Originally Posted by
Kasserine06
If someone were to tell a specific reason/situation where stereo vision and only stereo vision will be required to judge distance, then I will admit defeat. The reason why I still believe I have a chance is because the specialists I have seen for the Air Force keep telling me that it is impossible for someone without stereo vision to land a plane even though I can. They are trying to tell me I have certain limitations even though they have no idea how I perceive the world and they are not be aware that you can still judge distance fine by only using one eye. I would rather deal with the people who have a say in making the standards and not the people who blindly enforce them. The last Air Force doctor who examined me literally laughed saying it is impossible to control an aircraft without stereo vision. I respect her opinion, but she has no idea what my capabilities are.
The private doctor I am seeing also said that passing stereo vision tests does not mean that your brain uses stereo vision all the time. Your brain might only use it during specific tests. That is what she is trying to teach me, to mentally “turn on” my stereo vision. Many people who have to take the different tests and pass may not be using both eyes while they fly. That is where I stand now. I can pass a few tests when I try, but when I am not taking those tests, my brain reverts back to mono vision.
If the goal of this test is to determine if I have the ability to safely land a plane (what every AF doctor has told me), then this needs to be reevaluated. If it is for other reasons, I would like to know. It is true that there may be an important reason for this, but if I am able to hook a banner line 8 feet off the ground, it seems by depth perception is adequate enough.
OK - then it must be symantics here that is partly confusing. You need to quite saying that you DO NOT have any depth perception.
The problem is that I know for sure that I have a depth perception problem and cannot pass any of the tests.
State instead that you can not pass ONE kind of depth perception test.
I personally can't pass the numbers test with the color vision - but I pass every other color test. I've also landed on an aircraft carrier at night using a system of colored lights - so I feel pretty safe about that. But if I were to say that I have NO COLOR VISION and CAN NOT pass any color vision test - then I would probably have no business doing such a thing.
Again - I don't know about just landing an airplane without color vision which it why I keep telling you that the type of flying that you are going to be doing in the military would be different than anything you have done in the civilian world to this point I'm willing to bet.
Don't get the idea that I am against you getting further tests and proving all those flight surgeons wrong. I've had my personal fill with flight surgeons just over the last three years (and almost a year of that med down for various reasons); but I'm also telling you that if you DON'T have adequate depth perception then I don't want you leading my formation to the tanker in bad weather while working the radar and listening to the two (or more comms) going on and then having to concentrate on making your two eyeballs work together while closing on another aircraft at a few hundred miles per hour at some point.
Best of luck Kasserine.
USMCFLYR