While at Winemac this year, I had the chance to try out the entire line of Zurich's while looking into the sun in the early morning on the NE/SW runway. I compared to 4 other sunglasses I had, including Oakleys. My home field is N/S runway, with east facing pilot line, so morning sun, acutally till about 11:30 for vertical stuff, is blinding. Don't want to repeat that Arizona yard-dart-in-the-heart fatal accident.

Anyway, the best I found for looking directly into the sun were the Zurich darks. Since about the only colors you can really differentiate when you are out a ways on downwind are the red, orange, yellow, and white parts of the spectrum, the rose tints work better than the blue/gray tints for accentuating those colors, especially with low overcast or haze. Another nice feature is that they are almost bullet proof, so good protection from flying turbine wheels pieces.

As far as looks go, most of us are not cruisin' the chicks (or other pilots?????) while on the flight line, so what's with the fashion statement anyway? Rumor has it that Vinny never wears his Maui Jim's at the flying field, only when he is cruising in his chick-magnet Red T-Bird convertible ! Plus, if you happen to see a guy walking down the street wearing Zurichs, he's probably a dorky turbine jock, since no one else would wear such a dorky looking set of sunglasses.


Tom