I was just reminded that I neglected to mention something in my Form 5 renewal post...
Part of the Form 5 renewal includes flying "under the hood." "The hood" generally refers to a device worn by the pilot to limit his or her view so as to prevent being able to see outside of the aircraft. The purpose of this is to simulate flying in IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) i.e. in the clouds. While not legal for non-instrument rated pilots, VFR pilots sometimes accidentally find themselves "in the soup" and without training, they typically lose control of the aircraft within minutes. In the old days, this was accomplished by donning various visor type devices. These were awkward and uncomfortable. Some bright person came up with the idea of creating a pair of glasses which had all but a small area at the bottom frosted - thus accomplishing the goal of preventing the pilot from seeing outside, but in a much more comfortable fashion.
The only problem with this approach comes when the pilot in question's near vision isn't what it used to be, and he needs a little bit of optical assistance.
Last time, I tried wearing the foggles over my glasses. It worked, but wasn't the best solution.
This year, I got a bright idea. I ordered a pair of Optx 20/20 Stick On Reading Lenses For Glasses. While you can buy them from your favorite pilot shop for $20 bucks or so, you can also get them from eBay for 1/2 that price. I got mine from the eBay store of CC-Cards-N-Stuff for $12.99 delivered. I had to guess a bit as to the proper strength to order, but after a little experimentation with a few pairs of retail reading glasses at the local drug store, I guessed that the +1.25 strength would be best for me, and fortunately, I was right.
While I plan to just leave my Optx stuck on to the foggles, they are pretty cool in that they just adhere with water, so you can move them from one pair of glasses to another simply by wetting them and then placing them on another pair.
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Posted by David at August 23, 2007 03:42 PM