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- Mar 17, 2003
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fyi... from today's AVweb's AVflash...
Military Lauds New Laser Eye Surgery
Permitted For Some Pilots...
Gone are the days when laser eye surgery meant an automatic disqualification for would-be military pilots. A more sophisticated version we told you about in May 2003, called wavefront-guided LASIK, is now being used by Air Force doctors as a "performance enhancement" procedure designed as "an improvement to the human weapon system." The Air Force now allows (in fact, seems to encourage) the procedure for pilots who don't fly high-performance or training aircraft, but does not allow it for "those whose aircraft have cabin altitudes potentially above 14,000 feet." The new procedure does a better job of precisely adjusting for the small aberrations on the cornea that can throw off vision. It does so by creating a map of the corneal surface to guide the laser. Conventional LASIK surgery relies on the person's prescription for glasses. Laser surgery was approved by the Air Force for non-flying personnel in 2000 and extended to low-altitude pilots last June.
...And It Works
Col. (Dr.) Robert Smith, the program manager of the Air Force Warfighter Refractive Surgery Program, performed the first laser surgery on a pilot in September. "That aviator now has 20/12 vision (better than 20/20) without glasses and tells me that his night-vision performance has been tremendously improved," Dr. Smith said. He added that the surgery gives military pilots "the competitive edge in their work environment." More improvements are on the way. New technology allows even more customized treatment with the potential for even bigger vision improvements. X-ray vision is next. (OK, maybe not.)
Military Lauds New Laser Eye Surgery
Permitted For Some Pilots...
Gone are the days when laser eye surgery meant an automatic disqualification for would-be military pilots. A more sophisticated version we told you about in May 2003, called wavefront-guided LASIK, is now being used by Air Force doctors as a "performance enhancement" procedure designed as "an improvement to the human weapon system." The Air Force now allows (in fact, seems to encourage) the procedure for pilots who don't fly high-performance or training aircraft, but does not allow it for "those whose aircraft have cabin altitudes potentially above 14,000 feet." The new procedure does a better job of precisely adjusting for the small aberrations on the cornea that can throw off vision. It does so by creating a map of the corneal surface to guide the laser. Conventional LASIK surgery relies on the person's prescription for glasses. Laser surgery was approved by the Air Force for non-flying personnel in 2000 and extended to low-altitude pilots last June.
...And It Works
Col. (Dr.) Robert Smith, the program manager of the Air Force Warfighter Refractive Surgery Program, performed the first laser surgery on a pilot in September. "That aviator now has 20/12 vision (better than 20/20) without glasses and tells me that his night-vision performance has been tremendously improved," Dr. Smith said. He added that the surgery gives military pilots "the competitive edge in their work environment." More improvements are on the way. New technology allows even more customized treatment with the potential for even bigger vision improvements. X-ray vision is next. (OK, maybe not.)
