Recommend for Army Pilot

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

Why did you rule out the A2?

You do know you can get the low power LED's in red, green, blue or for the military IR...as well as white?

The runtime of the LED's is twenty (20) hours on a set of batteries!

That one hour of runtime on the Hi-power incandescent lamp will last you for several weeks. I use my Surefire E2e daily to inspect things the tiime rarely totals more than 5-10 minutes per day. I've been tracking battery usage for the last 20 months, I replace batteries every 5-7 weeks.

In my opinion the A2 would be IDEAL for you. After all it was designed specifically for you and YOUR needs.

I also believe you can lock out the hi-power incandescent lamp so that it cannot accidentally turn on in the cockpit blinding everyone, only the low power LEDs will come on.

GregR

Welcome to CPF Edward!

Yes, the two-stage TailCap of the A2 can be rotated to be in such a position that only the LEDs can be activated by pressing the push button.

ArmyPilot,

You may be looking for two different lights.

The RIGEL MILITARY SKYLITE PILOT'S LIGHT will satisfy listed requirements 2, 3, and 4.

Here's Craig's review of the red and white Rigel light. The functional details are the same for the green/white light which would be night vision equipment friendly. Both green and white LEDs are infinitely adjustable.

Welcome to CPF.

I am no expert on flashlights, but I've worked around NVGs and cockpits (not together, though), so I'll give it a shot.

It sounds like you are looking for two flashlights. When you are wearing night vision goggles in the cockpit, you will probably want to use the IR illuminator on the goggles. If you need to go to the Mk1 eyeball, I would check out the Photon Freedom LED Covert model in red or what they call "NVG green" turquoise. I have read that you should use green so as not to interfere with the NVGs which are more sensitive to red. But I've read that green wipes out your own eyes night vision and red does not. They also have Freedoms in IR if your goggle illuminator is not working for you. The Covert model has a little hood around the diode limiting the beam sidespill and creating a narrower beam. I think that you really need to protect your night vision when flying NOE and more than one LED (such as the Surefire A2) is probably too bright in the confines of a helicopter cockpit. The Freedoms have a dimmer feature, but I don't know much about it since I only own the old Photon II. The Freedoms have a little clip mount that allows you to clip them to your clothing or your kneeboard so you don't have to hold them (you probably have your hands on the cyclic and collective already).

For white light administrative use, I would think a Surefire L4 would do the trick. It claims 1 hour at full power--65 lumens, then 1.5 hours of diminishing power. I definitely want to get an ARC 4+ when they start selling the new revision3, but it could be a few months. If I needed a reasonably bright pocket light that could run in excess of 1 hour without a battery change, the L4 would be it. If you needed longer run time, the larger L6 would get you 95 minutes of 65 lumens, with 2.5 hours of diminishing light (Surefire claim).

If you can hold on to your hat and save some money, the Surefire U2 would be perfect for you, and it has 6 levels of adjustment. Of course it would be a while, so in the mean time, while not check out some of the Lumamax's? like the l2, with 65/15 lumen beam, or the L4, they are fantastic lights.

I personally carry the A2, nice LED's and great quality beam /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I'll also vote for the L2 or maybe a modified L4.
In fact, if you contact a modder from the board, someone may be willing to make something specially for you... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

i agree with Lightraven. i think you'd enjoy a combination of two lights, rather than trying to throw everything into one light.

if you do insist on one light, then you would probly be best served by the Surefire A2, as it is available in 4 different LED colors, and has a regulated main lamp. and doesn't the Army supply batteries for you? make use of the offer! haha

maybe you'd like to shell out the money for a Surefire Aviator AND an Arc4 (or an alternative to the Arc4 with adjustable brightness).

I like the ARC4+. If you don't use the pocket clip you can use the red, blue and clear lens- lens holder from the minimag make it a very versatile light.

mut

Thanks for the input. I checked out the (yet to be released?) u2, and the L2. I like mut's idea of filtering an ARC4. It would be great if there was a flip-up filter for the ARC like surefire offers. I guess mut is saying I can use the maglite filter kit for on the ARC. I'll have to see how well those filters work in the cockpit.

I think this group of people might be interested in a little background in how we use lighting and nvg's in Army aviation. We actually don't use any IR lights in the cockpit because the goggles have to be focused kind of like a camera. We focus them to look at stuff outside the aircraft and looking inside the cockpit is totally out of focus. The goggles have a 'negative blue' coating on the lens which filters out blue spectrum and above lights. Green and below (way into the near-IR spectrum) are amplified heavily. So the instruments and lights that we use are are all blue/green so that they don't produce glare on the windscreen. We do however, have a nice IR floodlight mounted outside which we can use like a searchlight but it is invisible to the naked eye. To look inside the cockpit at instruments or maps, etc, we look under the goggles.

I want to stick to blue LED's because I do have a blue photon light which is actually too bright, but still produces zero glare in the cockpit. It kind of sucks not getting to check out lights before I order them, because I want to make sure that the white light is brighter than a 2d incandecent and that the blue light isn't blinding in the cockpit (which my Photon is alittle too bright).

I hadn't seen the photon freedom. It seems really nice. I wish it would turn on and off at the previously selected brightness mode, though. I think I'll have to buy a UV version because I had been wanting to try a 'blacklight' effect in the cockpit. I feel photons are almost too small and easy to lose. I need to be able either sit the light down on its own or clip it with a pen-clip style clip.

Any modders here have an idea how to make a light that offers variable brightness with a selectable bright white LED and dimmer blue LED? Also, I have _some_ experience making my own 'finger light' which is a finger-mounted LED flashlight. Is there a kit/product where I can easily swap out LEDs and resistors (or maybe it has the fancy voltage regulator) to see what works best for me, and maybe can be modded to take 2 LEDs and switch among them?

Thanks again for the ideas, guys.

Edward

Hi Edward, I would recommend a Surefire L2 for general lighting tasks, the two brightness settings will be very useful and should provide you with over one hour of total runtime. For the cockpit you say you need a not too bright blue LED light. Maybe Peak LED has what you need, they have lots of options to choose from and a custom shop that will build lights after your requirements.

BTW, what do you fly?

I've sent an email to peak. Thanks for the tip. It looks like their double ended flashlights might do the trick.

I fly the mighty CH-47 Chinook.

Glad I could help. The Chinook is one of my favorites, but I pretty much love all helicopters. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Speaking of double ended flashlights ... Pila lights are very bright and are available with a LED tailcap also. J.S.Burly's is a highly recommended dealer for Pila lights.

I think double ended would be a great choice. I wonder why this style is somewhat under rated here. Given you will have a primary side that gets used most of the time you'll have a back up battery for it from the not used so much side.

If I'm not mistaken, the Sure Fire flip up filters for the E2 series will fit on the ARC 4. They are available in red and blue for whichever would work best for you. They are available in many sporting goods stores for less than the SF price. It's the #1 size scope covers.

My first vote would be for a blue LED Surefire A2. If it's too bright, it probably wouldn't be too much of a job to disconnect or overpaint/tint some/all of the LED's to decrease the brightness.

The increased stability and reliability of the regulated incandescent (from the "soft start") would save you from having to carry a box of spares around (but do carry one!)


Next choice would be the L2 with a blue filter, or an L4 and a blue photon for the cockpit.

Hook driver? You didn't mention "impervious to red hydraulic fluid" in your list /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

(My brother is a retired Hook driver....)

Cheers,
Bob

I just had the chance to play with one of these. I'll have to say I was pleasently surprised with the double-ended feature. The mechanism to light one end (LED) or the other (incan) in the Pila is a simple twist of the tailcap. You turn the tailcap some and the LED turns on, you turn some more and the incan lights up. Simple, huh? Well, not so much. You can also press the LED lens for instant on. Slight push turns the LED on, press harder and the lamp lights up.

It takes some practice not to overturn the tailcap. At first you're constantly blinding yourself with the LA. This would be doubly dangerous in a cockpit, not only you've blinded yourself (with your night-adapted eyes /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif) but you'll be flashing everyone else in the cockpit (not to mention signaling outside the cockpit). If Pila redisigned their switching mechanism somehow to "lock-out" one of the ends, or if the light had a switch (to toggle between ends) somewhere on the body these double-ended lights would have more appeal for a fighter pilot. I'm thinking one click for LED on, two clicks for LA on - something like that.

I'm not a big fan of twisting to turn on the light since it generally would take 2 hands to do. I'm probably just geeky enough to try to build something. I've been checking out the modders boards a little to see what I can learn about the voltage regulation. I did build my own finger light using an LED, 2 watch batteries and a resistor.

Hey ArmyPilot, We had a discussion about flying and Flashlights. Andy/flashlights4less mentioned that Surefire is going to release an A2 with greenish-yellow LEDs specifically for NVG use. Check it out:

Some Pilot Feedback on NVG Compatible Lights