bunk22

What is his motivation? Is it from the top down where the AF wants to thin the pilot ranks due to money? It seems to me there isn't a huge issue with color defective pilots crashing planes. It is apparently zero but there must be a new test developed to weed it out even further? Doesn't make sense. How did you come into contact or work with this doc? I have one class remaining until I have to do my capstone project for my masters and I'm thinking about doing something on this subject.

LivingInMEM

Has nothing to do with top down trying to thin ranks out. How I got involved - I am in squadron leadership and have had to deal with this office due to over-zealousness when considering whether to grant waivers.

These guys think they are saving the USAF one pilot at a time every time they eliminate someone. I was told about how the USN uses the FALANT and it doesn't eliminate everyone with color deficiencies. I was told that, of everyone that passes the old PIP tests, 10% have failed the new tests. I was told a lot of things except for why they need to do all of this. Scratch that, I should say I was told nothing I considered valid. I was told over and over that the main reason was the new EFIS displays - I tried to explain that EFIS displays don't use varying gradients of the same color (they use different colors) and that all it would take is a functional eval in a sim or cockpit to rule in or out display interpretation difficulties. Basically, you sit a guy in a sim with an evaluator and Flt Doc and you say "what's this", "what's that", etc and you ensure that he/she can see everything. I was told of the FedEx crash when I pointed out that I knew of no USAF color deficiency related mishaps, but they refused to acknowledge the Capt's lack of color deficiency and they refused to acknowledge the role fatigue may have played.

Honestly, I think it comes to these guys trying to be heroes. They are medical personnel who work in the medical screening business and they can only be heroes (save the USAF / reduce risk) if they wash people out. They went to the CSAF level with these risk-reduction briefs saying that we can reduce risk by testing for this or that and the CSAF bought it. As I said, I saw one brief that went to the VCSAF and it was sophomoric at best - all it contained was simulations of what displays would look like to color deficient people and about 4 pages of opinions gathered from a 3 question survey that was given to crewmembers. In the entire brief, there was NOT ONE test where they put a color deficient person in the simulator or aircraft and operationally evaluated them. Additionally, NONE of the people surveyed had any color deficiencies.

KC10 FATboy

Typical Air Force and government outfit. It used to be run by a bunch of pilots who made common sense rules and regulations to get the mission done. Now, nobody really understands what the mission is. Nobody can do their job. And we've let every supporting AFSC dictate and build empires -- AFIs run amuck. Our own worst enemy isn't "the enemy" but rather our own kind who is "supporting the war fighter."

LivingInMEM

I have previously said that the medical guys who have this mindset are bad enough, and I don't understate that. However; the real failure is in the leadership that does not apply sanity to the situation. The med guys give their worst case risk predictions, but where it the other side to balance it out with real world ORM? That's a failure of the pilots that run the AF. Most of us recognize that overall ORM (the risk that counts) is more affected by competence and ability (more competence equals decreased risk) than it is by some ocular condition that COULD cause an eye issue in One in Ten Thousand people over a span of 10 years, etc. It's the AF leadership that should recognize that med side is just one input; instead, they take the raw med input and run with it.

bmather9

LivingInMEM, I have read your posts in this thread and I'm glad to hear that someone else knows of these problems. When I was DQed at Brooks I spoke with the same doctor you have mentioned. He is fanatical about color vision and it's importance in aviation. At first I argued with the medical side of the USAF, but quickly realized that no other doctor can overrule the guys at Brooks for color vision. So I decided to try for an exception to policy, which would have required the line side (pilots and other rated officers) to overrule the medical side. Unfortunately, they would barely listen to my side of the story and were too busy trying to make sure everything followed the AFI's. Now the USAF consider's me a cripple, due to a color vision deficiency that went undetected and was unknown to me for 24 years of my life. I am DQed from pilot, nav, ABM, spec ops, and even riding in any aircraft as a flight test engineer. I've tried making the argument, that they should look at the whole person concept, competence and ability, rather than just singularities discovered in the flight physical; I always get the same responses: "sorry, you don't meed the standard" or "we have plenty of qualified applicants, so the system is not broken".

All this has caused me to lose a great deal of respect for the USAF as a whole, in particular, the medical community that supports this, and the leadership that allows it to continue. My question is, can we fix this somehow?

KC10 FATboy

Have you called or written your local representatives? You could make the argument that they've spent a lot of money on you, and you can see just fine. You should be given the chance to prove yourself in the cockpit.

bmather9

I was stationed at Laughlin when it happened; so I wrote to 2 congressmen in Texas, and 2 in my home state of Virginia. 3 of the 4 ended up getting back to me with letters that all basically told me to take it up my chain of command through an exception to policy.

While trying for the exception to policy, a squadron commander actually sent me to the sim's for the T-6 and T-38 with an IP and had me identify the color over every little thing in the cockpit. Of course I had no issues at all.

thrust

"We"? Nope. "You"? Maybe. Really want to fix it? Go to medical school (the real M.D. kind, not that D.O. bull****), become an ophthalmologist with a research focus, and make it your pet project to prove the docs at Brooks wrong. Or, win powerball, contribute enough funds to attract attention from someone high up enough in Washington to give a ****, and get them to change the standards. Don't see either happening soon enough to get you through UPT, though.

Your kids/ grandkids, on the other hand, could benefit, assuming there is even a UPT to go to. Color vision is a sex-linked trait on the X chromosome, so you got it from your mom. Your sons will be good to go, unless of course their mom passes an X chromosome with color deficiency to them. Your daughters will be carriers at the minimum. So fight this stupid policy for your kids' sake.

FWIW, I completely agree that the color vision standards are ridiculous. Tons of qualified pilots who have always passed the PIP plates are going to find out for the first time in their lives that they are "color deficient" when they take this new computer test... fortunately for them they're already rated. Timing is everything.

bmather9

It's crazy but I've actually considered this; I guess spending 8 months at Laughlin after I was DQed started to get to me. During that time I got in contact with a vision scientist who wrote a really good paper for me arguing that it is unreasonable to DQ me. Download it here: Dr. Peter H Li.pdf

Too bad we'll probably have UAV's flying around more than pilots by the time my kids would be there. Maybe if I continue to be interested in vision science I'll get an M.D. someday, but I wouldn't do it just to fight USAF color vision regs. Any other ideas that might get me another shot at UPT?