Comments on: Study on How Color Blindness Affects Pilots

By: Randy Kelso

Randy Kelso — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 05:22:38 +0000

Perhaps the experience of a colorblind old man may help in some way. When I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1962 I was unable to see any numbers in the book with colored circles. The recruiter said that I could still be in the Navy but could not be in aviation or electronics. At boot camp graduation I received orders to aviation electronics school which I later graduated from with second highest honors. My experience in working all these decades in the field of electronics has been that I have little trouble reading color codes (carbon composition resistors, for instance) as long as the light is sufficiently bright. After the Navy I applied for an electronics job at a defense contractor’s plant. Their color test (in 1968) consisted of identifying the colors of 3 bows of knitting twine attached to a piece of cardboard, and the twine was dirty from long use. In the dim fluorescent light I answered incorrectly and was told to sit on a bench in the dimly lit hallway just outside the door. Soon a nurse approached and handed me a bundle of multi-colored wires and asked me to call off their colors. Seeing that my only hope of getting the job lay in a snow job, I grabbed each wire and rapid-fire started calling out any color I could think of, finishing in record time. I got the job and worked designing and testing electronic hardware there for more than 3 decades. My point is that the various kinds of colorblindness generally seem to respond well to bright colors under good incandescent light, but these colored dot tests consist of pastels which are rarely used to convey coded information. Most folks who have color vision deficiency understand this, but those with “normal” color vision just can’t imagine what we’re talking about. And therein lies the problem in getting realistic color vision tests.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:30:00 +0000

I am a colour deficient pilot.I cannot see any numbers except the first plate on the Ishiara 24 plate test.I can see all the colours in the cockpit without any problem.

I have been flying for 16 years and accumulated 12000 hours incident free.
At the moment I am a Capt on a Boeing 737-800.

I wish I could invite the authorties to the simulator to proof that colour vision requirements are nonsense!

By: iSaaC

iSaaC — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:20:43 +0000

Guys, check out “chromogen lens”. May be able to help colour deficiency. =)

By: Bernadette

Bernadette — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 23:16:13 +0000

Hi,
My son is awaiting an interview to be an apprentcie avionics engineer with cityjet.
He is colour deficient and i’m worried he won’t pass the medical, is it a requirement for avionics engineers to pass the test – he is planning on getting the chromagen lens – would it be accepted?

By: Kennan

Kennan — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:54:14 +0000

heres my email ad. k_seno@yahoo.com