) (or CASR 67.155(7) for Class 2) as having some consequence for you, please let CVDPA know. The contact page is here (https://cvdpa.com/contact/).

[johnobr]

The next CVDPA webcast is scheduled for this Wednesday night - 14th February at 2030 AEDT.

We'll be reporting on the discussions from our recent meeting with CASA, along with anything further that may arise from tonight's Senate Estimates hearings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttQ9iCGj42M

[johnobr]

As usual, bravo to Senator Fawcett for his questioning of CASA during tonight's Senate Estimates hearings :D

https://youtu.be/mOpWgz1Fivs

[Clinton McKenzie]

My notes from the CASA appearance, in no particular order of importance.

Who is going to be consulted, about what and why?

Ms Spence has now reverted to her usual prevarication tool: “consultation”.

I note that when CAD was inflicted, by Navathe and his fellow zealots, on pilots and aspiring pilots with CVD, there was no consultation with the people whose interests were adversely affected by that CASA action.

I also note that when the OCVA was ‘suspended', there was no consultation with the people whose interests were adversely affected by that CASA action.

CVDPA was told it would be consulted in the supposed ‘strengthening’ of the OCVA that was supposedly going on over the last couple of years. There was no consultation with CVDPA and that strengthening process wasn’t happening.

The only ‘consultation’ happened in an echo chamber built by CASA.

A lot of that happened on Ms Spence's watch.

The pretext of “confusion” and “lack of standardisation” in the administration of the OCVA

Pretext: an appearance assumed in order to cloak the real intention or state of affairs.

Here’s what actually happened:

The zealots were let loose to implement their personal opinion that anyone who fails the ‘clinical’ tests – the first two of the ‘tiers’ of testing prescribed in the regulations – fails to meet the zealot’s interpretation of the legislated medical standard, and that’s that. The only remaining issue for the zealots is the extent of the restrictions put on the candidate.

The zealots stuck with CAD as a purported third tier test because almost all, if not all, candidates who fail the first two tiers will fail CAD, because CAD is just a colour vision diagnostic test – the clue is in the name. (That said, I’ve heard, second-hand, of candidates who have ‘passed’ CAD. I am waiting to get first-hand evidence of any person having failed Ishara and Farnsworth but having passed CAD and then been issued a ‘clean’ medical certificate so far as colour vision is concerned. If you are that unicorn, could you please contact CVDPA.) Operational tests became a non-existent ‘fourth tier’ to be undergone after the CAD was failed and the candidate had already been assessed as having failed to meet the colour vision standard.

All of that was implemented in fact, in both correspondence and (the usual) uncontrolled changes to AvMed documents. As noted above, there was no intention to ‘strengthen’ the OCVA as a ‘third tier’ test. Indeed, one of the documents disclosed under FOI suggested that candidates be put through the expense of an ACVA, after failing CAD, as a means of validating the CAD.

CASA has just one job in relation to CVD: Determine one or more tests simulating an operational situation as ‘third tier’ test. That wasn’t being done because the zealots don’t want to do that, and have carefree indifference to what the law says because they’ve been encouraged to have that indifference through being left to their own devices.

How to justify all this? We all know the answer to that in CASA: Safety! The silly flight examiners were confused and not administering the OCVA in a standardised way. The OCVA had to be suspended because it was about to rain aluminium. Mere pretext.

Meanwhile, due to the lack of adequate corporate governance, CASA could not produce any written record of the determination of the CAD as a purported third tier test, by a person with the power of determination. How to sweep that under the carpet? Just say there’s no currently determined third tier test.

That suits the zealots’ crusade perfectly. Candidates currently don’t even get the chance to pass a third tier test that’s enshrined in legislation that CASA is supposed to administer, competently and disinterestedly.

(When CVDPA funds a Federal Court application re CASA’s one job, there will be some interesting consequences for CASA if the Court declares, among other things, that the CAD was not and could never have been validly determined as a ‘third tier’ test. All of the people who undertook CAD because CASA asserted it was a ‘third tier’ test may be a bit miffed, and justifiably so.)

How to say something true to obscure the truth

“It’s not true Senator. We are continuing to offer further testing.”

Yeah, but it’s not third tier testing, is it Ms Spence. It’s testing that’s “offered” after the candidate has already been assessed by AvMed as having failed meet the medical standard and AvMed has already decided to restrict the candidate, the only question being how much. That’s why Mr Marcelja mentioned the ‘flexibility’ provisions. AvMed is currently ignoring the third tier test provisions – they are inconvenient to the zealots – and using the ‘flexibility’ provisions to be ‘nice’ to candidates with CVD.

Currently that “further testing” is effectively the candidate spending time and money to get a stick with which AvMed will beat the candidate, after CASA has already decided the candidate fails to meet the standard and will be restricted in some way.

We can’t recall what those documents disclosed under FOI say

So Ms Spence and Mr Marcelja fronted Estimates knowing that they would be questioned about CVD and didn’t ask for a brief on, nor have available to them, the documents about the issue disclosed by CASA under FOI? Seems incredible to me.

Incredible: too extraordinary and improbable to be believed.

Either that, or incompetence. When I fronted Parliamentary committees, I was properly briefed and armed with every document necessary to support any answers I gave to the breadth of questions likely to be asked.

This was after CVDPA refuted the bullsh*t that no one ever failed the OCVA, by producing to CASA a CASA AvMed document that had been disclosed under FOI. When the PMO stated, at the meeting on 23 Jan, no one had failed the OCVA, CVDPA emailed Ms Spence and Mr Marcelja (and Dr Manderson and Dr Aleck) a copy of that CASA AvMed document, and quoted and highlighted in the covering email, the specific text from that document. (I could spend a week exposing and refuting other bullsh*t in the FOI documents about CVD.)

The constant appeal to ICAO might have some credibility if, first, Australia didn’t file numerous differences to ICAO and, secondly, if the current provisions of Part 67 didn’t comply with ICAO SARPs on colour vision deficiency.

The people whose job it was to give domestic effect to ICAO Annex 1 Chapter 6 did so in legislation, now in what’s called Part 67 of CASR. Those people also arranged for the filing of differences. And it’s very interesting to note what differences Australia has filed in relation to the CASRs relating to colour vision.

Australia represents to the world that the CASR provisions for demonstration of compliance with the colour perception criterion – which haven’t changed in at least 20 years - comply with ICAO Annex 1 Chapter 6. In fact, Australia represents to the world that one CASR provision for demonstration of compliance with the colour perception criterion exceeds ICAO Annex 1 Chapter 6.

Australia tells the world that the CASR for demonstration of compliance with the colour perception criterion for class 3 in CASR ‘exceeds’ ICAO Annex 1 Chapter 6 requirements. And that’s correct. It’s correct because Australia’s class 3 colour vision standard is the Ishihara test alone. That’s in CASR 67.160(6). There is no ‘tier 2’ or ‘tier 3’ test in Australia’s class 3 standard. The legislature has decided that Air Traffic Controllers must pass Ishihara, even though that’s in excess of ICAO Annex 1 Chapter 6 requirements. (I’ll leave experts in ATC to decide whether that’s an ‘overkill’ in 21st century Australia and, if it is, to mount their own campaign for CASR 67.160(6) to be changed. My understanding is that it is due to long-held superstitions, in one of the ICAO contracting states, about different cultures and ethnicities having different emotional reactions to colours.)

Australia also tells the world – also correctly – that the provisions for demonstration of compliance with the colour perception criterion for Class 1 and 2 in CASR meet ICAO Annex 1 Chapter 6. That’s because the ‘tiers’ of testing in CASRs 67.150(6) and 67.155(6) are consistent with ICAO Annex 1 Chapter 6.

Short point: Requiring a pass in Ishihara alone exceeds ICAO requirements. Requiring a pass in one of three tiers of testing, including a test simulating an operational situation, meets ICAO requirements.

That’s why, when the OCVA was being administered as a ‘third tier’ test and candidates who passed that test were issued with a ‘clean’ medical certificate so far as colour vision is concerned, Australia did not ‘file’ a new ‘difference’ from ICAO SARPS. That wasn’t necessary, because there was no change – and there has been no change - in the colour perception criterion in the medical standard or in the regulation prescribing the means of demonstration of compliance. All that’s changed is the people and their personal opinions in CASA.

But if it’s about safety, what are you doing about FAA-certified candidates with CVD and NZ-certified candidates with CVD who are flying transport category aircraft in and out of Australia with ‘clean’ medical certificates?

Very good question Senator Fawcett. CVDPA also asked those questions of CASA – on invitation from CASA – and silence continues to be the stern reply. For obvious reasons.

It’s not about safety. It’s about AvMed zealots who’ve been encouraged to harbour grandiose delusions as to the significance of their personal opinions, through being allowed to, among other things, treat pilots and aspiring pilots with CVD as guinea pigs.

[ajax58]

I note that both New Zealand and Canada accept the D15 as a second level assessment. Why can't CASA also accept this test? It's quick and easy to administer, and a lot less stressful for subjects (speaking from experience).

[Clinton McKenzie]

I note that both New Zealand and Canada accept the D15 as a second level assessment. Why can't CASA also accept this test? It's quick and easy to administer, and a lot less stressful for subjects (speaking from experience).The answer, in principle, is that the Australian rule prescribing the means of demonstration specifies only one second level test, namely the Farnsworth lantern. It's here at paragraph (b):A person must demonstrate that he or she meets the criterion in item 1.39 of table 67.150 by:

(a) in daylight, or artificial light of similar luminosity, readily identifying a series pseudo‑isochromatic plates of the Ishihara 24‑plate type, making no more than 2 errors; or

(b) for somebody who makes more than 2 errors in a test mentioned in paragraph (a), readily identifying aviation coloured lights displayed by means of a Farnsworth colour‑perception lantern, making:

(i) no errors on 1 run of 9 pairs of lights; or

(ii) no more than 2 errors on a sequence of 2 runs of 9 pairs of lights; or

(c) for somebody who does not satisfy paragraph (a) or (b), correctly identifying all relevant coloured lights in a test, determined by CASA, that simulates an operational situation.The practical answer is that CASA AvMed picks and chooses the laws with which it strictly complies and those which it ignores and, due to inadequate governance, is allowed to get away with it.

For example, CASA AvMed treats the 'Optec 900' as a second level test, even though it's not prescribed. And CASA treated the CAD as a third level test, even though it does not simulate an operational situation.

My educated guess is that treating the Farnsworth D15 as a second level test would not suit the crusading CASA CVD zealots and their camp followers, precisely for the reasons you stated: Farnsworth D15 is quick and easy to administer, and a lot less stressful for subjects.

[johnobr]

I'm pleased to report there is progress being made on the CVD front. There's been some positive discussions with CASA in the last week and it seems there is a genuine commitment to get this issue resolved favourably in the near future.

Latest CASA update below. We expect the consultation phase for the proposed legislative instrument to open shortly and we will have more to say once that happens. Suffice to say, CVDPA would encourage everyone to subscribe to the consultation mailing list and be ready to make a submission as soon as it opens, so that we can ensure our voices are heard.

Plan to improve colour vision deficiency policy for pilots (https://www.casa.gov.au/about-us/news-media-releases-and-speeches/plan-improve-colour-vision-deficiency-policy-pilots)

Work is underway to settle and formalise colour vision testing options for pilots who are not able to pass clinical colour vision tests. Our aim is to have new testing options available for pilots by the end of April that are formally prescribed through a legislative instrument. The tests will recognise that many pilots with a colour vision deficiency can demonstrate they are able to operate safely and competently without any medical or operational restrictions.

Consultation is currently underway through our Aviation Safety Advisory Panel, and public consultation on the proposed testing options is expected before the end of March.

The options will include an operational test designed to demonstrate a pilot’s ability to fly an aircraft safely through a robust and standardised operational test.
Interim measures
Pilots who are unable to pass the prescribed Ishihara or Farnsworth colour vision clinical tests and are seeking to renew their medical certificate are encouraged to call our Aviation Medicine team on 131 757 to discuss their individual circumstances.

We will work hard to ensure this interim period is as least disruptive as possible, whilst satisfying current safety and regulatory requirements.
More information
Subscribe (https://updates.communication.casa.gov.au/link/id/zzzz5e8be6cb3fa5c283P/page.html?prompt=1) to our Consultation and rule-making mailing list to receive an alert when consultation opens.

[johnobr]

As a further brief update, I'm again pleased to report that good progress is continuing to be made. CASA have recently established a Colour Vision Technical Working Group (TWG) which supports the work of their Aviation Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP). The TWG has already met twice in the past fortnight and is represented by a number of industry experts, including CVDPA.

The TWG has been considering and providing advice and industry sector recommendations into documentation, including a draft legislative instrument and flight examiner handbook appendix, which will form the basis of the new third tier operational testing under CASR 67.150 (6)(c).

We expect more information to be published publicly soon, but in the meantime CVD pilots should take some comfort in knowing that things seem to be finally headed in the right direction and a favourable outcome should be achieved in the near future. The objective still remains to have this all resolved by the end of April.

Aviation medicine colour vision deficiency technical working group (https://www.casa.gov.au/about-us/who-we-work/aviation-safety-advisory-panel/technical-working-groups/aviation-medicine-colour-vision-deficiency-technical-working-group#Membership:)

The role of the aviation medicine colour vision deficiency (CVD) TWG is to:

ascertain the pathway forward for pilots with CVD and the appropriate tests to undertake
ensure the implementation of an Operational Colour Vision Assessment (OCVA) that is fit for purpose and has been assessed to standard.

Membership:

Dr Jeremy Robertson
John O’Brien
Matt Handley
Steve Cornell
Lex Garriock
Ray Cronin
Dr Adrian Smith

[Sandy Reith]

Glad to hear that CASA is being dragged into the real world. Reminds of the advice that “the beatings will stop when morale improves.”

It should not be forgotten that all the angst and troubles for CVD pilots should never have happened in the first place.

And, if not for the dedicated work of a number of individuals, be sure that any real reforms would not happen if CASA was left to its own devices.

[johnobr]

*** Calling all CVDPA members, supporters and those in the aviation industry ***

CASA last week opened consultation on a proposed legislative instrument which will see the reinstatement of an operational test, to be renamed the Australian Operational Colour Vision Assessment (AOCVA). The passing of this assessment will result in a clean medical with no CVD related restrictions. CVDPA supports this position and we strongly encourage all our members and supporters to take a few minutes to submit similar feedback via the link below so that we can ensure this issue is resolved ASAP.

This is off the back of over 2 years of significant uncertainty for both current and prospective pilots with CVD.

Join us also tomorrow night (Wed 3 April) at 8.30pm AEDT for a live webcast as we unpack the proposed legislative instrument and discuss how to be involved in the consultation process.

https://www.youtube.com/live/O3704P-tV14?si=Il2BP4Swjkpci0lY

https://consultation.casa.gov.au/regulatory-program/cd-2404fs/

Overview

Medical certification for pilots with colour vision deficiency requires an assessment against the medical standards in Part 67 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998 (CASR) using a series of tests.

A final determination as to whether a pilot meets the medical standard includes the opportunity to be assessed using an operational assessment. The process for this assessment requires a standardised approach to ensure the assessments are valid and reliable for a safe decision to be made.

We are inviting feedback on a proposal that seeks to formalise 2 testing options for colour vision deficient pilots who are not able to pass initial assessments of colour vision for their aviation medical certificate application.

Pilots will be able to choose either of the tests, depending on their individual circumstances and preferences.

The proposed tests are:

Australian Operational Colour Vision Assessment (AOCVA)
Colour Assessment and Diagnostic (CAD) test.

The option to use these tests recognises that many pilots with a colour vision deficiency can demonstrate they are able to operate safely without any medical or operational restrictions.

A pass in either of these proposed tests would satisfy the requirements of a Class 1 or Class 2 medical standard relating to colour vision and allow a medical certificate to be issued without any colour vision related restriction or endorsement.

Our aim is to confirm testing options for pilots by the end of April 2024 and for these to be formally prescribed in a legislative instrument.

An advance copy of the instrument is now available for review.

The instrument will provide certainty for medical examiners, flight examiners and CASA to support pilots with colour vision deficiency to understand and follow the processes for aviation medical certification.

We wish to thank the Aviation Medicine Colour Vision Technical Working Group (TWG), appointed by the Aviation Safety Advisory Panel (https://www.casa.gov.au/about-us/who-we-work/aviation-safety-advisory-panel/about-aviation-safety-advisory-panel), for their ongoing input and contribution to the development of a workable and fair draft policy proposal that improves outcomes for colour vision affected pilots.

Opportunity to comment

Your feedback will help us make sure the proposed requirements are suitable, the final instrument is clear and it will work as intended.

Please submit your comments using the survey link on this page.

If you are unable to provide feedback via the survey link, please email [email protected]?subject=Consultation%20-%20Colour%20vision%20deficiency%20testing%20process%20for%20 pilots%20-%20(CD%202404FS)for advice.

Documents for review

All documents related to this consultation are attached in the ‘Related’ section at the bottom of the overview page. They are:

Draft instrument - CASA xx/24 — Colour Vision Assessment Determination 2024
Schedules 1 and 2 - Colour Vision Assessment

What happens next

At the end of the response period, we will:

review all comments received
make responses publicly available on the consultation hub (unless you request your submission remain confidential)
provide an update through the Consultation Hub on any intended changes and next steps.

All comments received on the proposed instrument will be considered. Relevant feedback that improves upon the proposed instrument will be incorporated into the final instrument.

Material will be made available to support the implementation of the proposal including:

information and training material for flight examiners on how to assess the AOCVA
a new Clinical Practice Guideline explaining the assessment process to support medical practitioners
an update to the Flight Examiner Handbook to align with the policy.

[Sandy Reith]

Well done CVDPA for presenting your take on the progress to a fair operational test.

It would seem that a less intense test regarding the PAPI would be better and there’s obviously no reason to put a limiting number of tests that an applicant can take.

Hoping for the ‘set in concrete’ outcome.

[johnobr]

CVDPA has submitted it's formal response to the CASA consultation hub for the proposed instrument.

Overall our organisation supports the proposal and believes it represents the best opportunity to have this matter resolved as expeditiously as possible, by ensuring that a validly determined 'third tier' test which simulates an operational is once again available. Whilst we continue to assert that the CAD test should not be validly determined for this purpose, we've indicated we will not challenge this aspect further provided that the AOCVA remains available as an alternative and the passing of which results in the removal of all CVD related restrictions.

A replay of our webcast a few nights ago discussing the proposal is also available via our website (https://cvdpa.com/cvdpa-responds-to-casa-cvd-testing-consultation/).

We would again encourage all pilots to submit feedback via the CASA consultation hub so that we can ensure all voices are heard.

https://consultation.casa.gov.au/regulatory-program/cd-2404fs/

Consultation closes on 14 April 2024.