Sunglasses

[Pilotdom]

I have the espresso version. They are better for flying with in my opinion. In bright sunshine thet are excellent, and in poor light conditions they seem to give better clarity through the lens.

[hugh flung_dung]

If you want them to improve your ability to spot targets in hazy conditions you want something that blocks blue light, that means orange or tan. Pretty obviously the worst colour for aviation use would be blue.
I have a pair of Serengeti Pilots with a tan drivers gradient - excellent for spotting other aircraft and very little colour distortion. Initially I didn't like the wire frame but it was fine once I formed it to fit my head/ears; there's no chance of them falling off in neg g and they don't affect the effectiveness of the earcup seal.
Cheapest place I found was http://www.sunglassescheaper.com - good service and a good price.

HFD

[hatzflyer]

Ray Bans were almost universal a few years back,but I stopped wearing them after watching a documentary on the TV.
The parent company that own(ed?) ray ban were formost a cosmetic company and single handedly wiped out an entire species of monkeys to use for testing .The scenes were horrific, large groups of monkeys were trapped and only the ones of certain age were taken to be used,the others being clubbed to death or the old/injured ones just being left to die.

[Pace]

just a word of warning

They look interesting, especially to someone like me who needs corrective lenses. I can imagine them to be great in a soaring situation - but how are they in a cockpit ? Reason I ask is the huge difference in light between outside and inside (i.e. instrument panel). I fly with graduated glasses for this reason, but these, of course, are not interchangeable

I went for a medical and was told by my AME that I had to use glasses for flying. Off to the eye specialists and they said no your vision is fine maybe a tiny fraction for poor light reading but hey the AME is the boss.

No way did I want to wear glasses so had the glasses tinted so they looked like sunglasses.

Back to the AME and out comes the book for the colour test "failed" !
But How can I fail as I have had loads of colour tests over the years without a problem.

Then it struck me! Put on blue glasses look at yellow and you will see green etc. I protested. " You have to wear the prescription glasses for the eye tests". was his reply.

That was it " so every pilot wearing sunglasses is colour blind and hence illegal" ?

The Ame stuck to his guns, I had to go and buy a pair of clear glasses resit the test before he would issue my medical.

I was livid as I had to buy a third set of glasses when my eye specialists said I didnt need them anyway and that medical cost me a fortune.

I never used that AME again but beware.

Pace