Recommend for Army Pilot

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ArmyPilot said:
Wow. I'm impressed with the knowledge of flashlights found on this board. I found the site looking for an 'ultimate flashlight' for myself. Another pilot showed me his SureFire light, so I checked out their site. I really liked the idea of the A2 Aviator. However, the 1 hour of runtime on bright is too short, and the light is really way brighter than I need. I'd like to lay out my ideal flashlight and hear if anybody has seen such a beast:

1. Can provide light better/equivalent to a 2D generic incandecent (an Army requirement). With a similar run-time. This mode can use any kind of bulb. The idea is to be able to inspect equipment from at least 3 feet away.
2. NVG safe LED mode, preferable with selectable brightness (the ARC4 seems to have that down-pat). The flashlight can not work like the Streamlight TaskLights which seem to cycle between white and blue/green as we cannot have white lights coming on in the cockpit.
3. Less important, but idea would be if the white light is dimmable too, so that the same light could be used for reading as is used for walking to the john/inspecting the helicopter.
4. Finally, the batteries can be the 123Lithium or any standard size.

Thanks for any input you may have.

Edward

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Try putting this pot in McGizmo's forum. he ha a lot of eperience with the A2 and other low light led's.
 
How about the Infinity with a red Led, if you can still find them around... Put it on a neck lanyard or pocket and its unnoticable till you need it. Plus the long runtime and ability to use L91 Lithiums is a huge plus as well. For a throw light you can always get a separate one then. This way at least you'll always have 1 light on you all the time. (CPF min requirement = 2 lights, btw! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif)
 
Red is highly visible to your adversary's NV gear and will blind your own crew members using NV gear.


No solution from Peak will be dimmable like the green and white RIGEL MILITARY SKYLITE PILOT'S light, which may be operated with one hand.
 
I think the CMG Infinity with a red LED might work for you. It's pretty small and gives a decent runtime. Or if were any blue ones made. The standard (not Ultra) white one should be dim enough for reading and walking to the john without totally ruining your night vision.

As an easy fallback, there are PR based LED's that can fit into the green anglehead. Not quite as bright, but a much longer runtime.

I haven't played with any LED's around my NVG's so I don't know for sure how well any of them would work. I assume that any light source that is too bright would cause them to shut down (I assume that yours do that similar to my 14's?). Maybe I'll have to try some out sometime to see what happens.
 
My suggestion is that you buy an Arc4+ and a Surefire F05 or F06 filter. This will give you white light, by flipping the coloured filter out of the way, then either red or blue light by flipping the filter down. You will also have access to 4 levels of light on the Arc4 at the same time, so you should have no problems finding the light level that you need.
 
How about you try a PhantomWarrior LED light? They have a version specifically for pilots with ANVIS green LEDs and white LEDs for your inspections. There is a dimmer switch, and you can adjust the maximum brightness selectable for it so you don't blind yourself accidently. It runs off four AA batteries and you get a very long runtime out of the light. I've got two of them; one with a standard white LED/IR LED/Cobalt Blue LED combo and one with a white/UV LED combo. Go to www.phantomwarrior.com and you can check them out. You will need a username and password to get the pricing list, or you can ask your unit supply NCO to order you one. Several models are available through the supply system. Let me know what you think, and stay safe.
 
A blue Photon III clipped to a main light might work since it has 3 levels of brightness (plus 4 other modes) and stays on the setting last used. Then you could get any main light that fit the bill including a hi/lo switched AngleLux (Luxeon modded Fulton) as mentioned previously. Actually I think the Fulton's base, where the filters are kept, might be big enough for an extra Photon just in case.
 
Thanks for all the input, guys. I managed to find a store up here in Fairbanks, AK, that actually has the full line of surefires, streamlights, and princeton-tec's, plus some others available to play with. Its called Arctic Fire+Safety... Anyways, Here is what I found:

The A2 is actually way too bright in LED mode. I figured that might be the case since it has 3 LEDs, and my 1LED Photon light was already too bright.

I think I'm going to have to split my needs up into multiple lights now, as was suggested by several members. I'm thinking of going with an L1/L2 with a blue filter which can be used for preflight, paperwork, walking to the john, and could be turned on if necessary in the cockpit. I'll have to stick to fingerlights for lighting in the cockpit. I'm going to post some reviews of the 3 fingerlights that I already own.

Thanks again for all the ideas.
 
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