Unfortunately I think many of you have the wrong impression of me. First of all, don't accuse me of signing up for the AF for the wrong reason. I'll admit to your diagnosis of Imabeapilotitis but you have to understand what happened to me. I have been ready to start pilot training, sitting at the UPT base for a month and just got DQed at a Brooks screening 7 days ago. All this after passing my FCI at Langley AFB previously, and having no clue that I am color deficient. I signed up knowing I may not get to be a pilot, and that then I'd try for Nav. Knowing I may not get Nav I hoped to try for CRO or STO. Knowing I may not get CRO or STO I hoped to try for a plethora of other jobs such as OSI, ABM, and my last hope was to use both of my Aerospace Engineering Majors (Bachelors and Masters) to be an engineer and someday be accepted to test pilot school as an engineer. Unfortunately I can't do any of those in the AF now except be an engineer with no hopes of going to test pilot school.
So here I am looking for help because my backups, backups, backup plan has been removed from my options. Forgive me for wanting excitement in my job by making it "action packed" but I really don't appreciate being mocked and ridiculed for it. I'll take whatever job in the military I am given and do it with pride but I contend that there is nothing wrong with trying to find something that I will enjoy more.
About the medical guidelines, as I said I never knew I had this condition and I passed the tests at my FCI. The AF has recently (2 weeks ago) put out new medical regs making the color vision tests more strict (12/14 instead of 10/14) and this is part of what got me DQed. It sounds like most of you haven't done much reading on the subject but there are numerous accounts of colorblind pilots that were allowed to continue flying. Everyone assumes my color vision is worse than a normal person's, but in reality there are colors I can see that you can't. So the words blind, defect, or deficient don't describe it well at all. This paper is full of arguments that could be used for loosening the standards on color vision to include better night vision, able to see quick movements, and better camouflage detection (
http://www.sotos.com/writings/deutan_mission_specialists.pdf)
All that aside, the Navy/Marines do have drastically different tests from the USAF. In fact they only have one test in common the PIP1. The USAF then uses the PIP2, PIP3, F2 plate, Farnsworth D-15, and an anomaloscope. The Navy/Marines only use the PIP1 and the FALANT as a secondary if the PIP1 is failed. I am able to get 12/14 (multiple times) on PIP1 which is passing but all the other USAF tests were failed.
So in the future please try to understand the situation of someone who posts on this forum before you begin to provide false information, ridicule, and talk down to them.
