The Gray Area in Aviation Color Blindness Regulations
Color deficiency adaptation regulations could be the change the aviation industry needs to slow down the global pilot shortage. It is necessary to have regulations put forth by the FAA to ensure the safety of passengers, cargo, and other flight operations in the air. The issue is that these light displays, instruments, and charts, that restrict color-deficient technicians, are outdated procedures and are no longer considered to be relevant in order to sit in a cockpit and fly a plane.
Mj Parisi, a Metropolitan State University alumnus with a degree in aviation technology with a focus in aerospace operations, was initially enrolled in the professional pilot program in Aug. 2013. In 2015, Mj found out that he was red-green color deficient and would no longer be able to follow in his dad’s footsteps and become a pilot.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gives pilots who fail their initial accepted color blindness tests, five additional tests categorized as specialized operational medical tests, as a last chance way to obtain a license. According to Colblindor, these last chance tests are more operational, and consist of a signal light test; aeronautical chart reading; read and correctly interpret instruments and displays; recognize terrain and obstructions; and visual identity location, color and significance of aeronautical lights. The first two tests are classified as Operational Color Perception Tests and the last three are Medical Flight Tests which include in-flight testing.
Since graduating, Parisi has become a geospatial technician, which, in short, is the guy behind the scenes that creates global flight paths for pilots and airlines based on digital land data, weather, maps, and analyzing existing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) databases, according to GISGeography. Seems pretty high-tech, right?
“There are a lot of color-coded controls, but there are alternative ways to gain this information. It honestly came around with a light gun in times where you may experience lack of communications. If your radio were to go out and you had no ways of communicating, you would be able to fly into an airport because they would flash a light gun at you from the tower. This is such an outdated procedure now because there are so many alternative ways to communicate if your radios were to go down. That would be a last resort, and even if that were to go down, I could pull my smart phone out of my pocket and contact the tower,” stated Parisi.
In fact, instead of opting to change the FAA regulations, the industry is discussing bringing automation into the field as a way to transport cargo instead of human pilots. While this may be very far into the future, the recurring issue with automation is that there is no way to program every possible scenario into a computer; it will always lack the human element necessary in times of crisis.
“In reality, aviation is very automated as it is. A professional pilot in today’s industry does very minimal hand and feet flying. They are really just there to monitor and problem solve if anything goes wrong in the air. It is having that human factor as a back-up that will always need to be present in my opinion,” stated Parisi.
The aviation industry has been experiencing an annually increasing pilot shortage world-wide. While it is important to maintain a standard of safety for the passengers and pilots, could these aircraft control systems be updated to accommodate the 8.005 percent of men and women globally who suffer from a color-deficiency disability? The more important question is if you would rather have your aircraft run by a robot, or a human, because that is the way this shortage could turn out if people do not look into alternative methods to control an aircraft.
“The amount of time and effort for the FAA to change these regulations is too much for them at this point. Maybe once they realize what a shortage of pilots they have, they will step it up and realize that they need to make this change in order to bring in more pilots,” stated Parisi.