Can Aviation Safely Address Color Vision to Expand Pilot Recruitment?

The aviation industry faces a persistent pilot shortage, driven by mandatory retirements, post-pandemic recovery, and growing global air travel demand. Boeing’s 2025–2044 Pilot and Technician Outlook projects a need for 660,000 new pilots over the next two decades, with North America requiring 119,000.[1][2] CAE’s 2025 Aviation Talent Forecast estimates a broader demand for 1.465 million aviation professionals, including pilots, over the next decade due to fleet growth and attrition.[3] Estimates suggest a potential shortfall of 120,000 pilots in North America over 20 years and 34,000–50,000 globally by 2025 in worst-case scenarios.[4][5] Medical exclusions, including those for color vision deficiency (CVD), further constrain the talent pool.

Historical Context of Color Vision Standards

In the 19th century, maritime navigation established red for port (left) and green for starboard (right) to prevent collisions, a convention formalized internationally by the 1880s.[6] As aviation developed post-World War I, it adopted this red-green schema for navigation lights and early air traffic control signals, which mirrored rail and road systems using red, green, and amber.[7] By the 1920s, the Aviation Color Perception Standard (ACPS) required pilots to demonstrate normal color vision to interpret these signals accurately.[8]

While regulatory debates over flight-hour requirements (e.g., the U.S. 1,500-hour rule) are contentious, revisiting solutions and mitigation strategies for congenital Color Vision Deficiency offers a potential pathway to address in part the pilot shortage of the future. The idea is to simply study ways and means that leverages human factors research and modern technology without compromising safety to help solve this problem.

Color Vision Deficiency (CVD)

Congenital red-green CVD affects approximately 8% of males and 0.5% of females, historically barring many from commercial and military pilot careers due to reliance on color-coded signals (e.g., navigation lights, light-gun signals, and Precision Approach Path Indicator [PAPI] systems).[9] These conventions, rooted in maritime practices, have contributed to aviation’s strong safety record, and strict standards remain essential for aviators and the traveling public.

However, advancements in digital displays, sensors, and augmented reality (AR) prompt questions about whether color remains the optimal signaling method in exclusivity. Could individuals with mild CVD safely participate as flight crew in the future? This discussion does not advocate lowering standards but rather invites creative solutions to enhance inclusivity while maintaining safety. For instance, rather than focusing solely on the individual (e.g., gene therapy or corrective lenses), reengineering systems to reduce reliance on color could be transformative for the industry. Contrary to common belief, individuals with CVD do not see only black or grey and white; they perceive colors vividly but in different hues to the way others see them. Many report no difficulty with everyday tasks like driving or recognizing traffic lights, yet struggle with specific aviation tests, such as PAPI lights at a distance. The development of standardized global guidelines would ensure consistency in pilot certification while maintaining the highest safety standards. [10]

Evolving Regulatory Responses

Aviation authorities are increasingly adopting functional testing over simple screening methods like Pseudoisochromatic Plates to assess operational ability despite CVD.

Tiered Testing

Regulators like Australia’s CASA and the UK’s CAA use tiered approaches, allowing applicants who fail initial screenings to take advanced tests like the Colour Assessment and Diagnosis (CAD) test or the Australian Operational Colour Vision Assessment (AOCVA). These assess functional capability while ensuring safety.[11]

Regulatory Standards

The FAA and ICAO require the ability to perceive colors necessary for safe performance, not necessarily “normal” color vision. As of January 2025, the FAA uses computer-based tests, replacing older methods like Ishihara plates, to evaluate functional ability.[12] The FAA’s Statement of Demonstrated Ability (SODA) and Medical Flight Test (MFT) often result in restrictions like “Valid for Day Visual Flight Rules (VFR) Only,” limiting career paths requiring night or all-weather operations.[13]

The Role of Modern Flight Deck Technology

Strict CVD standards originated in an era of analog gauges and external visual cues. Modern aircraft, however, feature digital glass cockpits with human-machine interfaces designed for redundancy, ensuring color is not the sole means of conveying critical information. Research on flight deck design emphasizes consistent color use alongside shapes, patterns, and text to enhance safety. Pilots with CVD can often interpret these displays effectively, seeing colors like magenta or cyan and many others but in their own hues. This suggests that reliance on color, while pragmatic in the analog era, may warrant reevaluation in the digital age. Smaller aircraft and older airfields still use legacy systems, but these challenges could be mitigated through innovative solutions as well.

It can be as simple as asking ourselves, why are we using color only to represent this information and yet in another important areas we are not using it at all? This focus may or may not result in changes to our way of doing things, but they are good questions for future systems design experts going forward. 

For instance, the aviation industry could potentially explore entrepreneurial solutions to reduce reliance exclusively on color-based signaling while at the same time enhancing safety even more.

Shape or Spatial Coding

Drawing from transportation precedents (e.g., octagonal stop signs), aviation could incorporate geometric cues to convey meaning. Or even incorporate concepts such as flash, rhythm, or brightness modulation methods. Alternatives to colour-based signals, such as changing flash patterns or brightness levels similar to those used at railway crossings, could be used instead. Research involving Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD) pilots and the Aviation Lights Test suggest these options may be effective.

Augmented Reality (AR) Systems

Emerging Augmented Reality (AR) platforms, such as CAE’s advanced AR training applications and next-generation AI-assisted smart glasses like those under development by Meta, Samsung/Google and Apple, hold transformative potential for future generation cockpit integration. These systems could overlay interpreted visual information in real time, converting color-based cues into customizable symbols, auditory alerts, or textual annotations according to pilot preference or operational context. The HUD Head Up Display system already used on modern Boeing and military aircraft could be purposed with this task enhancement also.

When implemented at a professional aviation standard, with redundant power supplies, secure data processing, and certified human-factors interfaces, such AR systems could substantially enhance situational awareness for all pilots, not just those with color vision deficiencies. In effect, the corrective capability of optical lenses would be augmented by intelligent, adaptive information relay, fusing human perception with AI-driven interpretation to strengthen overall flight safety.

These innovations require empirical research, such as simulator studies comparing error rates and response times across vision types. Prototypes would have to pass strict regulatory testing and certification. Economic modeling could quantify cost/benefits.

Modernizing External Visual Aids

External visual cues, like the old Air Traffic Control (ATC) light-gun signals and modern PAPI/VASI systems, remain heavily color-dependent. Light-gun signals (red, green, white) are a last-resort communication method for radio failures. For PAPI/VASI systems, which use red (too low) and white (too high) to indicate glide slope, next-generation aids could use scientifically proven evidence based alternatives testable in simulators for recognition speed and accuracy.

Structured research into color-redundant signaling could enable CVD individuals to participate fully in aviation while enhancing safety through redundancy. There may even be a business case for it. Above all safety is to remain a sine quo non.

A Phased, Evidence-Based Approach

Transitioning to color-redundant augmented systems or augmented reality systems aids requires rigorous validation. It would need to be done in phases to test its viability and functionality.

Human-Factors Research

Simulator and field trials would be required to assess recognition accuracy and workload for CVD using these augmented aids and normal-vision pilots.

Dual-Mode Implementation

A lengthy transition would need a hybrid systems strategy to maintain compatibility with existing equipment, while allowing these tools to evolve within a multi-layered safety framework without compromising safety.

Regulatory Collaboration

 It requires work with ICAO, FAA, and EASA as well as other stakeholders and airlines and military to shift toward performance-based standards incorporating these tools and aids.

Training Evolution

Acknowledging that there are generations of training text materials out there, like other technological additions, the industry would simply update curricula with AR and multimodal simulations to incorporate these new developments.

These approaches minimize reliance on a single sensory mode, improving performance in degraded visual environments for all pilots.

Broader Benefits and Prototyping

Economic benefits include cost savings from expanded recruitment and fewer disruptions due to shortages. As aviation integrates AR and AI, color-redundancy aligns with this trajectory, warranting investment in pilot studies and prototypes.

Further Thought

Amid workforce challenges and technological progress, researching color-independent signaling or information transfer conveyance is something that could result in interesting findings. Cockpit technological evolution demonstrates that what once seemed unimaginable eventually becomes achievable and even standard. Collaborative studies could unlock a more inclusive, safer aviation future, ensuring the skies remain accessible to all qualified talent without compromising safety standards. This vision focuses on utilizing innovation and technology to ensure that color becomes an asset rather than an obstacle for aspiring airmen and women, fostering opportunities in both civil and military sectors. I am confident that this issue will be resolved, ensuring that skilled individuals will no longer face barriers to pursuing their aspirations of becoming aviators.  It will either be solved by correction, or by the industry at a systems level, it is only a matter of time. 

References

[1] Boeing. (2025). Pilot and Technician Outlook 2025-2044. Boeing Commercial Airplanes. https://www.boeing.com/commercial/market/pilot-technician-outlook

[2] ATP Flight School. (2025). Airline Pilot Hiring Outlook and Career Information. https://atpflightschool.com/become-a-pilot/airline-career/pilot-hiring-outlook.html

[3] CAE. (2025). Aviation Talent Forecast 2025-2034. https://www.cae.com/2025-aviation-talent-forecast/

[4] Pelican Flight School. (2025). Pilot Demand 2025: Shortage, Forecast & Career Outlook. https://pelicanflightschool.com/pilot-demand

[5] Oliver Wyman. (2021). After Covid-19, Aviation Faces A Pilot Shortage. https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2021/mar/after-covid-19-aviation-faces-a-pilot-shortage.html

[6] Wikipedia. (2025). Port and Starboard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_and_starboard

[7] Marine Insight. (2024). Port and Starboard Of Vessels Explained. https://www.marineinsight.com/naval-architecture/port-and-starboard-sides/

[8] Colour Vision Deficiency Pilots Association (CVDPA). (2022). Aviation Colour Perception Standards. https://cvdpa.com/facts/aviation-colour-perception-standards/

[9] Wikipedia. (2025). Color Blindness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness

[10] University of Waterloo. (2025). Examining Colour Vision Deficiency in Pilots. https://uwaterloo.ca/optometry-vision-science/news/examining-colour-vision-deficiency-pilots

[11] CVDPA. (2022). The Way Forward. https://cvdpa.com/about/forward/

[12] Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). (2025). New Computerized Color-Vision Tests Mandatory. https://www.faa.gov/ame_guide/app_process/exam_tech/item52/et

[13] FAA. (2025). Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners. https://www.faa.gov/ame_guide/app_process/exam_tech/item52/amd