Missa
En-Route
Ok, So why can’t I seem to fly with my prescription glasses? Is it all in my head or does this have some medical biases?
I have an asymmetrical stigmatism that was uncorrected for 30 years. After getting regular headaches which aspirin had no affect on, starting behind my eyes, after working at the computer all day… the doctor said eye strain and the optometrist said I had only a slight nearsightedness in one eye but an asymmetrical stigmatism that could be causing the eye strain. I got the prescription for glasses and told that I could wear them or not wear them as I cared to, but I should wear them for three days straight to re-train my eyes to seeing the world the way everyone else did. I decided to try the glasses. Man, those three days were like walking through a carnival fun house. Everything slanted down and to the right. When I went shopping the first day I saw these really cool stools, they looks like standard wooden stools with a modern flair, the top was off set from the base. I wondered how they could be stable so walked up and touched one…BOOM… all of a sudden they were just regular stools… it was FREAKY. Slowly the funhouse effect when away and after the three days I really can’t see the difference between glasses on or glasses off (but now I only get headaches when I forget my glasses at home). In those three days I also learned not to look over or under the glasses and that glasses and showers don’t mix well. I now only wear my glasses in front of a computer or if my eyes are tired reading a book, but for nothing else. (I really hate the halo affect driving after dark).
But I digress…
When I first got my glasses I thought that my prescription glasses with the sun clips on would be great to fly in as I have the lightweight bendable titanium frames so they would not interfere with the headset. Where they were good for not interfering with my headset, after my instructor at the time adjusted the plane into what appeared to me to be a right wing low attitude I asked him what he was doing that for. He said he was leveling the wings (which is why he didn’t stay my instructor), I put the plane in “level” and asked if it was level to him… nope. I thought about it for a while and remembered back to the three ‘fun house’ days where things started looking right only after I gave myself some other input then just my sight. I figured that in the plane where I couldn’t touch the horizon I couldn’t get that other input to correct for my “corrected” vision.
Flash forward to this weekend when my sunglasses lost a screw. I didn’t have time to replace it and the only back-up sun glasses I had were my prescription sunglasses. I had an instrument lesson on Monday and figured since I trying to keep all the lines on the instruments lined up instead of keeping that distant horizon lined up it should be ok. But I couldn’t do it, I was all over the place and couldn’t keep the attitude indicator from rolling all over the place. My instructor therefore covered it… (hum first partial panel work) but I still had a LOT of trouble keeping my heading and altitude and was getting frustrated. I finally took off my glasses… and Melissa the decent instrument pilot magically returned (once the sun was kept out of my eyes with note pads binder clipped onto the visor).
So, Moral of the story… is there something going on here that explains why I can’t fly straight with my glasses on? My theory is that it deals with the inner ear inaccuracies, with only part time use of my glasses, the fact I’ve been compensating for the stigmatism for several years uncorrected and having no other way to discern which way is level… but how is that effecting me in instrument flight? My only concern is where I currently pass my medical w/o glasses, as I age if I become dependent on them to pass my medical, what good is it because I can’t seem to fly with them?
Missa
-wow, this is so much longer then I thought it was...
I have an asymmetrical stigmatism that was uncorrected for 30 years. After getting regular headaches which aspirin had no affect on, starting behind my eyes, after working at the computer all day… the doctor said eye strain and the optometrist said I had only a slight nearsightedness in one eye but an asymmetrical stigmatism that could be causing the eye strain. I got the prescription for glasses and told that I could wear them or not wear them as I cared to, but I should wear them for three days straight to re-train my eyes to seeing the world the way everyone else did. I decided to try the glasses. Man, those three days were like walking through a carnival fun house. Everything slanted down and to the right. When I went shopping the first day I saw these really cool stools, they looks like standard wooden stools with a modern flair, the top was off set from the base. I wondered how they could be stable so walked up and touched one…BOOM… all of a sudden they were just regular stools… it was FREAKY. Slowly the funhouse effect when away and after the three days I really can’t see the difference between glasses on or glasses off (but now I only get headaches when I forget my glasses at home). In those three days I also learned not to look over or under the glasses and that glasses and showers don’t mix well. I now only wear my glasses in front of a computer or if my eyes are tired reading a book, but for nothing else. (I really hate the halo affect driving after dark).
But I digress…
When I first got my glasses I thought that my prescription glasses with the sun clips on would be great to fly in as I have the lightweight bendable titanium frames so they would not interfere with the headset. Where they were good for not interfering with my headset, after my instructor at the time adjusted the plane into what appeared to me to be a right wing low attitude I asked him what he was doing that for. He said he was leveling the wings (which is why he didn’t stay my instructor), I put the plane in “level” and asked if it was level to him… nope. I thought about it for a while and remembered back to the three ‘fun house’ days where things started looking right only after I gave myself some other input then just my sight. I figured that in the plane where I couldn’t touch the horizon I couldn’t get that other input to correct for my “corrected” vision.
Flash forward to this weekend when my sunglasses lost a screw. I didn’t have time to replace it and the only back-up sun glasses I had were my prescription sunglasses. I had an instrument lesson on Monday and figured since I trying to keep all the lines on the instruments lined up instead of keeping that distant horizon lined up it should be ok. But I couldn’t do it, I was all over the place and couldn’t keep the attitude indicator from rolling all over the place. My instructor therefore covered it… (hum first partial panel work) but I still had a LOT of trouble keeping my heading and altitude and was getting frustrated. I finally took off my glasses… and Melissa the decent instrument pilot magically returned (once the sun was kept out of my eyes with note pads binder clipped onto the visor).
So, Moral of the story… is there something going on here that explains why I can’t fly straight with my glasses on? My theory is that it deals with the inner ear inaccuracies, with only part time use of my glasses, the fact I’ve been compensating for the stigmatism for several years uncorrected and having no other way to discern which way is level… but how is that effecting me in instrument flight? My only concern is where I currently pass my medical w/o glasses, as I age if I become dependent on them to pass my medical, what good is it because I can’t seem to fly with them?
Missa
-wow, this is so much longer then I thought it was...