Airbourne Visual Reconnaissance with Yellow Sunglasses,

The study investigated airborne visual reconnaissance with and without yellow sunglasses under conditions of moderate haze and high ambient, midday illumination. One group of five observers wore Bausch and Lomb Kalichrome C yellow glasses. A second group of five observers did not wear yellow glasses. The observers searched from the side scanner stations of a B-50 aircraft for tactical target sites located on rolling farm and woodland terrain. The aircraft flew at 180 knots ground speed, 3500 feet above ground. The mean percent of target sites detected by both the group that wore yellow glasses and the group that did not was 69 percent. For the sites detected, the group with yellow glasses identified 55 percent of the targets the group without yellow glasses identified 70 percent. Because of large within group variance, this difference was not statistically significant. Thus, this study found yellow sunglasses to be of no value as an aid to visual reconnaissance in an area search task under conditions of high ambient illumination and moderate haze. Author