Your eyes can either be your Best Friend or your Enemy

Hey everyone! How are you guys ? Thanks for checking in to this blog. I have always been excited about interacting with all of you on my favorite topics. Well, I know I have been missing for couple of months from writing up blogs. I m sorry to do so as I was busy spending time with family and vacations. Thank you for those which had checking on me through social platforms and email. I m absolutely fine in health and doing just fine. :)

"Your eyes can either be your best friend or your enemy"

I have been receiving emails and messages from many of you related to eye power and its limitations. Many of you also asked whether is it 'OK' to wear a pair of glasses for flying. See, flying is an inherently visual activity and being able to see is a Pilot's most important sense. Being able to clearly see your surroundings and take in information during flight is fundamental to safe and fun flying.

For Pilots, it is very important to know whether they have normal uncorrected vision, nearsighted or farsighted. Suffering from any other visual problems should also be taken into consideration. Visual problems such as Myopia or Presbyopia usually starts for Pilots after the age of 45 +. Even some Pilots go through this visual problems in their younger years.

Medical check plays a big role for a Pilot 

All Pilots have to pass a visual examination to obtain their flight medicals as required by their country's Civil Aviation. The minimum requirements may differ depending on the class of medicals you need. I m very sure that all certified Pilots are familiar with optical aspects of their eyes.

Let us all get to our basic science knowledge that we had learnt during our schooling days. Light from an object enters the eye through the cornea and then continues through the pupil. This clearly shows that each of us has a refractive frames that enlarges and make us understand the image we see.

According to Dr. Tok Lee (a local optometrist), the sun is one of our very biggest enemies of good vision in the cockpit as it causes glare and adverse lighting causing uncomfortable or unclear vision. Thus, wearing high quality sunglasses can greatly improve your comfort and safety while in the cockpit. He also added that getting a sunglasses that have an anti-glare coating on the inner surface to keep light from reflecting off it and the lens should be distortion free. Qualities of good eye wear can only be found in reputable brands preferably dispensed by trained optometrists. 

 Fatigue and Color Blindness

Sleep deprivation or fatigue causes many sight problems and the inability to focus. According to "Pilot Vision" documentation, the common symptoms of visual fatigue includes blurred vision, excessive tearing, heavy eyelids, headaches, scratchy and dry eyes.

A color blindness test is another very important part of any visual examination. So far there isn't any cure for color vision deficiency. Color blindness are caused by congenital disease based on a corrupted chromosome. This affects more MEN then Women. Contrasting to popular belief, a lot of people suffering from color blindness can see variety of colors. Most of them suffers from red-green color blindness where blue, green, red and purple will be perceived as grey.

Annual eye exams are very important as they can reveal anything out of the ordinary soon enough to treat successfully. Being able to differentiate between different colors is very important for Pilots. Instruments and warning systems in the cockpit use color to convey information to the Pilots. Navigation lights on aeroplanes are used to determine the direction an aircraft is moving in. As many of us know, the red light is always on the left wing of an aircraft and green light is on the right wing of an aircraft. For Pilots flying during the night, it is essential to be able to differentiate between the two colors in order to derive the direction and tell if an aeroplane is coming or going away from them.

I strongly recommends aspiring Pilots to have green vegetables in their diet. Anything high in antioxidants and of course, carrots! (My Fav ones) :)

I guess that's all for now. Thank you ones again for checking into this blog. Your eye health depends on the right kind of glasses, sunglasses or contact lenses. Visiting your local optometrist regularly will help you keep your sight healthy and obviously enjoy your passion for flying and aviation for a longer time. :) 

Keep your questions coming in. Thank you and have a great day ahead dear aviators. 

- Rhevin Magendran -

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