On September 10, new civil aviation industry standard Appraisal Standard of Physical Examination for Recruitment of Civil Aviation Pilot Trainees (MH/T 7013-2017) took effect officially. Among the biggest highlights of this new standard are lowering naked visual acuity requirement to 0.1 in Landolt C chart ( approximately 4.0 in the tumbling E chart) in the physical examination for recruitment of civil aviation pilot trainees, allowing corneal refractive surgery provided certain conditions are met, and canceling specific requirements on stature and leg length. These changes will significantly increase the proportion of qualified students, and as a result create favorable conditions for airlines to select more qualified pilot trainees.

Since its release and implementation in 2006, the standard provided basis for the public civil aviation institutions and enterprises to select large quantity of qualified pilot trainees, which guaranteed safe civil aviation operation and adequate pilot pool. With the rapid development of science and technology, continuous improvement of clinic medical technology and increased awareness of aviation medicine, some requirements in the old standard no longer keep up with the actual needs of current civil aviation development and the actual condition in physical quality and fitness of the whole population. To make physical examination for the recruitment of pilot trainees more scientific so as to select more qualified pilot trainees, CAAC started sorting out the original standard applicable to pilot recruitment, and began to amend the standard.

The new standard lowered the naked visual acuity requirement from no less than 0.3 to 0.1 in the Landolt C chart, but the corrected visual acuity remains no less than 1.0 in the Landolt C chart. The unchanged corrected visual acuity requirement ensures that the apparent efficiency of pilots remains at the previous level, that flight safety will not be compromised due to the adjustment to visual acuity standard, and that the number of candidates meeting the requirement for pilot trainees recruitment will be increased, which will contribute positively to the selection of better performing pilot trainees, providing civil aviation industry with aviation talents qualified both physically and intellectually.

In the new standard, corneal refractive surgery is forbidden, but a change was made in the new standard to allow the performance of such surgery provided certain conditions are met, for example, pilots can be considered as qualified if they received corneal refractive surgery at least six-month ago and meet relevant conditions. This amendment to the standard further expands the source of pilot trainees without compromising aviation safety, and may help promote the application of new clinical diagnostic technology in physical examination for pilot trainees.

This amendment, based on big data and a large quantity of feasibility research, includes concrete requirements developed out of scientific research results in recent years. For example, the amendment further standardizes and improves blood pressure measurement; incorporates a process for making an overall evaluation by using a variety of technical methods in heterophoria and chromatic vision examination; further standardizes audio acuity test by detailing requirements for High Frequency Hearing Loss (HFHL) and focusing on hearing loss at speech frequency and related HFHL; details the standard governing the appraisal of the results of some functional examinations; and cancels specific requirements on stature and leg length in consideration of the fact that ergonomic was factored into modern aircraft cabin design. In addition, the amended standard becomes more workable, adds the requirement for conducting clinical diagnosis of some auxiliary examination results, and further standardizes medical terminology.