Like Raphael, I wear progressives that self-darken. I also have a pair or
progressive sunglasses, but usually forget to change to 'em, as the newer
self-darkening lenses are much better than the ones made a few years ago.

It's important to have the progressives aligned and made properly. In the
US, I've had good results at Costco's optical department, but even they can
screw up. I had them do-it-again on one pair and they got it right.

bumper
"Raphael Warshaw" wrote in message
...
I've been using progressive lenses for the last 4 years and find that they
work well. There's a short period with a new prescription when straight
lines appear curved, but this has always disappeared within the first day
of wearing them. Although the adjustment from near to far and side to
side has been automatic for me, I'm told that this is not always the case.
Some users adjust more slowly and some never do.

For the last two years, I've been using self-darkening progressives; they
don't darken nearly as much as a good pair of regular sunglasses, but, at
least for me, provide more than adequate visual contrast and eye-strain
protection. I have them made big enough to provide good eye coverage
since the glare seems worse with smaller lenses.

Raphael Warshaw
1LK

"Graeme Cant" wrote in message
...
I tried progressives in 1997 for several months and found them unsuitable
for me for flying.

1. The distortion at the edge of the lenses produced a swimming effect
as I moved my head which I found unhelpful. I found it distorted my
distant vision so that runway slope was hard to judge, especially where
the slope varied significantly (eg Manchester). It also made 'black
hole' night visual approaches difficult to judge. This only affected
earning a living but the first problem applied to gliding also.

2. The reading (near vision) band was so narrow that I could only see a
newspaper column width of print clearly without moving my head. This
made rapid reference to a Jepp chart a major operation. I didn't like it
for daily living either since newspapers are only a small part of my
reading. It's also an inconvenience reading a map gliding (Yes, I don't
totally trust GPS).

I reverted to my previous trifocals with relief and continue to use them
with no problems - except they're rather stronger now than they were
then - but I guess that would happened with progressives too.

Graeme Cant

Andy wrote:
I use progressive lenses for normal day wear and for flying airplanes.
I usually use suntigers with stick on reading lenses in the sailplane
but sometimes fly with the progressives. The only problem is that they
do not darken enough. My next set of suntigers will be progressive. My
first reaction to progressives was that it would be impossible to fly
with them. I may have had a bad prescription because after suffering
with line bifocals for a few years I went to progressives and will not
go back.

What good reasons do you gave against using them?

Andy