PRESCRIPTION PARAGLIDING SUNGLASSES: AVIATE

Innovative, stylish and practical, the Aviate Prescription sunglasses for aviation are perfect for spectacle wearers searching for the optimum in visual clarity when in the air. They bring all the benefits of our non-prescription eyewear, including interchangeable lenses, wrap-around styling and superior eye protection to those with less than perfect eyesight - all for a great price.

To find out how to add prescription lenses to this product, please see below.

Why Are They Good for Air Sports?

Aviate are ideal for flying fixed-wing, helicopters and also air sports because they feature:

• Interchangeable lenses for different light conditions
• High quality, non polarised lens sets that comply with aviation authority recommendations
• A wrap-around style that blocks light from the peripheries of your vision
• A frame with flat side arms that sits comfortably beneath a headset

The Frames

Aviate sunglasses are built around a matt-black frame that has an Rx 'spectacle' clip housed in the back, whilst the tinted, interchangeable lenses sit on the front. This two-part arrangement allows for great versatility and performance, without compromising on the stylish look. The wrap-around frame blocks unwanted wind and light encroaching from the sides and bottom of your vision. The frames are lightweight and tough, whilst the Rx clip, made from an almost indestructible TR90 material, ensures maximum protection for your eyes from impact. An important feature of our Aviate sunglasses is that, unlike other types of Rx eyewear, your eyelashes will not touch the lenses.

The tinted lenses clip onto the top of the frames, allowing them to be flipped up for momentary 'normal' vision when required.

De-Centred and Anti-Scratch Coated Lenses

Wrap-around sunglasses offer great benefits when it comes to blocking unwanted light and wind from the sides of your vision, but placing a curved lens in front of your eyes would normally cause distortion. However, all Rapid Eyewear lens sets are de-centred, which means they are calibrated to remove the distorting effect.

The lenses supplied as standard are:

• Category 0 yellow, for dull light and night use. An AR coating on the rear surface helps eliminate glare from bright lights on the ground
• Category 2 red-brown, for fairly bright or changeable light
• Category 3 grey mirrored, for sunny conditions. This lens has a 'flash' mirror coating that reflects sunlight
• Category 4 dark, smoked. A specialised lens for use in extremely bright conditions

By filtering blue light, our lenses improve definition and depth perception in your field of view. In line with aviation authority recommendations, Aviate lenses are not polarised (because polarising filters can make instruments unreadable).

Included Accessories

Aviate are supplied as standard with a carry case, retainer strap and microfibre cleaning cloth (plus the additional lenses listed above). The case has belt fixing loops and catches, and features internal pockets that house the extra lenses.

UV and Conformity

Rapid Eyewear sunglasses conform to British, European and US standards for sunglasses and protective equipment testing. They offer 100% UVA / UVB (uv400) protection.

How To Order With Prescription Lenses

To add prescription lenses, choose your preferred option from the drop-down menu and fill in the boxes that appear before proceeding to the checkout. Please read through the information below before you proceed.

Please note that you may not have to enter information in all of the boxes, depending on your individual prescription requirements. By way of example, if you do not suffer from astigmatism, you might not have anything written in the 'CYL' (cylinder) or 'Axis' boxes on your dispensed prescription. In this case, just leave them blank. You only need to enter information in the 'Near Add' boxes if you require bifocal lenses.

SPH (sphere) and CYL (cylinder) readings are always accompanied by a plus or minus sign. It is very important that we know what the sign is. Sometimes if the readings are minus, the sign will be written above the numbers.

Is My Prescription Suitable?

Aviate sunglasses can be used for any regular prescription where the SPH (Sphere) requirement does not exceed 4.5 (whether the reading is plus or minus). Due to the curvature of the tinted lenses, they will not be suitable for those with very strong prescription requirements that exceed this figure. They are also suitable for bifocal, varifocal and prismatic lenses but please note, we cannot add varifocal or prismatic prescriptions ourselves - please buy the sunglasses only and refer the work to your optician.

If you choose to order line bifocals, we will make a segment that stretches up to 8mm in height from the bottom of the lens, for your 'reading' part. If you would like this segment to be smaller or larger, please contact us with your specific requirements.

Pupillary Distance (PD)

This is the distance, in millimetres, between the centre of your eye pupils, when measured across the front of your glasses. PD's typically fall in the range of 55 up to 70mm. If you choose to have us make up your prescription sunglasses, it helps if we know your PD but in many cases it isn't essential. Opticians measure PD during an eye test, but they do not usually put the result on a prescription dispensed to their clients. You can ask your optician what your PD is, but they are not legally obliged to tell you, and they are often reluctant as they do not want to encourage you to spend your money elsewhere.

The good news is, you can measure your own PD quite easily. With your regular glasses on, ask someone to hold a ruler up against your glasses and measure off, in millimetres, the distance between the centres of your eye pupils. That's all there is to it.

If you do not know what your PD is and you are having difficulties obtaining or measuring it, you can leave the box blank. Should we need to know an accurate PD we will contact you.

How Long Will it Take to Make My Sunglasses?

Turnaround times from date of order is typically 7 - 10 days for UK orders, and a little longer for overseas. If you are not in the UK, please allow for up to two additional weeks for your sunglasses to arrive.

Warranty

In addition to our normal 12-month warranty, we will be happy to work with you should you discover the prescription sunglasses as made are not working correctly. If we subsequently discover that we have not made the sunglasses correctly, we will be happy to rectify the problem free of charge. However, extra fees may be incurred if the optical work has been executed incorrectly due to our having received incorrect information from the customer.

Extra Lenses

We are pleased to offer the following lenses as optional extras. If you would like to buy any of these, please click on the relevant button close to the top of this page before completing your purchase:

• Clear (100% UV protected), untinted - ideal safety lens when a tint is not required
• Polarised Category 2 lens, for anti-glare - not recommended for flying but great for driving etc.
• Polarised Category 3 lens, for anti-glare - not recommended for flying but great for driving etc.

Please note that polarised lenses remove glare by filtering horizontal light. This can make it difficult to read digital instruments and for that reason, they are not recommended for flying. They are, however ideal for general sports and leisure use.