Laser-Proof Sunglasses for the Cockpit?

[Juvat]

All the recent lasers being shined into airline cockpits has me wondering--does anyone know of any laser-proof sunglasses that are available for purchase?

 

[furloughfodder]

Reminds me of the song "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night" by Corey Hart.

 

[Snoopy58]

You'd probably have to specify what wavelength range you want to protect against. From what I recall, you can get (at least, the AF can get) normal size/weight glasses that filter out a particular wavelength of laser light, but to get broad-spectrum protection against everything out there, you'd end up with some serious coke-bottle lenses that would be unwieldly to wear & probably hard to see through -- particularly at night.

Might be better off wearing "day-vision goggles" that put a CRT or LCD display between your eyes and the outside world... although peripheral vision becomes an issue at that point.

 

[Juvat]

hmmm...

...yeah, I guess it would be pretty strange wearing sunglasses at night. I didn't consider that. I was actually thinking about some type of protection during the daytime. I know the USAF used to have special helmet visors that protected the eyes from reflected laser energy when using laser targeting pods. It seems like it would be easy to make sunglasses out of the same type of material. Has anyone heard of such a thing?

 

[Snoopy58]

Your visor probably did a great job with the range of frequencies that the targeting pod could put out, but against a laser of a different frequency, I doubt it would do much good. Unless the bad guys cooperate by only making lasers in a particular (and narrow) frequency range, I doubt any single visor / glasses solution will work real well.

 

[nck4857]

Easy solution: just fly with a patch on one eye, if you get your good eye fried, just take off the patch and you're good to go.

 

[Juvat]

Hah! Good one!

 

[Sleepyhead]

Just cover the windows with newspaper. We are all flying IFR anyway.

 

[UALjan15]

Easy solution: just fly with a patch on one eye, if you get your good eye fried, just take off the patch and you're good to go.

You sound like an old Buff driver!

Time to increase the ol' disability and loss of license insurance......

 

[jstars135]

Oakley makes an M-Frame laser lens in Strike and Hybrid shape. Its called Oakley Laser Toric. I'm not smart on lasers, but here's what it says.
Laser attenuation - Optical Density of at least 4.0 at wavelengths between 820nm and 850nm. Optical Density of at least 4.0 at wavelength of 1064nm. Optical density measured at both eye positions with an IPD of 64mm.
Optical performance - Refractive power,, prismatic power, astigmatism and optical clarity meet or exceed ANSI Z87.1-1989 requirements. Haze less than 3%. Total Luminous Transmittance of at least 50% measured at both eye positions in accordance to ANSI Z80.3-2001.

If this meets anything to anyone and you want a pair, I can get them to you delivered for $190 or $155 if you have a pair of M-frames and just want the lens. Retail is $250 and $190 respectively. Send me a PM