Blue Side Up

I got my category III medical back in 2007 when I was working on my PPL, but now that I’m working towards my CPL, I needed to go and get my category I medical. There aren’t many differences between the two categories. For starters, the cat I needs to be renewed yearly whereas the cat III can be renewed every five years. Since this was my first time getting a cat I, I also needed to get an audiogram (hearing) and EKG (heart).

As far as I was aware, I had passed all of the tests I was given and my doctor said I would be receiving my new medical sticker in the mail within a month, depending on how busy Transport Canada was. Within two weeks, I got a little brown envelope in the mail with TC’s return address on it. I opened it up to find a letter and no renewal stickers. To my surprise, the letter said that I had failed my colour vision test and I was being issued a restricted medical and licence.

This was news to me. My doc told me there were no concerns and I should expect my medical in a months time. Weird. So I call my doctor’s office and explain the letter (which he also got a copy of) and he is just as confused as me. He tells me to come in and take a different colour vision test that is more accurate.

When I get there, he explains that there was a mixup on my chart and I was marked as having incorrectly guessed that last four Ishihara tests in his book. If you’ve never seen what an Ishihara test looks like, here’s a link to one.

I was under the impression that each page in his book contained a number within the coloured circles. The reality was that each of the last four pages contained no number. I noticeably struggled to find a number with those last four tests, so I just guessed a number that I thought I might have seen. The doc usually gives people a second chance if they didn’t know about the “no number” possibility but I was administered this test by the nurse, so I never got that chance. I was marked as having four mistakes out of 21, which is above the threshold. The doctor never double checked this before he sent in the medical form so I was marked as a fail.

My new licence restriction limits me to day VFR only with two way radio communication into and out of control zones. With winter fast approaching and daylight hours virtually gone by 17:00, this severely restricts the available time I can fly – I worked until 16:00 every day.

We sent in a new Farnsworth colour vision test about three weeks ago, so I should hopefully be receiving an unrestricted licence and medical in the mail by early December. I’ve attached pictures of my restricted licence and medical. They’re stickers that you place in the new booklet type licences.

My instructor said it took him 6 months to get a”corrective lenses required” restriction removed from his licence when he was still in training. I really hope my problem doesn’t take that long to fix.