Flightstore is flogging off Randolphs at nice discount now
according to their web site £115.00 for Randolph Aviators which equates to €155.00. Standard European price is €110-115 so perhaps not such a bargain
The special offer has gone, by the looks of it. I bought two pairs recently for about 60-80 I think, GBP. Very few people sell them this side of the water.
FWIW, American Optic used to have the USAF contract for those sunglasses but Randolph then won it. Technically, they should be exactly the same spec although some argue that the quality is better on the Randolphs. I picked up two pairs of AO’s in the US 2 years ago for USD25 each; one stays in the flightbag and is only used for flying, the other of course got slightly scratched when I dropped them/my daughter sat on them (but fine for driving).
Apart from the really specialist ones, it always astonishes me how much sunglasses can be and are probably made in the same factory as some lower cost, more effective ones. I guess the price would be even higher if they were EASA certified and designed by Michael Korrs or Tom Ford!
IMHO the answer is that a shop selling stuff on the High Street and paying the massive fixed costs cannot sell anything “cheap”.
Even if you go to a shop in a little village, they still try to sell you 200 quid glasses (sunglasses, or anything with prescription lenses), as the baseline for something half reasonable. They do cheap frames, sure, 20-50 quid, but they are really really awful Buddy Holly types (yes I know they are trendy in some places but then so is latex and handcuffs 
).
But Oakley etc need the High Street to shift their product. So it is a mutual support operation (like avionics mfgs need their dealers 
)
Mail order is the way to go but somehow you need to know what fits you…
I am amazed the USAF would be issuing their pilots with $150 sunglasses. How much is an F16??
Sometimes you find a Lindberg frame on ebay! I collected 3.5 of them.
I have a pair of AO/Randolphs too, but i only wear them on the street/in the car, skiing (or on the airport terrace :-))
With my prescription there’s no good sunglasses under € 600 …. unfortunately
The AO sun glasses are $74 and they are well constructed. Who would pay $150 for the same quality sun glasses? I had mine for years. The Ray Bans
never stood up to the abuse I put my glasses through.
Strangely, my kids were singing “danger zone” in the bath tonight when I walked in the door which inevitably results in Top Gun images (and that song now being stuck in my head for the foreseeable future). But this conjures the question of how many fighter pilots actually wear sunglasses if they are in a combat environement? They have the tinted visor and more to the point, if they have to eject, that would be the ultimate advert test of strength for both the glasses and the pilot’s face.
Not so relevant to GA unless one has the Russian ejection seat mentioned elsewhere but just wondering if any one knows the answer to this pointless bit of trivia (and whether it was raybans to keep to the OP topic ) ?
how many fighter pilots actually wear sunglasses if they are in a combat environement?
I don’t think I was one in any previous life but it must be awfully difficult to insist on perpetual 20/20 vision for pilots who cost millions each to train up.
(and a 20/20 medical pass itself is not optimal i.e. not as good as what you can get with glasses made to the usual +/-0.25 diopter, either)
So they may not wear sunglasses but many will be wearing glasses of some sort.
From a simple questions comes an amazing array of answers. What fun.
It would be even better with pilot watches
