RAF Medical Question

[Ranger5]

Hi all,

At what stage will the RAF accept deterioration in eyesight once service has started as a pilot?? I.e, when will they issue glasses for flying rather than making you PMU ??? Does this affect aircraft types one can fly etc.?

Thanks

[L J R]

I believe once you are in (after the commencement of aircrew training), glasses may be worn on any type. What is actually happening to your eyesight will be the answer, not just the fact that you may need lenses.

There are some conditions that due to deterioration (mainly age) the corrections - although acceptable 'normally' are not acceptable to aircrew (eg Prism requirements, binocularity divergence and color perceptivness)

Don't quote me.

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by Ranger5

Hi all,
At what stage will the RAF accept deterioration in eyesight once service has started as a pilot??

Is there something you are not telling?

If your eyesight is good enough now why would you think it will not be good enough shortly after starting aircrew training?

L J R said

I believe once you are in (after the commencement of aircrew training), glasses may be worn on any type

but

Don't quote me.

.

The latter is possibly truer than the former. The day yoy start aircrew training you are only slightly more valuable than the man in the street, all you have done is passed IOT. Latter, when you have been taught enough to fly your deteriorating eyesight may make you unsuitable for a particular type. Why would we spend more money on you now? Latter still, when you are near wings you might be more valuable retaining but equally it may be an increased reason why you should be suspended. Once you have your wings, and 6-months qualification, then we are in a whole new ball game.

In short I would not bank on being retained for a medical problem that occurs during training and before OpQual

Don't quote me.

Like I said, what are you not telling?

[brit bus driver]

Spec-ulative....like it!

And indeed it is; I became a speccy tw@t during AFT with no repercussions. Was many moons ago now mind you.....

[Pontius Navigator]

VP, very true. There are obviously degrees of fitness and the very nature of medical confidence means that more often or not we are left in the dark.

I know of several medical discharges where the person was withdrawn from training, got fit to avoid compensation payments, and then discharged. As I said, that was what we saw but not necessarily the whole truth.

Like asthma, we never got shin splints in the 60s, by the 80s they were common and sometimes cause for discharge.

If someone young 'suddenly' had an eye problem then I think my speculative answer would not necessarily be inaccurate.

Is the underlying question - I am slightly colour blind but can pass the tests? Or I am slightly short sighted and need glasses for reading but I can just get by without etc?

I don't know about baby pilots but I knew lots of baby navs with glasses when they joined.

[transientdroop]

I always was a speccy tw*t

I cannot comment on current medical policy (I escaped 5 years ago!) but I joined in 1991 at age 18, completed IOT, BFT on the JP and got streamed rotory, and all the time wearing glasses.

I did a flying scholarship in sixth form and for the CAA medical they determined I was mildly short sighted and I have worn glasses ever since. Graduated on to flying with soft disposable contact lenses in the mid 90s.

Hope that helps.

Transient.

[SidHolding]

I got Pilot cross-over a few years ago from being an AEOp. I wear contact lenses every day and I'm cleared to do so for flying duties too (I have to carry corrective glases as a back-up though).

I know the selection criteria are different for DE's as opposed to serving aircrew on cross-over, but as transientdroop and myself prove is that you can wear galsses/contacts during flying training.

It's nearly 2007, don't listen to pompus old navigators banging on about the 60's.

All the best dude!!

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by VigilantPilot

That's pretty speculative PN. Also, latter = later?
I agree though, its an odd question and matter to be worried about.

No, latter meaning second and not at a different time. It referred to two statements by L J R of which the second, or latter, was, I believe, truer.

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by SidHolding

It's nearly 2007, don't listen to pompus old navigators banging on about the 60's.

Sid, I may be old but I am not pompous. The point made was not that you cannot join with defective, or correctable vision, nor that those with defective vision, already qualified, cannot continue flying or cross-over.

The point was that they seek the highest standards on entry and that a lower medical standard, everything else being equal, will put you behind a fully fit candidiate.

I did not express the medical degradation during training too clearly. If it is corrctable and not too serious then it will be corrected. Once qualified there will probably be more latitude given than someone who becomes crook just into training.

As I said before, exactly what is Ranger 5 worried about? If he has defective vision now then they will make a decision based on how defective it is. If he is anticipating defective vision sooner, rather than later, what form is anticipated?

[Ranger5]

Haha, sorry for the confusion/uproar. There is no underlying question, it was merely a matter of interest not a matter of concern. I knew a UAS stude who got nailed on the pre-iot medical for eyesight, they just gave him glasses...

I think every situation is probably different!

[PPRuNeUser0211]

Ranger, (speaking from fairly recent personal experience!) if they've spent any money on you, and then discover you need specs to correct (within a set of curves based on normal deterioration of eyesight with age, up to a maximum) then they'll just give you specs. If you turn up cold at OASC with any eyesight issues at all however, wouldnt count on getting in! (although I wouldnt bet against there having been exceptions to this in the past).I personally know two people who were discovered to be blind post IOT but pre EFT who both got given specs, and I got specs myself halfway through BFJT.

[Safety_Helmut]

You didn't manage to spot the sticky thread, intended for all things joining the RAF/OASC etc did you ? Your question must be too important for that.

Still it's another thread for some of the old crusties to spout on and tell us all about how it was in their day.

S_H

[Pontius Navigator]

SH, you didn't spot that this thread was 2 months old and Ranger5 was merely answering a question posed much earlier?