Eng' Run-up/taxi. Medical Requirement ?
 

Can someone please enlighten me to the requirements medically for engine run up and or taxi by maintenenance Engineers ? JAA. FAA. Thanks in advance.

The only one I am aware of is that you can't do it if colour blind? Particularly Red/Green.

The airline I used to work for had no medical requirements, but you did have to be authorized for runs, and they stipulated between taxi and full power runs.

Almost sure there are no medical requirements.

Although not specifically for this case, following the guidelines in CAA AWN 47 would be prudent.


Regards


The Doc

It's usually down to the individual companys procedures, but would be interesting to see what the insurance company would say.

I have been ground running a variety of aircraft for 9 years with 2 different companies and used to taxy some prop a/c.

YES I am also colour blind especially red and green,I has never affected my capability to carry out ground runs.:D:ooh:

In a 'glass' cockpit it can be difficult to distinguish the difference between a red and green warning/memo/eicas msg, that's why our company introduced it. Because in a sim session one chap didn't spot a warning as he saw it as green when in fact it was red! Perhaps it should be introduced as a requirement!

Since when have warnings been green anyway.When warnings go off the master warning sounds depending upon the seriousness of the fault ie fire etc.The bloke must have been a wally if the master warning goes off and he thinks there's a green message and the problem is normal.
The only problem colour blind people might have is on system pages where valves etc are in disagreement I agree you may have problems but there is always someone around to ask colour if needed(pilot,cleaners other eng etc).

that's the point, when you are looking for something that is red and all you can see is green! does it, everytime?

Ok so no aurals!
If you see a ECAM or EICAS ie, "eng fire" or "apu fire" you should act on it if you see green or red, you should be reading the warning message that identifies a fault to confirm you are acting on the correct system or eng etc. As you are probably aware Ecam gives you actions to follow when faults like eng fire occurs.
If you dont have ecam/eicas, warning and caution annunciators show there is a fault whether the person see's red, amber, green or any other colour.

G'day

Engine run ups are not really my world, but colour vision defects don't generally affect the interpretation of simple red or green lights/indicators. The degree of greeness or redness maybe, but that is not usually important.

My understanding is that only a very small subset of colour defectives have a problem with telling red from green, despite it being commonly called red/green colour blindness.

Ever wonder why not many colour defective people drive through red lights?

Yes I am colour defective, and on my way to a PPL in OZ.

Cheers
Murray

At our company (U.S. carrier) you have to undertake an annual colour-blindness test and provide details of a sight test within the last 6 months. This is required when going for "bells and whistles" recurrency training in the sim. Apart from that no other medical requirements, just lots of multi-choice/cockpit identifier test papers!!

Thanks everyone for your input. Much appreciated.

Have been ground running various aircraft/engine types, with several companies, for over 20 years. Basically no special requirements, except being authorised on type and having appropriate simulator training for the task.
At one company I was at in the far east , they did an eye sight test for all authorised engineers. While the staff were sitting in the small waiting room, they memorised the test card that was being used... Eventually it was found out and further tests were carried out using a card with E's, at different angles on. Many required corrective lenses.

Flightmech;

Don't know what some people have against colour vision defects which have no bearing on performance:

"an annual colour-blindness test"


Pretty much, if you have a colour vision deficiency, you will always have. If you don't, you never will.

So maybe vision is tested, but it would be the only job in the world where colour vision was tested on going..

Dopey comments like that just add to the problems that people with minor colour defects experience.

Murray

Sorry but not so, on my last eye test I ask the man doing it, and he told me that there are a couple of conditions that occur that can actually cause a person who was previously ok to develope colour blindness.

Some emergency controls (certainly fuel shut-off in a lot of types I deal with) are specifically coloured red, and on most aircraft red/green is used for indicating limitation exceedence - particularly in this context on engine gauges. This isn't comparable to traffic lights, since a traffic light has red-amber-green in different places, an indicator in an aircraft often doesn't.

The Americans have a wonderful system for pilots called I think a "demonstration of ability" which could be used to bypass a red-green colourblindness problem (in other words, prove you can spot any fault or exceedence in the sim), but to disregard it as having "no bearing on performance" seems a bit foolhardy to me.

G

Bibmuzb

"Dopey comments like that just add to the problems that people with minor colour defects experience"

Sorry, but i am no doctor. Also, the reason i stated it was an "annual colour blindness test" is because when you go for recurrency training you are often mixed with mechs from other stations on initial training. To save confusion everyone gets the test regardless, thats it.

I would like to reply in a more aggressive fashion to your previous but will refrain as i suspect it wouldn't be worth it.