There was a plot point in a film about requirements for being a military pilot, one of them being not having color-blindness. Is this true? Does it extend to commercial and private flying? I’ve also heard that commercial pilots have to have natural 20/20 vision. Is this true? I know that color blindness and wearing glasses doesn’t affect driving, so why should either matter for flying?
Military pilots have a lot more instruments & gauges to watch than private or even commercial pilots do. To make this easier, many of these are color-coded, with the indicators turning yellow or red to indicate warning or danger. Some are even just banks of indicator lights, that change color like this. So the pilot can just glance at them, see that ‘the whole board’s green’ and know that all those systems are OK.
So obviously a color blind military pilot would be at a disadvantage.
But for private or commercial pilots, this would not be a big issue. I don’t see why a color blind person couldn’t function as a pilot in such cases.
Even little Cessnas have a green light on one side and red light on the other. If you see a plane in the distance you can easily tell whether it’s heading toward you or away. Red/Green color blindness would be a disadvantage. Whether it’s disqualifying for private pilots I don’t recall.
It is not disqualifying (in the US anyway) but does require a special issuance of a medical certificate, not the normal one, meaning FAA Medical HQ has to sign it off. But once the condition is approved it doesn’t have to be brought up again, unlike most other medical situations, since colorblindness is inborn and can never get better or worse. At least that’s what a colorblind instructor pilot I know has told me.
Red/green distinction also matters for landing with no radio at a controlled field, since your clearance is provided via a red/green/white light gun. But if your colorblindness is the more typical blue/green type, and you show the medical examiner you can distinguish red and green, you’re good to go.
Colorblindness is in fact a big deal for all pilots.
(bolding mine)
These are the requirements for a First Class Airman Medical Certificate for a civil pilot in the US. This is the certificate required for airline and many charter pilots. The requirements for Second and Third class (essentially for private pilots) certificates are a bit less, but similar. I guess the colorblindness part is open to interpretation by the Aviation Medical Examiner (AME). They usually just show you a flashcards like this. I believe the visual acquity standards for the military are a bit more stringent, but you can still wear lenses.
Yep, I forgot to mention this. The form is a called a SODA, or Statement Of Demonstrated Ability. Basically, if for some reason you don’t meet the requirements for a medical certificate but you prove that the condition isn’t getting any worse and you can fly safely, you can still get a medical.
In keeping with the tradition that the Straight Dope has at least one of everything…
I am now standing up as the forum’s Official Colorblind Licensed Pilot (complete with SODA)
Let’s clear a few things up, shall we?
Yes.
To some extent - more on that later.
No.
In fact, since the US military accepted LASIK it’s not even true of the military pilots anymore, either. It gets a little complicated, but in a nutshell, when you enter military flight school you need 20/20 without a need for corrective lenses - whether you achieve that state naturally or through LASIK they don’t really care.
Commercial pilots in the US must have vision that corrects to 20/20 - but it can be any degree of deficient without corrective lenses provided you can achieve the required correction. Private pilots must correct to 20/40.
Because flight uses color signals in a different manner than driving does, and often with fewer environmental cues to assist the colorblind. For example, a standard vertical traffic light always has green on the bottom and red on top. Even if you can’t see the color, you can tell by it’s position what you are being told to do. Colored signals in flight do not have such fixed 3-D references. You really do need to know what the colors are.
Up to a point you are correct. The actual restriction put on the license is “no night flying or flight by colored light signals”. So, prior to a SODA being obtained, the pilot could perform any duty outside of those requirements, including obtaining an instrument rating and a commercial license. This would limit employment opportunities for a commercial colorblind pilot, but if you were working as, say, a crop duster this may not be an insurmountable obstacle.
In reality, even those of us with no career ambitions but who are colorblind try to get a SODA to lift the restrictions.
Incorrect, sir - it’s an ordinary medical certificate with the restriction “no flying at night or by colored light signals” typed in the appropriate box. In my case, right above the restriction “must wear corrective lenses”. It is signed off by a regular AME.
The SODA test and certificate is issued by your local Flight Standard District Office or FSDO. In no case does FAA medical HQ need to get involved.
This is true.
Actually, red/green colorblindness is the most common variety. Just a slight nitpick.
However, while the colorblind state (when due to inborn factors) does not change over time, the degree of impairment varies from person to person, which is the rationale behind the Statement of Demonstrated Ability. So some people, for example, will not see green at all, while other do see green as a separate color, but it’s an off-green and it’s easily confused with other colors. So what you see as blue-green I might see as blue. What you see as a greenish brown or a browish green I perceive as simply brown. And so on. But a really bright, saturated green, like green plants, I have no trouble seeing as a separate and distinct color. The mechanism behind all this is interesting (well, at least to me) but throwing it into this point would make it way too long.
Here’s how the SODA test worked for me:
I drove out to the FSDO after making an appointment. A nice gentleman met me, took down my information, and ushered me into a room. He flashed lightgun signals at a white screen on the wall, telling me what the color was each time. He then drove me out to a spot on the airport withing sight of the control tower. Communicating with the tower via radio, he asked one of the controllers to flash their light gun at me. It went something like this:
flash
FSDO DUDE: “What color is that?”
ME: “White”
flash
FD: “What color is that?”
ME: “Red”
flash
FD: “What color is that?”
ME" "We’ve agreed to call that green
FD: “Congrats. You passed. Here’s your new certificate.”
Well, OK, we had to drive back to the FSDO office to get the certificate, which I now carry in my wallet next to the license, medical cert, and my government-issued photo ID. The “no night flying/no colored signals” line no longer appears on any of th those pieces of paper/plastic.
One of the appealing aspects of this system is that it’s all based on you demonstrating your ability to do something - they don’t care how you manage to distinguish the lights with your colorblind eyes, just that you can do so reliably.
For commercial pilots, the same test is conducted from the cockpit of an airplane in flight. If I were to upgrade to commercial, I’d have to retake the test while in flight.
The key point is this:
Note, that don’t say you have to perceive them correctly, just well enough to be a safe pilot.
In case you were wondering, FAA “green” appears blue to me. It is, however, a separate and distinct blue from other lights so that, for instance, I won’t confuse a light signal at night with taxiway lighting.
There are some unfortunate folks who are so colorblind as to be unable to pass the SODA test. Those folks do not have the restriction lifted.