AirGuy
Member
That is one of the side effects of PRK. Others that are of concern are haze and dry eyes, especially since you have to wear that oxygen mask in the cockpit.
What do the "cheater" glasses do?
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USAF Pilot wearing glasses
- Thread starter AirGuy
- Start date
That is one of the side effects of PRK. Others that are of concern are haze and dry eyes, especially since you have to wear that oxygen mask in the cockpit.
What do the "cheater" glasses do?
Not sure what the O2 mask has to do with anything, as it should seal to your face (italics because the incompetent civilians at pensacola gear issue can't be trusted to do anything right, especially giving you the correct size of things) and not blow on your eyes.
Cheater glasses are basically just light prescription glasses that give your eyes an extra little boost for the slightly nearsighted folks in the house. I've also seen a lot of older guys (CAG types) who are probably farsighted who never wear glasses in the jet, but do when they have to read and sign some sort of document. Standard stuff that everyone goes through as they age. Suffice to say that glasses are not uncommon in the cockpit in military aviation.
To answer your question: yes, it is dumb that the issue of glasses is a criteria to enter flight training. It disqualifies a number of candidates that are probably a lot more qualified than me. I'm guessing it is a hold over from decades past.
I simply cheated on my commissioning eye test.
On week 1 of UPT, at the Flight Med brief, they basically said "we know a bunch of you probably cheated on your eye test, and need glasses. If you do, we will issue them to you, so let us know."
Being paranoid, I didn't trust them, and continued without glasses. When we got to T-38 formation about 7 months into training, I had a hard time seeing the T-38 6000' away from me, and figured I'd better get glasses if I was going to make it to my winging.
I simply cheated on my commissioning eye test.
On week 1 of UPT, at the Flight Med brief, they basically said "we know a bunch of you probably cheated on your eye test, and need glasses. If you do, we will issue them to you, so let us know."
Being paranoid, I didn't trust them, and continued without glasses. When we got to T-38 formation about 7 months into training, I had a hard time seeing the T-38 6000' away from me, and figured I'd better get glasses if I was going to make it to my winging.
Four eyes here. I got glasses in Primary but never wore them. It wasn't until I had trouble seeing the ball in Advanced that I started wearing them, but only during FCLP/CQ. Fast forward to the RAG, and I was having trouble maintaining sight during fighter weps. Started wearing the glasses again, but they'd smear and smudge and fog up during BFM, so I moved to contacts. I now wear contacts every flight. They're not quite as sharp as the glasses (they just barely make me 20/20) but they're way better for BFM and other dynamic flights.
Whatever you do, I suggest you be consistent in your glasses/contacts habit patterns. When I was a tweener, I wore my glasses on some flights and not on others. I found that I never wore them enough to get my brain used to how closure looked with the glasses on---and had a few terribly scary joins. I also noticed that if I didn't wear them for a few FCLP periods and then started wearing them, I'd overcontrol the jet. I went from being able to break out two-to-three ball deviations to one ball deviations, but I was instinctively using the same two-three ball power corrections. It got ugly.
Whatever you do, I suggest you be consistent in your glasses/contacts habit patterns. When I was a tweener, I wore my glasses on some flights and not on others. I found that I never wore them enough to get my brain used to how closure looked with the glasses on---and had a few terribly scary joins. I also noticed that if I didn't wear them for a few FCLP periods and then started wearing them, I'd overcontrol the jet. I went from being able to break out two-to-three ball deviations to one ball deviations, but I was instinctively using the same two-three ball power corrections. It got ugly.