What is the best pair of aviation sunglasses to wear?

For pilots, having the right pair of sunglasses to protect your eyes will be an important consideration for both comfort and safety. Hence, a recent post written by Roger Worden for his Roger’s Soaring Blog is well worth reading.

Roger began his post by noting that aviator sunglasses are specially designed with a teardrop shape to prevent sunlight from coming from a wide range of angles. In other words, they do not change much and they generally don’t follow fashion trends. He also pointed out that yellow lenses will help a pilot see cloud structure better than other colors.

On the other hand, Roger noted out that polarized sunglasses should generally not be used for flying for two reasons:

• Cockpit glass, instrument windows and even handheld devices such as GPS units may have some unintentional polarization. When this is combined with polarized sunglasses, dark spots and distracting color patterns can appear and interfere with a pilot’s vision.
• Polarized sunglasses are designed to cut glare but a little glare can also be a good thing as it can actually be the glint off of another aircraft.

Roger then mentioned that he started using American Optical’s FG-58 sunglasses and that they were ok but somewhat uncomfortable due to their design. Hence, he now uses them as backup.

Instead, he is now using Serengeti Aviators Drivers Gradient glasses and he noted that while he likes them, he has found that their lenses are not as hard as the lenses of other sunglasses (In fact, he scratched the lenses after a year or two). In addition, he pointed out that the temples consists of pretty thin wire and when he clips his radio earpiece to them when he is flying gliders, the clip will tend to slide around a bit.

Roger’s entire post is well worth reading but we would also like to ask you our readers about the aviation sun glasses you are currently using. Specifically, what brand or brands of aviation sunglasses would you recommend and why?