Hello Bernie, I had eye surgery a couple of years ago for early-ish onset cataracts. I said to the surgeon, does that mean I won't be able to focus and he said, "You have not been able to focus for years." The fact is that for people over 40, your focussing performance degrades like falling off a cliff to the point where after 50, you can't focus worth the mention.
Getting any eye surgery done is terrifying, whatever they say and not to be taken lightly. However the results may be worthwhile. I have never met anyone who has had laser surgery who was not back needing glasses or surgery some years later. My cataracts were marginal but I went for surgery because the mild double vision was worrying. The results were spectacular with probably 15:20 vision as a result. I wear multi-focal lenses now. Why? Because I still cannot focus and need glasses. I can wear off the shelf sunnies but they won't allow me to read that well… though oddly, I can read a menu better than most middle aged people even though my bionic focus is set to infinity. For flying gliders, you mainly need two focus ranges. One is close within the cockpit which ranges from 400mm to about a metre and the other is infinity. If this is true for you, then why bother with multi-focal lenses when bifocals will do the job better and for less money? I say better because a bifocal lens covers a wider field of view with the same focus and has none of the vexing distortion which is a guaranteed result of almost all multi-focal lenses. Running downhill or down steps is really difficult with multi-focal lenses because the focal position in the lens means you have your head at the wrong angle. I have worn bifocals flying for some time, made specially to suit. I got the frames and sat in the glider and car and drew the top of the instrument panel on the lenses and the bifocal split is made for this and it works perfectly. Our local optometrist will dye the lenses to whatever colour you want and even add or reduce the tint for optimum results. Something worth looking at are Barz sunnies. http://barzoptics.com They are an Australian company who have thought a little more than most about bifocal sunnies. You can get a range with things like polarised lenses with a non-polarised bifocal/ _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
