Step 1: Complete!!

[beaky]

Finally got around to renewing my 3rd Class Medical today- and I am to be congratulated, as it appears I am fit to fly non-professionally in the United States, which is to say I am alive, and can see and hear.  ;D
A little bummed that my vision results were only 20/30... last time (2000) it was 20/20. Yes, I'm getting older, but the time before 2000 (my first FAA exam; 1997), my vision was recorded as 20/30. So who knows? If I spend less time here in front of this monitor and do more long-distance gazing to compensate for my typical workday of soldering, etc. in generally poor lighting conditions,and eat more carrots, the next time I renew it'll be back up to 20/20. Probably will get good results from ditching the cigarettes again, too... but one thing at a time...
Whatever- I'm just so damn happy!!!
Next step: get some non-owners insurance, then call the FBO I've selected to book some review dual and BFR. That'll be the first time I've flown in over two years... and it may happen this weekend!!! Psyched...

[notloste]

Congrats on being alive!  ;D
... and passing the medical too.  ;)
Maybe I'll get to fly someday....

I would like to share a little bit of advice regarding vision - I am by no means an eye doctor, just a teenager on summer vacation - but I genuinely believe that doing certain exercises will improve your vision.  If not, then they most certainly won't hurt anything.  So far  I have perfect vision and, who knows, without these exercises I might have been wearing glasses by now.  Oh, and did I mention that they are 3-D?  

First off, stereograms.  The images that look like a repeating pattern and contain a hidden image if you look at them the right way.  Here's one of a crown I made a while ago that should be easy to practice on.  To see it, you have to diverge your eyes (make them more parallel to each other) so that the two crosshairs in the middle blend into one.  It's hard to describe what this is like, but there are some guides that should help you do it:
Guide 1
Guide 2

And here are some good galleries:
http://www.eyetricks.com/3dstereo.htm
http://www.magiceye.com/3dfun/stwkdisp.shtml
http://www.aolej.com/stereo/gallery2.html

There's also stereo pairs - photographs of the same thing taken from slightly different positions, just like a person's eyes. Here are a few examples.  The first three are parallel - you have to view them much the same way as stereograms, your left eye looking at the left image, and right eye - right image.  The last three are cross eyed - your left eye has to be looking at the right image and vice versa.

After years of looking at these things, I have become quite proficient (I can accommodate my eyes at will - make everything blurry or clear without changing the subject I'm looking at,) and I think this proficiency is doing a great deal in maintaining perfect vision.  I hope this will help you as well.

Whew, sorry about the long post - couldn't help myself

[Hagar]

A little bummed that my vision results were only 20/30... last time (2000) it was 20/20. Yes, I'm getting older, but the time before 2000 (my first FAA exam; 1997), my vision was recorded as 20/30.

I've been a tad suspicious of eye tests since failing one when renewing my Student Pilot's Licence many years ago. This was the real cause of me taking up engineering instead of pursuing my career as a flying instructor.*

The problem with eye tests is that the results depend on what the patient tells the optician. They can't see through your eyes so they rely on what you tell them. Now, I was a young lad not used to taking these tests. I was keen to pass & naively told the optician what I thought I was supposed to see rather than what I actually saw. He failed me as being half-blind & colour blind & submitted a copy of the report to the authorities. There was nothing I could do about it although I knew this was completely wrong which has been proved many times since. I still have pretty good eyesight. I found out later that this optician was anti-flying & I suspect he failed me deliberately.

*PS. I have no regrets but I've never told anyone this before.

[beaky]

Thanks for the comments...
Notloste: my favorite eye exercise is just gazing (not staring) into the distance in good light; the stereogram workout is probably not for me, as my eye fatigue is always associated with close-up viewing for long periods. And it makes sense that if you want to improve your distance viewing, you should encourage your eyes to focus distantly... but I'll check out those links.

Hagar: I'll tell you, I was so frustrated this time because on several of the charts, I could read the bottom line OK except for maybe one letter. It was maddening. I might have done better if I'd taken more time the last few weeks for my "gazing workout", but things have been crazy, and I wanted to get this damn physical overwith.
Funny you should mention "anti-flying" doctors: This doc mentioned to me that he was afraid to fly (I think he meant solo, not as a passenger). But no, he didn't administer the eye test- that was his assistant.
Back to you for a sec: Can't you still fly commercially in the UK if you wear "specs" or contacts?

[Hagar]

Back to you for a sec: Can't you still fly commercially in the UK if you wear "specs" or contacts?

That's no problem but I was young & didn't even need specs at the time. There was nothing wrong with my eyesight & I didn't need them until I was in my 30s. That's what was so darned annoying but he gave me such a bad report I didn't think to ask for a second opinion. (My doctor had fiddled my previous eye test as I told him the licence was only for taxying which was true at the time.) Ah well, it was over & done with a long time ago but certainly changed my whole life. I sometimes wonder what I would be doing now if it hadn't been for that darned anti-flying optician.

As I said, things worked out & I have no regrets. There weren't too many flying jobs around at the time so it was probably for the best.

[C]

Back to you for a sec: Can't you still fly commercially in the UK if you wear "specs" or contacts?

You can - I've seen several commercial pilots with specs - and put this way, you can fly in the RAF in the UK wearing glasses, your eyesight just needs to be perfect until the day you join the service, and lots of RAF people then go on to fly commercially afterwards too...

My annual medical's next month - fingers crossed...

[TacitBlue]

Hey Doug, did that completely stop you from flying? or did you pick it up again later?

Also, it blows my mind that someone could be so against flying as to try and stop someone else from doing it.  :-/

[Hagar]

Hey Doug, did that completely stop you from flying? or did you pick it up again later?

Unfortunately I gave it up completely. I was being given free instruction to make up for the poor wages & long hours. Very nice but you can't exist on flying lessons & I had very little free time. When I changed my job it would have been impossible to continue although the pay was slightly better. I also had other interests like any young man.

Also, it blows my mind that someone could be so against flying as to try and stop someone else from doing it.  :-/

It was as much my fault as his. I was very naive in those days. It was a Catch 22 situation as I was afraid the authorities would smell a rat & investigate my earlier fiddle. I thought that going from perfect 20/20 vision to half blind (& colour blind to boot) in one year would have looked a tad suspicious.

I found out later that he lived close to the airport & was always complaining about the noise. Nothing new there then.