Sunglasses and Perspective

F

FL410

New Member
Has anyone noticed sunglasses slightly change your perspective/peripheral vision while flying? Specifically on landing.
 
Yeah certain sunglasses do...I've noticed it a lot since I live in Arizona and while I was instrucing I was wearing my shades pretty much sunrise to sunset. The clouds would roll in and I'd have to demonstrate a landing and I'd prang one in.

There's golfing sunglasses out there that completely eliminate all lens curvature error apparently...not sure if they have the same for pilots...except maybe aviator sunglasses...but I'd rather bang one in every now and then, rather than wearing goofy sunglasses.
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Serengeti's are designed to be "optically correct" in order to eliminate distance/distortion problems.
 
Try it with my coke-bottles sometime!
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I wear contacts when I fly for that very reason; things seems further away when I wear my glasses than they do with my contacts.

Regarding sunglasses, some are better than others. I've heard Oakleys get top marks for least optical distortion, too.
 
Never noticed a difference wearing my Serengeti's or just plain ole contacts. Although, it could be a good excuse for a slammed down landing.....
 
I have some cheap ones, so that might be why. I notice that whenever I have my sunglasses off everything seems more "natural" and my flying is better, so maybe I'll look into something else.
 
Oakleys are also optically correct, and a little cheaper I think. I have polarized oakley fives. Does anyone, specifically you guys that fly glass cockpits, have any troble with polarized lenses. I just hope I didn't waste 70 dollars on glasses I'm going to have trouble with later. I think cessna is the only one that uses tinting that isn't freindly to polarized lenses.

Once you go polarized everything else just sucks.

Tom
 
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I have some cheap ones, so that might be why. I notice that whenever I have my sunglasses off everything seems more "natural" and my flying is better, so maybe I'll look into something else.

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Same feeling here, I feel almost as if it's harder to concentrate when I'm wearing sunglasses. So most of the time, I just don't wear 'em
 
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Has anyone noticed sunglasses slightly change your perspective/peripheral vision while flying? Specifically on landing.

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Only on the hard landings! At least thats what I tell the pax. That or Windshear works too /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I have noticed polarized makes the Garmin GPS moveing map dark and hard to see for some reason. At some angles you cant even see the screen, but when you take the glasses off its as clear as can be!
 
I know polarized lenses REALLY screw up with the tinting in my car. I start to see rainbows and stuff.

Got some real nasty ROY G BIV stuff goin' on!!!
 
Nope, haven't noticed the change in perspective. I've got the Smith sunglasses that are designed for use in sports, and they do the job just fine.
 
Sometimes I like to tilt the glasses so everything's way distorted and land that way. . . makes me feel like I'm landing a Jumbo Jet!! sometimes. . . .
 
Kind of like putting on some coke bottle glasses just for fun?

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yeah ive noticed that with car tinting too. The garman gps screen is polarized diagonally where sunglasses are polarized horizontally, so thats why its darker. I'll be alright with polarized windshields as they are polarized the same way.

I'm worried about tinted windshields. Any of you pro guys have problems with polarized lenses.

Tom
 
A lot of the polarized lenses are unusable in aircraft with heated windshields. Looks like Disney's "Fantasia"!
 
I haven't had a problem with heated windshields sitting inside, just out side from and above angle looking perpendicular to the window. As long and they don't start making aiplane windows straight up and down I should be alright with that.

I'm more worried about windshields being polarized a different direction than my sunglasses. I dont know why you would want to polarize a windshield vertically but mabey some are.

Tom
 
Tried polarized clip-ons in the Mighty Beech Airliner. Bad, bad move.

Tried polarized cheapos in the CRJ. It was like Willy Wonka, but different.

I've been using $10.00 shades for the last 3 years. They do the job, although I'm ready to buy something better.
 
I have a pair of fake raybans that I picked up in Shanghai and they seem to be just fine. The optics are actually really nice. They're real glass too, the guy who sold them to me even held a lighter to them and nothing happened. The only thing I dont like about sunglasses is trying to read things that are in the shade in the cockpit such as gauges that are under the yoke and what not. I usually just wear my "stupid is as stupid does" hat when I go flying and dont use the sunglasses, though I've been flying under the hood a lot lately...heh...that would be a really stupid idea.
 
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