I don't know if its related but my husband works for Qantas and over the weekend all pilots and flight crew were given an eye patch. no explanation except the federal government issues them lol a single eye patch each. My husband joked that maybe they're air pirates now but no one really gets the point.
My guess is that they are NOT, I repeat NOT trying to make pirates out of the pilots, but they are doing one of two things. Eye strengthening exercises or they are preparing them to weather a nuke blast and light flash so they can still get the bird on the ground with a single unaffected eye after removing a patch.
Juiciest tidbit I have seen in a while.
For the commenter below - if issued and in the flight bag in the cockpit and war SUDDENLY breaks out (nuke war tends to be rather sudden.....) while on an 18 hour flight, then a fleetwide message is sent out and patches that are at the ready are installed while the laser light show blasts away..... Sorry, I forgot I had to spell it all out..... I guess I am used to logic and flight ops a little more than most that may not be in the industry. I would love to know if these eye patches have anything special to block out special frequencies/wavelengths of light. Say, super bright nuke lights or even laser lights if we ever fire up our anti-missile laser systems.
You work for a company who issues you a single eye patch with no explanation? They're just s'posed to figure it out? And what happens if you see the blast with both eyes to begin with? There has to be more to this story. How often does the federal government issue said eye patches? This tidbit leaves many questions. IRAQ we're all depending on you to get to the bottom of it and report back.
ReplyDeleteEye patches aren't uncommon in military situations. It's used to preserve night vision in the case of explosive lights, search-beams and anything else that might compromise the uncovered eye. Thus you can lift the patch and see, or easily use night-vision equipment without having to wait a significant time. It was actually the same reason that pirates wore them: to be able to go below decks into the dark and fight effectively.
ReplyDelete"Jim Sheedy, a doctor of vision science and director of the Vision Performance Institute at Oregon's Pacific University, told the Wall Street Journal that while the eyes adapt quickly when going from darkness to light, studies have shown that it can take up to 25 minutes for them to adapt when going from bright light to darkness, which 'requires the regeneration of photo pigments.'
Pirates frequently had to move above and below decks, from daylight to near darkness, and Sheedy says the smart ones 'wore a patch over one eye to keep it dark-adapted outside.' When the pirate went below decks, he could switch the patch to the outdoor eye and see in the darkness easily (potentially to fight while boarding and plundering another vessel)." [Tested by Mythbusters as 'Plausible' in 2007 (can't be confirmed due to no historical sources)]
At least one military manual for pilots pointed out that "Even though a bright light may shine in one eye, the other will retain its dark adaptation, if it is protected from the light. This is a useful bit of information, because a flyer can preserve dark adaptation in one eye by simply closing it." Even the FAA recommends that "a pilot should close one eye when using a light to preserve some degree of night vision."
Issuing eye patches to military pilots during the Cold War was standard operating procedure before PLZT technology was available. Flying in a nuclear environment meant having to keep one eye covered incase you did see a far of nuclear blast which could be blinding - if not permanently, at least temporarily. Same logic works for lasers. It's low tech, but it leaves you with one good eye....which might come in handy when landing an airplane.
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