Polarized Glasses

I wear lightly tinted, polarized prescription glasses when I fly my PG on brighter days (certainly not in the last 6 weeks let me tell you).

My question is: Are they safe?

I've heard that some people claim you can miss seeing power lines because of them. I personally have never had any problem seeing lines (barbed wire fences are another thing - saw it and landed on it). I'm told by an optometrist that the opposite is actually true - that thin vertical objects can under very specific circumstances be hard to discern.

I'm wondering if some of the anecdotal evidence is perhaps an attempt to deflect blame from pilot error.

I'm also told by my optometrist that polarized, tinted prescription glasses would undergo more rigorous quality control than assemblymen polarized sunglasses.

I've flown morning, noon, and early evening with my glasses. I've flown on bright cloudless days, inverted hazy days, cloudy unstable days, and have had no problem with them.

Anyone out there have any evidence of problems, or know of any technical reason for me not to use them? Just checking.

Ihor Trufyn - Vancouver, BC

If there was a problem flying with them, the FAA would have written up some FARs about using them by now..

Perhaps, there is something to this idea. If the tint was very dark and the iris dilated out real wide, you might experience some loss of depth-of-field. In other words, when your eyes are focused on your down tube, objects in the distance may be out of focus unless your iris is closed down tight. (Like it is when there is a lot of light hitting your eye).

When I was a kid, my 20-15 vision didn't always help me see barbed wire fences. (A lot of kids in Texas have a few scars from barbed wire). When rusted, they tend to blend right into the background. It's always a good idea to keep an eye out for the posts, And then look for the dang wires.

Maybe you could do a side-by-side comparison with regular tinted glasses? Do a little experiment, draw some black dots on a sheet of paper and pace off 100 yards and see if you can make out a 1/4',1/2' & 1' black dot. Then put on your clear glasses and see if there is any difference..

Put those same black dots on a gray piece of paper and watch the smaller ones disappear at 50 yards..

IMHO, there is a loss of resolution on days with low light. I know from shooting 1000 yard rifle matches that when it's hazy, your eyes just don't seem to work as well. I once went to a 200 yd rifle match where it was very difficult to see the target due to light ground fog. The iris on my sight wouldn't open up enough and a girl (Expert) took home the money using her match M-16 with plain iron sights.

I love Polaroids for trap shooting. They give me a nice sharp (high contras) view of the clay. The clays really glow when I use yellow glasses, but I can only wear them for a hour or two (on dim days)..

I think your'e wearing the right glasses..

Rich (near) Boston, MA

Yeah, here's a problem. You can't read your instruments if they have an LCD display. Crossed polarizers = black.

Consider circularly polarizing. This IS available, but you have to get them special. This will avoid some of the LCD problem and the horizontal power-line problems. However, visual acuity is proportional to the amount of light received. Suggestion: if you have doubts, remove the glasses and do a second scouting of the landingwithout them. Some thing resolve better with and some better without.

I just looked at 3 LCD clocks, 2 pulse meters, 1 calculator, 1 volt meter, a bearcat scanner and they all looked okay until I rotated the glasses 90 degrees. Then the displays went black. The only thing that I saw that was cross polarized was my Icom R8500 radio. It's back-light didn't help at all.

It's going to depend on the polarization of your glasses and instruments. Not too hard to test.. Cheers,

I know that at certain angles I can't view the LCD on my vario, but under normal conditions I have no problems. I don't spend a lot of time looking anyways, mostly I'm reacting to the audio signals.

Yeah - I find those orange filter blue-blockers make everything MUCH sharper, inc power wires, etc.

Much preferable to polarised, I think.

- Rod Buck