<p>My son identified that he takes ClaritinD for mild seasonal allergies, which set off a DODMERB disqualification. We requested a waiver and were told to get an ENT exam with another hearing test. Apparently the local DODMERB selected physician who did his initial medical exam said he had problems with his hearing. He does not. We submitted a lengthy and detailed letter from the ENT which essentially said, nothing here should disqualify him from any service academy or related activity, including flying, and his hearing is fine. So his waiver was approved, not pilot qualified due to vision and hearing. We know about the vision and know it can be corrected (20/80). But whats up with the hearing? Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Do you mean his unaided vision is 20/80 or his unaided is something else and its corrected to 20/80? If its the later then i dont think he can even get that waivered for commisioning, let alone piloting.</p>
<p>I think unaided 20/80 is out of the range for pilot qualified. I think the worst acceptable PPQ vision 20/50 correctable to 20/20.</p>
<p>As for the hearing, contact DoDMERB and find out the exact problem with the hearing. Its not unheard of (no pun intended) for the technician who administers the hearing test to make a mistake. Find out what the problem is, get a retake of the exam and submit that, it should clear the hearing thing out.</p>
<p>I just checked the 05/06 Catelog and PPQ requires unaided vision to be no worse than 20/50, correctable to 20/20. So with that information, your son will not be PPQ, although navigation is 20/200 correctable to 20/20.</p>
<p>Hearing for pilot is:
(Frequency, Loss)
(500,25), (1000,25), (2000,25), (3000,35), (4000,45), (6000,45)</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply.
He is unaided 20/80 and currently corrected to 20/20 with contacts. His friend is in his first year there and he is unaided 20/800+ and he wasn't disqualified to fly. The friend says, AF will put him through lasik when he's almost done school.
As for the hearing issue, the ENT did a second hearing exam which he passed; "audiogram is perfectly normal. SRT is 10dB bilaterally and discrimination is excellent."
The report saying he was not pilot qualified came from a doctor at DODMERB
I was thinking we should write to him and ask if he could reread the entire ENT report, perhaps he missed this as it is in th last paragraph.</p>
<p>Unaided 20/800+... isnt that legally blind?!?</p>
<p>Yes, there is a program at the academy for people with less than acceptable vision who can get laser surgery, PRK. Its very competitive to getinto but they have a 99.5% success rate.</p>
<p>Sorry i didnt mention that sooner!</p>
<p>Hopefully they will start letting more and more people get it and they can continue their original mission; to train pilots!</p>
<p>Yes that is legally blind. My eyesight is worse than that so I know.<br>
I tried to have lasik but at the time ( 2 years ago) the surgeon said he couldn't guarantee better than 20/80 and I didn't have enough cornea to go back a second time to refine.</p>
<p>You're lucky you didn't get it, I think that you are automatically rejected from the academy if you had lasik done before.</p>
<p>gglock08 is correct, LASIK is disqualifying from commisioning. You can get a waiver for the disqualification (being disqualified for lasik) if it has been 12 months since your surgery AND it has been corrected to 20/20.</p>
<p>If you received lasik that permanently disqualifies you from flying.</p>
<p>However, the PRK performed by the academy will possibly allow you to become a pilot.</p>
<p>I was DoDMERB disqualified for hearing and all I did was take the test again from an ENT and sent it in and everything was fine. good luck</p>
<p>Hmmm, thanks. I called the ENT and asked for the audiogram values to be sent, hopefully they will reflect better scores than the DODMERB contracted doctor. If we get that cleared up there is still the vision issue.
I spoke with DODMERB yesterday and was told that the academy makes the decision about whether you can have lasik before graduation. So most of the kids with less than perfect vision are entering not knowing for sure if they will be pilot qualified.</p>
<p>No worries! Hey I got a waiver granted with eyes greater than -8.00 diopters (i'm only commissioned qualifed though).</p>