At about 1315 UTC on 18 JULY caught on 314.200 MHz VENOM flight (F-15C w the 125FW, Jacksonville FL) where 1 pilot




lost his contact lens.  
In the recording you can hear as he "troubleshoots" the problem.  He doesn't want to do an ILS with just 1 contact.  
The cabin air keeps blowing the contact off his finger & is drying out his eye.  
Wingman says they'll keep working on the problem until they are BINGO fuel....
Certainly not something you hear everyday...
clip courtesy of milaircomms.com
http://www.milaircomms.com/audio/071814-314200-lost-contact-lens.mp3
 
 
 

Hmm, I was always under the impression you couldn't fly if you needed corrective lenses. And corrective surgery was only allowable in certain situations...?

I was wondering the same thing.  I didn't think they could have corrective lenses.

You can wear contacts in fighter aircraft (I wear them), but you required to have a pair of AF issued glasses with you.  I keep an extra pair of glasses in my g-suit for situations just like this.  I've only had one situation where I lost a contact lense.  It was caused by my contact being dried out by the air vent blowing right on my eye.  I just put my glasses on and continued fighting, so as not to waste gas like these guys did.  

You are also able to get both PRK and LASIK to correct your eyes...i'm just too nervous to do so.  I also fly for the airlines so my eyes are my money makers!  I know it's extremely safe and proven but i'm still to nervous to risk it.

When in the hell did this change?



16 or so years ago I gave up chasing my dream of attending the Air Force Academy because they told me I couldn't fly due to my vision.  No correction allowed.



Bob Barr was going to sponsor me and he had friends on the board that handled the appointments.



 

Cycles with the needs of the services.  I know USN/USMC has had waivers long before I was in, I'd bet at least 16 years ago.

There was another pilot that lost something else that I heard a recording of that was much more embarrassing than a contact lens.

Times change and so do regulations, but...

When I was in the Navy (1980's), you were required to have 20/20 uncorrected vision to be selected for flight school.  But, once you earned your wings, wavers were available for aviators whose vision had degraded to less than 20/20 (within limits).  At that time, contacts were not allowed.

His bowels?

This has been the policy for the AF for many, many years.  Pilot training required 20/20 or better.    Afterwards corrected vision devices were acceptable.  Not sure about today however.    They started accepting contacts back in the mid to late 90's.   Not sure where the eye surgeries fit in now.   The initial way took some of the cornea which was not allowed for flyers.  I think they have better procedures now however.

yeah, Ive heard that recording as well. Shit happens I guess.



 

AF is somewhere around 20/70ish uncorrected to be considered for flight school.  It's been that way since at least the 2000s.  As long as you can wear glasses to be corrected to 20/20 you are fine.  Once you are done with pilot training, your eyes can go to shit, but as long as you can correct to 20/20 you are good to go.
PRK and lasik are fine.  There are a lot of people out there flying who've had one of those procedures.

Prior to May 2007, anyone who had undergone Lasik type corrective eye surgery was automatically disqualified from entering flight training. There were still two or three alternative procedures that existed at the time that were still deemed acceptable. after a brief study by the AF, the Lasik restriction and an accompanying 2 or 3 additional pilot restricitions were all eliminated after it was shown conclusively that Lasik surgeries did not provide any type of undue risk or danger to the pilots who were flying.



 

The best thing I ever did for my career was to get LASIK.

I've been in the right seat when the captain had the exact same issue.  His contact just popped out during cruise, and he spent 10 minutes trying to put it back in so it would stay.  He acted like he would be completely ineffective flying the airplane with one eye, and I wound up doing the landing even though it wasn't my leg, since by the time he got it in it was so dried out he couldn't see.  I was junior to him, so I couldn't come right out and ask him WTF he didn't carry a pair of glasses with him as a backup.

By then it had already changed, but when the FAA first began accepting contacts as approved corrective eyewear (mid-late 70's, I think) you were explicitly required to carry a pair of glasses on your person in case this very thing happened.  It seems that requirement disappeared sometime in the last ten years.


And before it gets brought up, as a general rule if your glasses and contacts are the same prescription, you should be able to see just fine with contacts on underneath, so it's not like he would have to dig the other one out.  The F-15 pilot should have just stuck his glasses on and rolled on, no big deal.  Instead he had to make a big fuss (maybe he wasn't carrying his glasses like he should have been) and will probably be asked some hard to answer questions by his squadron cmdr when he debriefs.