Air Force Pilot Eyesight

afrotc2022

afrotc2022

Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2017
Messages
73
Does anyone who's gone thru the AFROTC rated application process recently, or a flight surgeon (or anybody!) have any tips/words of wisdom on eyesight requirements? I have good eyesight except my right eye has a bit of astigmatism and is about 20/60 or so on a Snellen chart. Is that bad or okay for passing the medical quals? Is there anyway to prepare/improve my eyesight for the test?
 
I am potentially pilot qualified (ppq) and my vision is not 20/20. I too have very slight astigmatism. The reason that I'm ppq is because my vision is correctable to 20/20. So as long as you can get lasik or something and you vision can be corrected to 20/20, your good. Just don't go off and do lasik on your own. You have to keep your AFROTC cadre in the loop or else you may be disqualified.
 
PILOT
  • Normal color vision
  • Distant vision: uncorrected 20/200, but corrected to 20/20
    Near vision: uncorrected 20/40, but corrected to 20/20
    Note: Corrective eye surgery could be a disqualifier.
  • Meet refraction, accommodation and astigmatism requirements

So if your near vision is 20/40, it can be corrected with glasses and you will be fine. At 20/60, I think you would need Lasik. As previously mentioned, have it done in conjunction with ROTC so that it is all approved. Dont understand the 20/200 issue as that is only for people who are far sighted. As I nor anyone in my family has had to deal with being far sighted, dont have a clue
 
Writing this from my hotel room on Wright-Patt, here for my FCI Physical.

To your question about your eye sight, it seems like visual acuity (near and distant vision ie. 20/25) is not the biggest issue, you'll wear any glasses you have while you do many of the tests which won't affect any of your scores and you will still have the same ability to be qualified as the rest of us, this is what they mean by correctable to 20/20, so if you can wear glasses and correct your vision to 20/20 with glasses on these tests, then you're fine. I'm not sure if there is a line they draw at some point with near vision but according to Humey's post it seems like over 20/40 is bad. What really gets people is the little tiny issues with the shape and structure of their inner eye, all of the DQ's I've seen were from weird small issues that there is no way of knowing about ahead of time. Bottom line, there is no way to prepare for/know if you have one of these small auto DQ issues, so try your best not to worry about it.
 
eljay60 said:
I think he's saying his distance vision is 20/60 - that is usually when a Snellen chart is used. In which case, afrotc2022, you would make it through the preliminary screening.
Click to expand...

I looked this up and I think you are right. I cant imagine though that you are qualified at 20/200. That basically means the only letter you can read on the chart is the top row. Does that mean everyone who has had Lasik has even worse vision?
 
My eyesight was 20/1400 before my Lasek. Seriously. Broke the heart of my Air Force recruiter when I was a college graduate and did real well on the spatial relations/Navigator test. I think my numbers were like -9.75 on one eye and -10 in the other.
 
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