Good evening all. When I was 14 all I wanted to do was fly. I knew I was a bit red/green colourblind but I didn't know that would be a limitation. One day I was at an RAF careers day. It seemed like the world was coming together. I knew I was too tall for fast jets but there was plenty of other interesting things to do in the sky. My grandfather flew Wellingtons and Lancasters during WW2 and it was his passion for aviation that had rubbed off on me... until the moment when the recruitment officer asked about my vision. My sister reminded me recently that I left the event in tears. My dream crushed because of some colored dots on a page.
Fast forward almost 40 years and I've just got my PPL and purchased my own airplane. Next is the IR(R) and then full IR.The more I think about the colour vision requirements for the night rating the less relevant it seems these days. Tools like ADSB and, actually, the instrument rating make perfect colour vision much less important.The old lantern test is deeply flawed which is why the CAA and City University, London came up with a computerised version. This test scores your colour vision on a scale of 1 (normal) to 20 (monochrome) along two axes: Red/Green and Blue/Yellow. A score of 6 or less is required for a night rating. I came out at 1.15 on Blue/Yellow and 7.05 on Red/Green when I did this test last year. So near and yet so far.
Good evening all. When I was 14 all I wanted to do was fly. I knew I was a bit red/green colourblind but I didn't know that would be a limitation. One day I was at an RAF careers day. It seemed like the world was coming together. I knew I was too tall for fast jets but there was plenty of other interesting things to do in the sky. My grandfather flew Wellingtons and Lancasters during WW2 and it was his passion for aviation that had rubbed off on me... until the moment when the recruitment officer asked about my vision. My sister reminded me recently that I left the event in tears. My dream crushed because of some colored dots on a page.
Fast forward almost 40 years and I've just got my PPL and purchased my own airplane. Next is the IR(R) and then full IR. The more I think about the colour vision requirements for the night rating the less relevant it seems these days. Tools like ADSB and, actually, the instrument rating make perfect colour vision much less important. The old lantern test is deeply flawed which is why the CAA and City University, London came up with a computerised version. This test scores your colour vision on a scale of 1 (normal) to 20 (monochrome) along two axes: Red/Green and Blue/Yellow. A score of 6 or less is required for a night rating. I came out at 1.15 on Blue/Yellow and 7.05 on Red/Green when I did this test last year. So near and yet so far.