Comments on: Unreliable Secondary Color Vision Tests for Pilot Candidates

By: Brett Mather

Brett Mather — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 01:26:10 +0000

Military Color Vision Regs will change, its just a matter of time: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3912/is_201002/ai_n52372967/

It’s hard to tell who will pass and who will not. There’s an online demo of the test mentioned: http://www.city.ac.uk/avrc/colourtest.html

By: Brett Mather

Brett Mather — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:48:54 +0000

I have been diagnosed with mild deuteranomaly and have been disqualified from USAF pilot training. I am currently working to get an exception to policy that would allow me to still go to pilot training, and I know how difficult this will be. But I need help with research for my exception to policy package. Today I came up with a simple but interesting idea and tried researching but was unable to find the information I need.

The idea is that since I have mild deuteranomaly, my M (green) cones are shifted a few nanometers towards the L (red) cones. I also know that many other factors can affect the color perception of people with normal color vision, such as the position of the sun in the sky, weather, hazy, cloudy, etc… So what I’m looking for is a measure of how much the position of the sun would affect the color of an object. I’d bet the bank on the sun shifting light wavelength more than my condition.

I’ve looked into color temperature a bit and found at dusk or dawn sunlight has a color temp of approx. 3200 K and at noon its around 6500 K. My problem is I’ve been unable to relate this change of 3200 K to 6500 K to a change in wavelength (nanometers).

Any information on how much the sun would affect color perception, or how many nanometers a person with mild deuteranomaly would be shifted would be greatly appreciated.

I can be contacted at: bmather9@gmail.com

By: erdem

erdem — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:54:09 +0000

thank you Daniel for yor comment. if i cant see them all, of course it is impossible to be a pilot ;)

but i think some flexibility must be needed for this tests. a few errors can be done.

i cant open the jar website. do you know requirements of jar related to ishihara test?

By: Daniel Flück

Daniel Flück — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:42:07 +0000

Erdem, the link you are pointing to is the most recent resource on this topic, at least as far as I know. Therefore you can believe what they are writing. Some errors are ok, but be prepared that your eye specialist will discuss it, if you don’t see them all.

By: erdem

erdem — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:32:18 +0000

In the article Unreliable Secondary Color Vision Tests for Pilot Candidates, it says “For the first color vision screening a set of 24 Ishihara plates are used. If you can identify the first 15 plates correctly without any hesitation you will pass the test.”

but it can be seen that some amount of errors are acceptible according to link below:

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/ame/guide/app_process/exam_tech/item52/amd/

ishihara pseudoisochromatic plates: Concise 14-plate edition: six or more errors on plates 1-11; the 24-plate edition: seven or more errors on plates 1-15; the 38-plate edition: nine or more errors on plates 1-21.

which one is correct? is it acceptible to make some amount of error?