Hey guys. I have a slight color vision defficiency which prevents me from passing the FAA physical with the standard Ishara plates. I can't pass the Farnsworth either, but I did pass the Keystone test (another alternate test they accpet) and the FAA is issuing me a waiver for that. I am wondering if there is any type of waiver for this in the Marines and if they will accept the FAA waiver. Is my dream of military aviation hopeless? Thanks,
Back in the day [mid 60's] the only job you could do in avation [poor color vision] was Safety and Survival. Ejection seats, lox systems, pressurization and air cond systems on aircraft. The aircraft coding was black and white. Another problem is color blind people have many more rods than cones in their eyes. Rods for black, white, and grays. Cones transmit color. When a color blind person goes from dark to very bright situations they go blind temporarily,much more that a color sighted person. Remember more rods.... whites are sharper....
But that was in the 60's, better have collage if you want to fly in the Corps....and color vision....
The need to Identify colors is still very important in avaition, every thing is color coded. I'm sure we can get a recruiter over here to give you the final answer, but I'm pretty sure it's a no go for Avaition.
Out of curiosity can you differentiate the different light gun signal colors? The only other suggestion that I can make is to talk with a flight surgeon that is in the military and see what they say about color blindness and military flying.
If you can't distinguish between red/green, then its hopeless. But on helos, there could always be a possibility you could day flights only, would they actually, that would be a command decision as a well as as a NOMI call.
