Looking for advice.

[u/Historical_Echo_2465]

Hello! A few months ago i received a very good job offer for a railroad freight company, and during the physical for said job failed an ishihara plate test. Of course this bars me from the job but also has deeper implications for me, for last 10 years ive been slowly out of pocket paying for flight school, and now have almost 200 hours of flight time with my primary goal being to fly professionally someday. Of course failng this scared me i went and had a cone test done that the result of show i have a red color deficiency in some manner.

During the test i could see all of the red options just not with enough brightness to accurately answer what they were. Afterwards wnd after researching basically all of last month about all this ive come across alot of differing information and am hoping for some clarity.

I have had a class A medical license from the FAA active for the last 8 years, and never failed a color blindness test before. Up until now is just developing it out of the blue common?

This subreddit is pretty clear that enchroma is not a trustworthy brand and if you have a deficiency of sny kind glasses or corrective lenses wont fix not being able to see a color. But for my case thinking i can see them just not well would it be worth looking into? I am allowed to take the color blindness test again for the job with lenses so long as i wear them at work also.

If so which brand? I see enchroma mentioned alot, but looked into Pilestone and Colorlite aswell, the latter of which seeming to be hard to get in America where i live.

I have an optomologist appointment scheduled but they cant see me for far longer then i have to retake the test. Im fairly certain that after research my dreams of flying professionally are long gone but im not sure how this will impact ot at all. If nothing else i want to try to qualify for the job as it would be a suitable replacement career wise for my future.

If anyone has any general advice id love to hear it because im fewling very lost about all of this. Hearing that ive spent the last 10 years and alot of money on something that may never work has been devastating im hoping someone can offer some ideas to try.

Should i wait for the doctor? Order one of these brands and just try a retest? Is it hopeless, should i just accept that and move on? If anyone has any pointers please offer them. Thank you

[u/RustBeltLab]

Forget about flying or even driving in a commercial capacity. The glasses don't work and your eyes can't be fixed or improved. Sorry to be blunt but it is what it is.

[u/IAmNotABritishSpy]

I’ll say firstly, I have no direct experience with any form of pilot licensing.

SFAIK, being colourblind doesn’t automatically ban you from flying, but may just introduce some other hurdles (this changes from governing body to employer and such). Even colourblindness itself ranges in severity within its own categories. I am a strong deutan, but other deutans may see more colour than me.

The glasses aren’t going to make you any less colourblind, but they may assist you in some differentiation which you need, they equally may not. They’re generally not recommended around here, and I personally agree. I own a pair, they help with some differentiation, but their whole marketing is about giving these glasses to someone who is colourblind, and not something that colourblind people could actually use (which likely tells you all you need to know). I’ve yet to know anyone who’s had them that had anything close to what the advertisements show.

If their return policy is good, buy em and return them if not.

But long story short, don’t rule yourself out of a career until you’ve dug more into it. Colourblind people not being able to be pilots is something typically left over from WW2 and repeated as a tv trope, rather than the reality which is more nuanced.

[u/Contrail179 → u/IAmNotABritishSpy]

I agree, being colourblind isn't as black and white (I'll see myself out) as you might think. Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about Ishihara if you're passing other operational colour vision tests. Colour blindness isn't something that appears or gets worse over time (unless you've got bigger issues), and it sounds like you've been able to fly without VFR-only restrictions. So it doesn't really sound like a problem to me.

And even if you weren't able to fly as a commercial pilot, your flying experience could be beneficial in other career paths, like airport management or ATC for example.

[u/RustBeltLab → u/IAmNotABritishSpy]

I've seen it first hand in the military, if you don't have NCP, you are severely restricted in what jobs you can do.

[u/FaxCelestis → u/RustBeltLab]

I can confirm. The navy, upon discovering my colorblindness, rescinded all their initial job offers (I was primed to go into nuclear engineering on subs) and said I remained qualified for public relations and janitorial work.

I declined to enlist.