WWII PILOTS NEEDING GLASSES?

[BEAST]

I always thought that to be a pilot during WWII, you needed 20/20 uncorrected vision, in other words you couldn't wear glasses. Now I am reading about glider pilots that could wear glasses and I found that one of the B-24 pilots whose grouping that I have wore glasses and it is annotated on his physical.

 

Was there a different standard depending on the type of aircraft you flew? Could a fighter pilot wear glasses?

[Cobrahistorian]

I always thought that to be a pilot during WWII, you needed 20/20 uncorrected vision, in other words you couldn't wear glasses. Now I am reading about glider pilots that could wear glasses and I found that one of the B-24 pilots whose grouping that I have wore glasses and it is annotated on his physical.

 

Was there a different standard depending on the type of aircraft you flew? Could a fighter pilot wear glasses?

 

 

Erick,

 

I think the regs were similar to how they are now. You had to have 20/20 vision going into flight training, but if it degraded somewhat over time, you could still fly.

 

Jon

[BEAST]

Erick,

 

I think the regs were similar to how they are now. You had to have 20/20 vision going into flight training, but if it degraded somewhat over time, you could still fly.

 

Jon

 

Jon,

 

I think you are right. I re-read some of his letters from pre-flight (Spring 1943) and he had to have his eyes rechecked before he passed his physical. He was able to read the chart the second time through and was physically qulaified. By the time he left the states during the Summer of 1944, he was wearing glasses.

[316th FS 324th FG]

My grandfather had less than perfect eyesight and flew 83 combat missions in a P-47.

 

When he went in with a buddy to sign up, his buddy went first for the eye exam. My grandfather knew he was at risk so he gambled. He figured that the Army would be the Army, and likely only have one chart. So he listened to his buddy read the line he was asked to read and my grnadfather memorized it.

 

From that point forward, he repeated the line he had memorized. It wasnt until he got to the ETO 2 years later that he got found out when they asked him to read a diff chart. So he had to get glasses then.

[Aeredale]

In my experience in the Navy once you got through flight training you could rest a little easier on the annual flight physicals. They had a lot invested in you and if your eyes started to wander a bit later on you could still fly. I think it depended, however, on type of aircraft. I flew larger multi-engines so it wasn't a problem and I did see a few guys with glasses but I don't recall every seeing anyone flying jets with glasses. My guess is that the possibility of injury during ejection could be the problem. The thing I always sweated was the hearing tests. You would be grounded for failure and it always seemed difficult for me but, luckily, I always passed.

[VP_Association]

The 2P on my first crew in VP-8, LT Jim Warren, wore glasses. I was surprised by this as I had always thought you had to have perfect vision to be a naval aviator. He explained to me that his vision had deteriorated after he completed flight training and that he continued to fly on waivers. Since that time I saw a few other P-3 pilots who wore glasses.

[Cobrahistorian]

We've got a few guys in my battalion that wear glasses. I can certainly see it becoming necessary after thousands of hours of having a little TV strapped to your right eyeball. In the 5 years I've been flying the Apache there's definitely been a degradation in my right eye.

[BEAST]

Thanks folks for all of the comments. What about fighter pilots? Did they have tighter eye restrictions? During WWII or current day?

 

Looking through a 1919 copy of Air Service Medical", I do not see any distinction beng made on the type of pilot, pursuit, bomber, or LTA.

[m1ashooter]

I spent 11 years in SAC during the 80's. I saw many aircrew members wearing glass's. I also spent some time with a F16 wing and remember the Wing Commander wearing glass's while flying.

[F 106 Pilot]

I am a former USAF fighter pilot I took my original flight physical to see if I qualified for flight school. When I got to flight school they gave us another physical the first day. It was during that physical the guy behind me ask if I would speak loud so he could hear me do my vision test. I did and I later ask him why he told me his eye sight was 20/60 but he needed to get passed that test. He went the next week and requested that and eye doctor look him over. He came back with glasses and wore them the rest of flight training. Our paths crossed several times over our careers he flew fighters F 106, F4, F16 and maybe others he always told me he owed me a bunch. I flew with lots of pilots that wore glasses. The key was to be able to pass that first physical at pilot training after that they would work with you. I was lucky and had 20/10 vision which later deteriorated to 20/20 but never had to wear glasses to fly. I also agree with the other fellow that the hearing test was a bitch. Failed it once myself and had to retest. Ben

[BEAST]

Thanks again for all of the comments!

[Gregory]

Now I am reading about glider pilots that could wear glasses...

Interesting. The US Army required from the AAF glider pilot vision of at least 20/40, correctible to 20/20.

 

Regards

 

Gregory

[ithaca37]

A little off topic, but my father has almost no vision out of his right eye. He was disqualified from enlisting in the Navy in 1951. He was later drafted into the Army and they took him. He volunteered for Airborne School. You had to be 20/20 to pass. He memorized the eye chart as well and passed. He then served for the rest of his time in the army on parachute status. His vision is not correctible with glasses.

[Dave]

It could have been an eye check on a bad day too...I have 20/20 vision, but had my 5-year physical the same day my 2nd daughter was born. I had been up for about ~24 hours at that time and the eye chart was a bit blurry. So, I was forced to get glasses because I had a bad day! I never wore them though, but somewhere around here are my glasses...and I still have 20/20 vision as well...

[benguttery]

That is very interesting about the hearing test being tough. I don't think I know any military pilot that isn't a little deaf. Had one old fellow tell me he traded his hearing in to fly the F-51.

[VP_Association]

I too found the hearing test associated with my annual military flight physical to be worse than the vision tests. We took this test in a sound-proofed booth with several other people. The problem was that after spending a few years flying P-3s we all got a touch of tinitis or "ringing in the ears" from the engines and APUs (which were probably worse than the engines). The audiogram sounds were very high frequency whines that were difficult to distinguish from the "normal" background noise caused by the tinitis, which you normally didn't notice unless it was very quiet, like in that sound-proofed booth. You had to press a button to indicate that you heard the sound, which was often very low in volume and very short in duration. When you pressed the button to indicate that you heard the sound it made a fairly loud clicking noise. Most of the time us more experienced guys used to listen for the sounds of these buttons clicking and then we'd press our buttons when we heard other people pressing theirs. The system worked because I don't know anybody who ever failed their hearing tests. As an aside, everybody I ever flew in the Navy with says that they suffer to some degree of ringing in the ears. That's definately the case for me. In my left ear I hear a sound just like a P-3 APU. I've been told that hearing damage often affects the frequency range where the damage came from, and in my case it was apparently the exposure to high-frequency APU noise during pre-flight and post-flight checks that did it.