thaway

I have a first class medical, and a permanent first class SODA. Good eye is correctable to 20/20. The other eye can only get 20/400, but I do have peripheral vision.

American Airlines pilot page says that each eye has to be correctable. Do they just put this because that's what's typically required to get a medical? Will I actually be disqualified from flying for American?

What if you get to AA via flow?

What majors will employ monocular pilots?

I never even considered this would be an issue, because I do have a first class medical with no limitations. Now I'm wondering if going to the regionals, with the goal of getting to the majors, was a mistake...

Clint

AA doesn't do any medical tests in addition to the FC1. If you can get a Class 1, it shouldn't be an issue.

QuagmireGiggity

I flew with two people at Eagle that were completely blind in one eye. I don't think they can legally discriminate. Although one guy said he got hired at SW back in the 80s. Went to class and they pulled him out and apologized because they didn't see it on his app. They told him he can't work there. He could probably go back and sue for back pay and all but just doesn't want to pursue it at this point.

Regionalsuck

There is an AA Captain that wears and eye patch. Just saw him the other day flying into DFW.

Richbv

I hope he is current on CAT2/3.... Meaning autoland...

Yoda2

OP, Research Frank Sanders, and his Sea Fury's. That might help bolster your case if necessary. He could fly better than most people with both eyes. (Frank eventually died in a plane crash, though it was not vision related)

rickair7777

You actually don't need binocular vision to do something you know how to do. Once you learn the "sight picture" monocular works vision fine.

You need binocular to do things you don't normally do.

sherpster

As an ex army ip i remember something about binocular vision only being important for depth perception to about 2 feet, after that it is all monocular cues. I vagualy remember an ancroynym for the monocular cues: GRAM and subsets like KITO, LVV, motion parallax. Point of this rambling post is that you dont need 2 eyes for depth perception or distance estimation. Google it, I am too lazy to provide an actual reference.

Excargodog

The problem wouldn't be the ABILITY to have good depth perception with monocular vision, the problem would be getting past the initial biases against you. Monocular people lack stereopsis, not depth perception,but in binocular people stereopsis does constitution a fair proportion of their depth perception cueing.

If I recall correctly, if someone loses vision in an eye (a pilot I knew with retinoblastoma comes to mind) the FAA didn't even consider a SODA until something like 6 months had passed, partly to assure the retinoblastoma wasn't coming back but mostly to give him time to adjust to the absence of stereopsis.

Still, with one word from the ops side, the HR people can come up with all sorts of plausible reasons not to hire you, as long as someone isn't foolish enough to tell you the REAL reason and trigger an ADA case.

FerMx

hi I flew in a regional for several years in mexico lost left eye here they cancelled my license now I am trying to recover my american comercial multi and instrument trhu a SODA