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Army Class 3 flight phsyical waiver???

M

MrFreakinKite

New Member
I'm currently a freshman in college, and my lifelong dream (since I was like 5) was to be a naval aviator. I'm currently a freshman in college, and I've been working with the local OSO to see if I could do it in the Marine Corps. My eyesight is horrible, and I knew that I had to get PRK... I went to MEPS last Thursday, and found out that my eyesight is SO horrible that I can't even qualify even if I get PRK (-8.25 diopters in my right eye). The lady at the OSO office kind of laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a pilot....

So after being bummed for a few hours, I said "Fuggit, I'll go enlist and fly UAVs in the Army after I finish this semester." I've been in the process of doing all of that, and I found out through some research that I need to pass a class 3 flight physical to be able to fly UAVs.... which has something like a no more than 3 diopters of astigmatism (which I'm pretty sure I'm over).

Does anybody out there know if they give waivers for that kind of shit in the Army? If not, whatever, I'll go be a machinist or something, but after about 45 minutes of googling/yahooing I found NOTHING.
 
CWJones411

CWJones411

IRR
MrFreakinKite said:
I'm currently a freshman in college, and my lifelong dream (since I was like 5) was to be a naval aviator. I'm currently a freshman in college, and I've been working with the local OSO to see if I could do it in the Marine Corps. My eyesight is horrible,
Click to expand...

I'll say.. ;)

Sorry, I can't help you. Just nitpicking
 
Calculon

Calculon

It's Calculon! Hit the deck!
MrFreakinKite said:
My eyesight is horrible, and I knew that I had to get PRK... I went to MEPS last Thursday, and found out that my eyesight is SO horrible that I can't even qualify even if I get PRK (-8.25 diopters in my right eye).
Click to expand...

There's your problem... you went to MEPS and used their results. Not saying that MEPS is going to be wrong in your case, but they're wrong the vast majority of the time.

With your vision that bad, go see an optometrist or an ophthalmologist (eye doctor) and get your results. MEPS doesn't have the time, equipment or training to do a full eye exam for your refractive error and thus relies on machines. You might be surprised and find that your eye's will fall into the range for PRK.

The medical guys are much more likely to trust a board-certified eye doctor with years of experience over what's likely a technician operating an out of date machine, hence the reason why you get a full flight physical even after going through MEPS

Not sure about the rest of your post with the Army, they have different regulations from the Navy and Marines

edit: Also, astigmatism, while it can be factored into your total spherical equivalent diopters, isn't the same as your spherical component (the myopia and hyperopia part). So you can damn well be myopic with a -8.25 diopters error and have perfectly spherical eyes and have no astigmatism.
 
M

MrFreakinKite

New Member
Well I DO have astigmatism... pretty badly.

After I went to MEPS, they sent me to a doctor down the street to get my eyes looked at. His results were the ones they went by (I think...). However, I do plan to go see my optometrist.

Anyways, does anyone know if Army gives waivers for eyesight on a class 3 physical? I don't understand the logic of needing really good eyesight to use a computer screen effectively... fucking bureaucrats. Oh well, I guess that's life.
 
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