Getting hired with a S.O.D.A.

[wings421]

Under the words Statement of Demonstrated Ability the sentence says that the SODA should be attached to your medical certificate.

As far as the letter of competence, no additional testing required, they just sent me the letter and said I didn't need the SODA anymore, just to present the letter of competence at the medical exam.

 

[Northern Lights]

Thanks for all of the positive responses! I guess that I errored when I referred to my SODA as a "Waiver."

I love the language that they use on the thing though,

Physical Defects: Defective Color Vision

When going through the application process and providing colpies of your certificates would you recommend including a copy of the SODA?

I was up front about it last time, and they didn't care.

P.S. One thing that I learned early on in life, is that if you are color blind, you take your girlfriend with you when you shop for clothes!

I've picked out some hideous shirt/pants/tie combos when trying to shop solo.

 

[Aeronca]

P.S. One thing that I learned early on in life, is that if you are color blind, you take your girlfriend with you when you shop for clothes!

I've picked out some hideous shirt/pants/tie combos when trying to shop solo.

As long as she's not mad at you. One day my wife sent me to work with green pants and a purple shirt. It was a long day.

 

[JB74]

OH, and when you go out with your buddies drinking for the night.

She will dress you up like a freakin clown! Trust me, I know!

 

[Crucianpilot]

S.O.D.A.

I have held a S.O.D.A for 18 years and have never had a problem with any airline I have applied to, interviewed or worked for. Simply stated, it allows you to hold a first class medical because you have demonstrated the ability to operate an aircraft with the limitation you may have. In my case, defective distant vision in one eye(>20/200). You should not be denied employment because of it. Period.

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

I read somewhere over the weekend that an Island Air pilot with one eye (and a SODA) recently sued Island Air and won for violations of this act. Maybe precedent-setting?

I understand someone in the company made the mistake of telling this individual that they "didn't need any one-eyed pilots". Not too hard to make a case out of that. A one-eyed pilot wins a case for not getting hired at a 121 outfit for being half-blind. You should take comfort in the fact that these will be the same lawyers that will be defending AQ against the ALPA suit for scope violations, and there's already a precedent for that one.

I am amazed (well, maybe not) that the FAA would grant a 1st class medical to a person with an eye or an ear missing. I do believe the ADA line of common sense has been crossed.

English, are you willing to help that same person get on with AQ? When you are a Captain, and that buddy is in the right seat, and the choice is hearing you or the radios at every turn, how are you going to like that? While I'm sure, your intentions are the best, I would be curious to know how the Captains at Eagle are observing your friend in the missed radio call department. Perhaps this case is working out fine, but I think the precidence has been set on the wrong side of the INTENT of the ADA.

 

[English]

Well Hugh, I can tell you first-hand from having flown with this person that the deafness in one ear makes absolutely no difference at all. I have spoken with several Eagle captains that have flown with this pilot as well, and they didn't even know there was an issue.

Hugh, it is called a statement of demonstrated ability because the pilot has to demonstrate they can still function as a pilot in spite of their "disability". If a person has been granted a SODA, then the FAA deems them capable of exercising their first class medical privileges. It is not a statement of disability, it is a statement of ability. So, if the FAA deems the person worthy, then how can a corporation stay within the guideline of the ADA and not hire them? Seems pretty clear cut to me.

 

[Thedude]

I have had a SODA for color eficiency for about 8 years now and my first class medical even says "no limitations"... I have to agree it is not a wavier

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

I can tell you first-hand from having flown with this person that the deafness in one ear makes absolutely no difference at all.

So, if the FAA deems the person worthy, then how can a corporation stay within the guideline of the ADA and not hire them? Seems pretty clear cut to me.

It's not the company that I question. It's the FAA for deeming a sensory deprived individual safe to be the captain of a passenger airplane.
As I said, perhaps the case you are familiar with might be working out fine, but I firmly believe the intent of the ADA is not to allow such things to occur. Public safety is sacrificed here for the sake of not intruding on the unfortunate person's "right" to work. You can't tell me a person who has no sight in one eye can keep an adequate VFR scan going and detect periferal conflicts as fast as the average person with binocular vision. Exactly how does that person "demonstrate" their ability? A set of circles for depth perception? Again, we've lost sight (heheh) of the reason for the ADA.

 

[English]

I can't answer your question, Hugh, about the one-eyed individual. I don't know that much about SODAs, just what I have experienced with my friend. However, I do know that if a pilot demonstrates competency with the FAA, that's the end of it. There are many good pilots out there with no fingers, deafness in one ear, colorblindness, and even one pilot (now deceased, I believe, ex Eagle and American) with no legs. The ADA was created to protect people from discrimination. I say if a person can do their job despite their handicap, they should be allowed to do it. If the FAA gives them a SODA, they've proven their worth and you can't second guess them.

There's my advocacy for the day

 

[cws]

Shuttle America hired me with a color vision SODA.

 

[cws]

Shuttle America hired me with a color vision SODA.

 

[cws]

Shuttle America hires people with SODA's

 

[11thHour]

Horizon took me with a color vision SODA, with full knowledge that I had one.

 

[AEpilot876]

Does anyone know if some of the majors, like Southwest will hire you with a SODA?

 

[dash8driver]

yes but BEER would probably win you more friends...

actually i dont think they can deny you based on your medical. if you have a 1st class, you are medically qualified to fly for them. lawsuits have been won because of airlines trying that. one of the more recent is a guy with, believe it or not, ONE eye. yet he held a 1st class medical, they denied him becaue he only had one eye, and now he's 1.7 mil richer.

so if you get denied because of a SODA, your letter will probably give some other reason.

 

[chuychanga]

I work at Coex with a SODA for colorblindness. I was just hired in February. I told them at the interview and they said it was no big deal. They never asked about it again.

I was also offered jobs at Eagle (I told them at the physical, again, they said no big deal) and TransStates.

 

[English]

I work at Coex with a SODA for colorblindness. I was just hired in February. I told them at the interview and they said it was no big deal. They never asked about it again.

I was also offered jobs at Eagle (I told them at the physical, again, they said no big deal) and TransStates.

I'm glad to hear that CoEx changed their discriminatory practices that were in place in 2001.

 

[craphauler]

Could a colorblind person see this light?

Northern Lights,

As a fellow color deficient pilot who has been laughed at by the nurse when I went for my first aviation medical I feel your pain. After leafing through several pages, missing about one in three of the pseudoisochromatic plates (dot test) in a gigantic book which was thrown in my lap, I was told I might want to consider a different career path and given a medical which stated "NOT VALID FOR NIGHT FLYING OR BY SIGNAL CONTROL" but not to despair I could always try and apply for a waiver or a SODA.

Incensed by this callous display of ignorance and insensitivey, and confused but unshaken in my knowledge that I did see color and could tell the difference between red, green and every other important color of the God**CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** rainbow I began a quest for a first class unrestricted medical. Along the way I learned a little but mainly I learned there is alot of ignorance and misunderstanding about this topic in the population at large, the aviation community and even the FAA aeromedical community, especially AME's. I will try to shed some light.

First of all you are not color blind, (you do see colors right?) You are color deficient or color weak and that weakness is exactly what the pseudoisochromatic plates (dot test) are designed to detect, any weakness in color discrimination whatsoever. Your eye conatains three seperate types of cones designed to sense color, each type of cone being responsible for a certain range of visible light frequencies; or approxiatemately red, green, and blue. The dot test deliberately attempts to confuse the eye by picking colors from the "confusion zone" or oddball colors between the frequencies of the 3 receptor cones that stimulate multiple cones at once, Ex. an offkey peagreen yellow might be confused with a weird orange in a mildly color defiecent person by stimulating frequencies on the edge of all three receptors. So its not really a straight forward test, no one would design a color coded information system so deliberately tricky for an airplane cockpit. Secondly, color is not an absolute, it is a completely subjective and individual experience for everyone, so it is very hard to say what is normal and what is "defective". Its like trying to standardize what a normal shrimp should taste like.

With that out of the way I hate to break it to you but a SODA is a waiver, and 328 Dude is in denial. A SODA is a statement of demonstrated ability, in other words it is documenting the fact that an applicant does not meet the medical standards set forth by the FAA but the applicant has found ways to cope with his/her disability and perform the necessary flight duties anyway. I mean read your own SODA; "physical defects: defective color vision" The FAA is waiving their own standards for color vision [FAR 67.103(c) 67.203(c) 67.303(c)]because you have "demonstrated the ability to perform color vision tasks appropriate to the certificate for which applied". Color vision tasks, not acceptable color vision.

Wings 421 is right on. A 'letter of competence' however documents the fact that you do meet the FAA's standards for color vision and also states that you will not ever again have to take another dot test for an FAA medical as long as you are otherwise qualified. You are issued a normal First Class medical without restriction and no one will ever know about your little dot problem besides your AME unless you tell them OR they decide to color test you prehire in which case we are probably both screwed.

I don't think it matters much either way, but I like having my letter of competence because I never have to apologize or explain at an interview and if I ever do have to take a prehire eye exam, and if I can't pass on my own, then and only then will I tell them about my letter and hopefully it will help my argument that 'my eyes are fine its your **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** test that's busted.'

As for how to get that letter of comp, I dunno. I wasn't smart enough to get one on my own so I paid Dr. Richard Monaco and Virtual Flight Surgeons a buttload of money to get one for me. (Pricy but worth it, nice very professional people) After I passed a rigorous and very well documented eye exam including one of the approved alternate color vision tests with Dr. Monaco, who forwarded the results to VFS for processing with the Feds, I recieved a faxed copy of my letter about a week later. By the way VFS has an excellent section on their site concerning color vision standards and the FAA, including a nice sales pitch for the LOC vs. SODA
www.aviationmedicine.com/colorvision.htm

Good Luck to all, PM me if I can help.