Visual requierments for pilots licence?

[singesavant]

hi I a poor french keratoconus affect and want to join a commercial helicopter pilot license in the US to begin and school.
Could you tell me more about the medical test, if they can detect our affection with a topographic test or if there is no?
I think with lenses I can get the good correction which is 20/20, but just afraid about that Keratoconus.
What append if they find it?

Thanks for answering and sorry if you ever talked about, english is not so easy for me...sorry for my poor english so!

[GarethB]

Welcome to the forum.

I do not know the US requirments for vision and pilots licence.

In the UK few opticieans have topography machines,but the hospitals do to detect keratoconus.

Before applying for your licence get fitted with lenses to ensure you can get good corrected vision as this will help with an application for the licence.

This link; Visual Requirements for jobs will take you to another post that has a link to an optometrists web site which you can search for the career you want and check the vusual requirments needed.

Hope this helps.

Gareth

[singesavant]

Thanhs, that's realy good for me, i'm disapointed.
thanks so much

[Matthew_]

Clever Monkey,
Eyesight requirements for aircrew are usually very high. You need to be able to see the instruments too which can a problem with some KC effects like halo effect and double vision.
Flying a helicopter also requires quite a lot turning around, checking in the vicinity of the aircraft prior to take off and landing. This might not be good for lenses. You will also encounter a great deal of direct sunlight too (ouch!)
Perhaps the soft KC lenses that Gareth uses for racing could be used?
Gareth's link will give you the straight answer. It will depend how bad your KC is, I think. I also would advise that you are honest about your KC! In the middle of a difficult landing will be too late to admit you cannot see that well, or that your lens is laying in the cockpit somewhere! I am not trying to put you off, you may have very mild KC and the lenses and good shades may be all you need. I had a little flying experience both fixed and rotary wing when I was younger and I would probably not try now I have KC. You might be very different but remember your life and others will be in the balance.
Good Luck

[Andrew MacLean]

singesavant

Welcome to the forum. All the best with your eye test.

Andrew

[singesavant]

thanks for your answering!
Well, sure It's hard for me to accept It, but I had two flightin chopers and there was no problems with my vision...
in my life I have a lot of "dangerous activities, I'm mountain guide, Ski instructor and foten arrive that I'm working without any eyes' correction, try to ski offpiste or ice climbing in thoses conditions, if you can't see you die.
Guiding client would apear as dangerous as piuloting for in thoce conditions,
And sincerly, I can attest there is no problems for me. I these situation how could you explain that I autorise to drive a car or a bus: potentialy dangerous, same way.
So the best solution is just to get us in a jail like that there would be no problems...

I don't what to be agresive at all, if I'm is just because of my bad english, be indulgent please.
Davy

[Matthew_]

Davy,
Sounds like you know what you are getting into. I didn't mean to preach, its just a potentially dangerous hobby that's all.
By the sounds of it you are well used to coping with KC in lots of different environments.
As you say, we must never give in to KC, we just have some extra responsibilities.
Good Luck, let us know how you get on.
Matthew

[piper]

/sorry for the reality check but for all the rest of us it will be better if you do not fly copters.......just as it is better if most of us don't drive. Further, why invest all the time and money necessary to get a rotary-wing ticket and in a year or two have to hang it up because you, like me, look at a light, be it a traffic light or heliport light, and see 35 or 50 of them, all grouped about? I stopped flying model airplanes because I didn't want to hurt one person with a three pound model.......think about flying a real copter, several million dollars and potentially hundreds of lives at stake.

Piper