New EASA IR(A) and the solo NQ requirement
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Probably not, but once qualified, the pilot can then exercise the privileges at Night solo, even if his visual acuity is such that he can't see a thing. The medical restriction that causes this problem is surely there for Safety.
Not necessarily - if the medical is restricted to day time only that won't change so not legal to fly at night P1 after gaining IR, but if you meet the requirements as suggested to gain NQ and then IMC/EIR or any other IR then you can fly IMC during daylight hours legally. At the moment you cannot fly day imc without a night rating which is not very logical as you can fly day vfr
So my suggested route is to tick some boxes on a bull**** requirement not to permit anything perceived as dangerouse.
To get anywhere with the illogical regs at present you need to play the authorities at their own game and point out the idiocy of some iof the requirements.
Believe me I know !!
Not necessarily - if the medical is restricted to day time only that won't change so not legal to fly at night P1 after gaining IR, but if you meet the requirements as suggested to gain NQ and then IMC/EIR or any other IR then you can fly IMC during daylight hours legally. At the moment you cannot fly day imc without a night rating which is not very logical as you can fly day vfr
So my suggested route is to tick some boxes on a bull**** requirement not to permit anything perceived as dangerouse.
To get anywhere with the illogical regs at present you need to play the authorities at their own game and point out the idiocy of some iof the requirements.
Believe me I know !!
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At the moment you cannot fly day imc without a night rating
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You can with an IMC rating... Absolutely no night pre-req for that whatsoever. In fact I went PPL>IMC>NQ>CPL etc etc... all with restricted a restricted class 2 which I only uplifted to a class 1 for the CPL.
I'd be a bit cautious about using an online colour vision test. A lot depends on the type of monitor you have and its calibration. Paper Ishihara-type tests are very complex to print accurately and need about 7 or more different inks rather than the 4 used in ordinary CMYK printing.
The Ishihara plates most certainly do test colour vision, through testing the perception of patterns that you can only see if you have good colour vision (and a few where you can only see the pattern if you don't). It's useful 'cos it's cheap and if you pass it, you're very unlikely to have any deficit whatsoever with your colour vision. In the jargon, it has a very high negative predictive value. It doesn't tell you whether a colour vision deficit is serious enough to matter when flying, but it's a cheap way of telling the majority of people that they're in the clear. If we got rid of it and made everybody do the FM test (a very poor test, in my view) or Nagel anomaloscopy (takes a fair amount of skill to use accurately), it would probably add another £100 - £150 to the cost of a basic medical.
I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that people with defective colour vision could probably fly safely at night, but there are lots of points I could pick with the article that Peter posted.
For example:
There is no evidence that colour defective vision has ever been a factor in the cause of an accident in civil aviation, and as far as I can ascertain, in military aviation (the military are not as open to scrutiny as they ought to be).
Some of the issues that he mentions (e.g. cockpit light identification) could potentially be an issue during the day, but really what we're interested in here is night flying. If colour-anomalous people can't legally fly during the night in most places anyway, then we're unlikely to see many accidents at night that are due to defective colour vision.
People with good colour vision sometimes have midair collisions, but even if people with colour anomalous vision were much more likely to have midair collisions, in practice it would be impossible to find evidence for this. Simply put, it's unfair to ask people to prove the unprovable, and illogical to assume that because the unprovable hasn't been proved, it isn't true.
The author also seems to me to fail to properly address the issue of 'popout' in relation to collision avoidance. Popout is a phenomenon where your attention is drawn to something even if you weren't looking specifically for it. For example, if all the stars are white except for one red one, your eye will be drawn very strongly towards the red one - assuming you have normal colour vision.
As an example, imagine you're flying on a collision course towards a mast in a built-up environment full of other lights. Whilst it's quite correct that if you've identified the mast, parallax cues will tell you that you're going to hit it, if you haven't realised that you're flying towards a mast this cue isn't much good to you. And if it's lit by a fixed red light, it's likely to be much more apparent to a colour normal than a colour-anomalous pilott.
For people with severe protanopia, red lights can also appear much dimmer than for other people, which makes them less visible. I suspect this problem may worsen in the future if lighting is gradually changed from filtered incandescent to LED lighting, because red LEDs can produce a longer-wavelength red than incandescent bulbs.
I completely buy the argument that strobe lights probably pop out better than a red light, even for colour normal pilots. But the fact of the matter is that lots of obstructions are lit with fixed red lights, not strobes - perhaps because parallax is harder to estimate for strobes?
I've often wondered whether the solution could, in part, be to change aviation lighting slightly. I haven't thought about or looked into it in detail, but if we used a bluish-green light rather than a green, people with red-green deficits might be able to identify nav lights much more accurately (there could still be problems if looking directly at them). If we used a very deep orange rather than a long wavelength red, protanopes would find it considerably brighter. And if we put up at least one flashing beacon on radio masts, everybody would find them easier to detect.
Obviously this would take a while and cost a bit. In the meanwhile, why not simply accept that the collision risks of doing the night rating under radar, in good weather and along a known route with no obstructions should be miniscule. It would let lots of people get a CPL or restricted IR.
~~~~
I once went to a conference on colour vision in the USA. One of the exhibitors told me that in his state, colourblind people were not allowed to hold a commercial driving license 'which is part of the reason we have the safest roads in the world'.
The Ishihara plates most certainly do test colour vision, through testing the perception of patterns that you can only see if you have good colour vision (and a few where you can only see the pattern if you don't). It's useful 'cos it's cheap and if you pass it, you're very unlikely to have any deficit whatsoever with your colour vision. In the jargon, it has a very high negative predictive value. It doesn't tell you whether a colour vision deficit is serious enough to matter when flying, but it's a cheap way of telling the majority of people that they're in the clear. If we got rid of it and made everybody do the FM test (a very poor test, in my view) or Nagel anomaloscopy (takes a fair amount of skill to use accurately), it would probably add another £100 - £150 to the cost of a basic medical.
I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that people with defective colour vision could probably fly safely at night, but there are lots of points I could pick with the article that Peter posted.
For example:
There is no evidence that colour defective vision has ever been a factor in the cause of an accident in civil aviation, and as far as I can ascertain, in military aviation (the military are not as open to scrutiny as they ought to be).
Some of the issues that he mentions (e.g. cockpit light identification) could potentially be an issue during the day, but really what we're interested in here is night flying. If colour-anomalous people can't legally fly during the night in most places anyway, then we're unlikely to see many accidents at night that are due to defective colour vision.
People with good colour vision sometimes have midair collisions, but even if people with colour anomalous vision were much more likely to have midair collisions, in practice it would be impossible to find evidence for this. Simply put, it's unfair to ask people to prove the unprovable, and illogical to assume that because the unprovable hasn't been proved, it isn't true.
The author also seems to me to fail to properly address the issue of 'popout' in relation to collision avoidance. Popout is a phenomenon where your attention is drawn to something even if you weren't looking specifically for it. For example, if all the stars are white except for one red one, your eye will be drawn very strongly towards the red one - assuming you have normal colour vision.
As an example, imagine you're flying on a collision course towards a mast in a built-up environment full of other lights. Whilst it's quite correct that if you've identified the mast, parallax cues will tell you that you're going to hit it, if you haven't realised that you're flying towards a mast this cue isn't much good to you. And if it's lit by a fixed red light, it's likely to be much more apparent to a colour normal than a colour-anomalous pilott.
For people with severe protanopia, red lights can also appear much dimmer than for other people, which makes them less visible. I suspect this problem may worsen in the future if lighting is gradually changed from filtered incandescent to LED lighting, because red LEDs can produce a longer-wavelength red than incandescent bulbs.
I completely buy the argument that strobe lights probably pop out better than a red light, even for colour normal pilots. But the fact of the matter is that lots of obstructions are lit with fixed red lights, not strobes - perhaps because parallax is harder to estimate for strobes?
I've often wondered whether the solution could, in part, be to change aviation lighting slightly. I haven't thought about or looked into it in detail, but if we used a bluish-green light rather than a green, people with red-green deficits might be able to identify nav lights much more accurately (there could still be problems if looking directly at them). If we used a very deep orange rather than a long wavelength red, protanopes would find it considerably brighter. And if we put up at least one flashing beacon on radio masts, everybody would find them easier to detect.
Obviously this would take a while and cost a bit. In the meanwhile, why not simply accept that the collision risks of doing the night rating under radar, in good weather and along a known route with no obstructions should be miniscule. It would let lots of people get a CPL or restricted IR.
~~~~
I once went to a conference on colour vision in the USA. One of the exhibitors told me that in his state, colourblind people were not allowed to hold a commercial driving license 'which is part of the reason we have the safest roads in the world'.
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One of the exhibitors told me that in his state, colourblind people were not allowed to hold a commercial driving license 'which is part of the reason we have the safest roads in the world'.
Regarding the Pape paper, my recollection was that his principal drift was that CVD is not a safety issue if you assume that the pilot is competent to start with.
He is/was an ATP. I vaguely recall he sued the Australian CAA over this, and won, but the result was a sub-ICAO license concession which meant he could fly only in Australian airspace.
So the context is mainly IFR, plus a general level of competence. And this in turn means that the pilot should not be scud running an aircraft between towers with coloured lights on them, and he will spend most of his time in CAS where separation is provided by ATC radar.
On top of that, "everybody" knows that see-and-avoid is a lousy system, which the aviation business clings on to only because there are no easy technological work-arounds which work universally.
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One of the exhibitors told me that in his state, colourblind people were not allowed to hold a commercial driving license 'which is part of the reason we have the safest roads in the world'.
If you suddenly banned from the road anyone who had a clearn driving record for the past 10 years (out giving them a chance to go out an deliberatly crash) the roads would be a much safer place
Fewer cars=safer roads.
Not that such a policy is in any way sensible!
I'm fairly sure the comment wasn't tongue in cheek, though you never can tell.
Also heard of a Chinese student who was unable to study languages because she(!) was colourblind and therefore considered disabled and ineligible for higher education (colourblindness is primarily a Caucasian / North African thing).
I agree with Peter, that colour vision is likely to be most necessary for VFR pilots, and of relatively little utility for IFR pilots. So it seems you need good colour vision to qualify to do something where you won't really need it anyhow. Ouch.
Also heard of a Chinese student who was unable to study languages because she(!) was colourblind and therefore considered disabled and ineligible for higher education (colourblindness is primarily a Caucasian / North African thing).
I agree with Peter, that colour vision is likely to be most necessary for VFR pilots, and of relatively little utility for IFR pilots. So it seems you need good colour vision to qualify to do something where you won't really need it anyhow. Ouch.
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Not really much point getting into the Ishihara debacle. Check the threads on medical if you want warts and all. But to sum it up...
The usage instructions for the Ishihara tests state that 2 or less errors indicate no colour blindness (very common for people with no deficiency to fail a couple). However the CAA (and associated EuroTrash regulators) seem to think they know better than the inventor and have decided it within their remit to disregard the instructions for performing an established medical testing procedure and will shoot you if you get a single plate wrong.
The usage instructions for the Ishihara tests state that 2 or less errors indicate no colour blindness (very common for people with no deficiency to fail a couple). However the CAA (and associated EuroTrash regulators) seem to think they know better than the inventor and have decided it within their remit to disregard the instructions for performing an established medical testing procedure and will shoot you if you get a single plate wrong.
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I did not start this thread in the hope of it becoming another one of those discussing how screwed up the whole Eurocrat color vision policy is (because it is and any sensible person will recognize that) or which test is the best if you wan't a pass. I'd like this thread to be all about beating the regulators at their own game, about how to cleverly, but legally, find a way to obtain an instrument rating with a class 2 medical restriction reading "Valid by day only".
So far it seems that three options still hold it together:
So far it seems that three options still hold it together:
- The EIR. Easy and might be worth waiting for but has the handicap of a no approach, no departure policy.
- The dutch route. Clever, but some evidence suggests it will not fly with national CAAs outside the netherlands.
- The FAA conversion route. Seems it only requires a valid medical class 2 (doesn't say it can't have a restriction) together with an audiogram. The downside is that it's extremely costly and time consuming.
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For the "Dutch route" to work you would have to have a Dutch-issued JAR-FCL license. And you can only transfer your license onto the Dutch registration if you live in the Netherlands.
