A pilot's eyes reveal what no drug test, self-report, or standard flight physical can measure. ClearGazeTest delivers 12 quantitative oculomotor biomarkers in 5 minutes — detecting blast TBI, fatigue-induced impairment, G-force neurological effects, and medication risk before mission launch.
Flight surgeons and aeromedical examiners evaluate medical fitness — but no standard flight physical quantifies real-time neurological function. These threats fly undetected.
A single blast overpressure event can produce micro-vascular shear injury without any physical signs, loss of consciousness, or positive imaging. Oculomotor deficits — prolonged saccadic latency, smooth pursuit breakdown — are among the first measurable neurological sequelae. Standard flight physicals miss them entirely.
High-G maneuvers produce sustained cerebral hypoperfusion, retinal artery compression, and vestibulo-cerebellar stress. Cumulative G exposure across a flying career creates measurable oculomotor drift — particularly in smooth pursuit gain and saccadic velocity — that standard visual acuity screening cannot detect.
Sleep deprivation produces oculomotor deficits that closely mimic alcohol intoxication at 0.06–0.08 BAC. Saccadic latency increases, smooth pursuit degrades, and anti-saccade error rates double after 24 hours without sleep. Pilots cannot reliably self-assess their own fatigue-induced neurological impairment.
CNS-active medications — sleep aids (zolpidem), antihistamines (diphenhydramine), anxiolytics, and anticonvulsants — suppress oculomotor function at therapeutic doses. Medication effects can persist beyond the stated label duration. Quantitative oculomotor assessment detects residual pharmacological impairment that self-report cannot.
Cannabis is now legal in most states. Blood and urine THC tests detect weeks-old exposure, not current impairment. Cannabis reduces contrast sensitivity 30–50% at recreational doses — critically dangerous for NVG operations and low-light approaches. ClearGazeTest detects functional impairment regardless of substance and regardless of when exposure occurred.
Repeated sub-threshold impacts — catapult arrestment in carrier aviation, repeated blast exposure, parachute landing falls — accumulate oculomotor deficits without any single event meeting clinical concussion criteria. Serial ClearGazeTest assessment tracks subtle biomarker trajectory changes across a flying career.
From pre-mission readiness screening to post-incident aeromedical evaluation, ClearGazeTest integrates into the flight surgeon's workflow across every aviation platform.
Pre-mission neurological readiness screening for high-G platforms (F-16, F-22, F-35, B-2). Post-AGSM evaluation, return-to-fly assessment after G-LOC incident, fatigue protocol monitoring during high-tempo operations and ORI periods.
Catapult/arrestment repetitive impact assessment, low-light approach night vision readiness (contrast sensitivity, scotopic threshold), post-arrested landing fatigue evaluation, and pre-deployment aeromedical baseline registry for longitudinal comparison.
Blast exposure post-incident assessment for MH-6, MH-47, and MH-60 crews. Repeated low-altitude NVG operations create progressive contrast sensitivity degradation — quantified and tracked. Serial monitoring for crews in sustained high-OPTEMPO environments.
Combat aviation integration for helicopter crews (AH-1Z, UH-60, CH-47) in combined arms environments. Post-combat blast screen, pre-deployment baseline, and return-to-fly clearance following IED exposure or rotary wing hard landing incidents.
Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) integration for FAA First, Second, and Third Class medical certificate evaluation. Objective oculomotor data to support Special Issuance documentation, post-accident evaluation, and fitness assessment for pilots with neurological history or medication regimens.
Population-level oculomotor baseline databases for military aviation communities. Research partnerships for G-force neurological impact studies, blast exposure dose-response characterization, and fatigue-induced impairment threshold development for duty hour standards.
Each biomarker maps to a distinct neural circuit — and each is disrupted by the specific threats military aviation faces. Together they produce an objective neurological readiness signature.
Designed for flight line and aeromedical clinic environments — no specialist operator, no disruption to pre-mission flow, automated output to flight surgeon.
Pre-deployment or pre-season baseline establishes personal neurological reference. All subsequent assessments are compared to individual — not just population — norms.
Automated oculomotor protocol administered by flight crew admin or aeromedical tech. No pilot preparation required. No subjective input influences results.
All 12 biomarkers computed and compared to individual baseline and age-stratified population norms. Deviation flags and interpretive summary generated in real time.
Flagged results route to flight surgeon with structured report. Clear / review / ground decision supported by objective quantitative data — not symptom self-report.
THC urine screens detect cannabis use from 3 to 30+ days prior — bearing no relationship to whether a pilot is neurologically impaired at mission time. A pilot who used cannabis three weeks ago will test positive; a pilot who used it 6 hours before flying will test the same way. Neither tells you what you need to know.
ClearGazeTest measures what matters operationally: Is contrast sensitivity impaired right now? Is scotopic threshold elevated right now? Is smooth pursuit degraded right now? These are the functional questions NVG operations demand answers to — and they require quantitative oculomotor measurement, not urinalysis.
Beyond cannabis, fatigue, benzodiazepines, antihistamines, and blast injury all produce characteristic patterns of scotopic and contrast sensitivity degradation — invisible to standard pre-mission screening. ClearGazeTest captures all of them in the same 5-minute protocol.
The aeromedical screening gap is not a gap in effort — it's a gap in the right measurement.
| Impairment Threat | Flight Physical | Drug / Urinalysis | Symptom Self-Report | ClearGazeTest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blast TBI (subclinical) | Misses | N/A | Unreliable | Detects ✓ |
| Current cannabis impairment | Misses | Tests exposure only | Unreliable | Detects ✓ |
| Fatigue-induced impairment | Misses | N/A | Unreliable | Detects ✓ |
| Medication residual effect | Partial | Partial | Unreliable | Detects ✓ |
| Scotopic / NVG readiness | Misses | N/A | Not measurable | Detects ✓ |
| Cumulative G-force deficit | Misses | N/A | Unreliable | Tracks ✓ |
| Convergence / HMD fusion | Misses | N/A | Not measurable | Detects ✓ |
| Longitudinal career tracking | Annual only | N/A | N/A | Every assessment ✓ |
ClearGazeTest is built to integrate with existing aeromedical frameworks — not to replace them, but to fill their objective measurement gap.
Supports Flight Surgeon pre-mission readiness assessment protocols, Class III flight physical documentation, and return-to-fly evaluation following physiological episodes, G-LOC incidents, or blast exposure. Integrates with AERO-MED documentation systems.
Naval Aviation Medicine integration for carrier-based aviation communities. Pre-deployment baseline registry, post-catapult/arrestment cumulative impact tracking, and Special Issuance documentation support for aviators with neurological history.
Forward-deployable assessment capability for special operations aviation units. Blast TBI serial monitoring in high-OPTEMPO environments. NVG readiness screening for low-observable night operations and sensitive site exploitation missions.
ClearGazeTest provides AMEs with objective oculomotor data to support FAA First, Second, and Third Class medical certification decisions — particularly for Special Issuance cases involving neurological history, TBI, or medication management.
Guard and Reserve aviation units with dual civilian-military flying populations benefit from pre-mobilization readiness assessment and civilian aviation environment crossover evaluation — particularly relevant for part 121/135 pilots with concurrent Guard service.
Research partnership pathway for blast TBI characterization, G-force neurological impact quantification, and pharmacological impairment detection in military populations. IRB-approved research protocol support, population database access, and co-investigator collaboration available.
"The most dangerous impaired pilot isn't the one who knows they're impaired — it's the one who passed every screen we gave them because we were measuring the wrong things."
ClearGazeTest is designed as a complementary objective measurement tool — not a replacement for the flight physical. It fills the quantitative gap that standard flight physicals have always had: the inability to measure real-time neurological function. The assessment can be used as a pre-mission screening tool (added to existing pre-flight protocols), as a post-incident evaluation component after G-LOC, blast exposure, or hard landing, and as a serial monitoring tool for longitudinal neurological career tracking. All data is physician-interpreted; no autonomous go/no-go decision is generated without flight surgeon review.
This is a critical aeromedical consideration. ClearGazeTest uses largely passive and semi-passive oculomotor measures — pupillary light reflex, fixation stability, smooth pursuit tracking — that cannot be voluntarily controlled or strategically performed around. Pilots cannot voluntarily normalize their pupil constriction velocity, fixation micro-instability, or hippus oscillation pattern. Anti-saccade and saccadic tasks require effort, but the assessment has built-in effort validity indices and can detect inconsistent performance patterns. The combination of passive and active measures makes strategic manipulation significantly more difficult than cognitive tests or symptom self-report.
The assessment takes 5 minutes per pilot, requires no specialist operator (flight crew admin or aeromedical tech), and produces automated output. For a typical 4-ship flight, total assessment time is 20 minutes. The device is portable and requires standard power. For pre-mission applications, assessment is designed to integrate into the existing crew brief / step timeline, with flagged results routing electronically to the flight surgeon without requiring additional pilot interaction in non-flagged cases. For large-scale deployment screening, the assessment can be run in parallel across multiple devices.
ClearGazeTest is designed to be field-deployable — no internet requirement for assessment, with periodic sync capability for longitudinal database management. For blast exposure scenarios, the recommended protocol is pre-deployment individual baseline establishment, immediate (within 24h) post-blast assessment for individuals within the overpressure zone, and serial reassessment at 48h, 7 days, and 30 days. Deviation-from-baseline reporting is the most sensitive metric for blast TBI — which is why the pre-deployment baseline is so critical. Contact our military operations team to discuss JOPES-compatible implementation planning.
ClearGazeTest is currently deployed in clinical and occupational medicine settings as a quantitative neurological assessment tool. Integration into formal FAA and DoD aeromedical certification frameworks as a required or recommended test component is in active development through our regulatory affairs team. We work directly with FAA AMEs for Special Issuance documentation support now. For DoD commands interested in evaluation programs or clinical validation studies within military aviation populations, we have established a military partnership pathway that can move from initial briefing to on-base evaluation in 60–90 days. Contact our government affairs team directly for program development discussion.
Reach our military and aviation team for a classified or unclassified briefing, site evaluation visit, or research partnership discussion. We speak both aeromedical and operational.
ClearGazeTest · Medical Card Exam
military@medicalcardexam.com
Aviation Medical Examiner partnerships for FAA medical certification support. Structured Special Issuance documentation workflow available.
IRB-approved military aviation research protocols, blast TBI characterization studies, and G-force neurological impact quantification programs.
For DoD program development, SBIR/STTR opportunities, or FAA regulatory integration discussion, contact our government affairs team directly.