Prevention of visual anxiety and proficiency problems in the senior air transport pilot.

Several actual cases were presented to show the problems encountered with flight deck vision in the middle-age presbyopic pilot both in the simulator and in flight. We have gained useful knowledge in the proper flight-deck needs and optical corrections for these pilots, which should be passed on to aviation examiners, eye specialists, and pilots themselves. This would relieve a great deal of unnecessary lost time and anxiety which results when the pilot has a correction unsuited for the cockpit and encounters extreme difficulty in simulator work and in actual flight conditions which he does not understand and which can become very frustrating and a source of anxiety because his career is at stake. This anxiety may lead to other functional ocular problems, is unnecessary, and can be prevented.