Flashlight for Pilots?

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

Hi everyone. I’m looking for any recommendations for a budget-friendly but still good quality flashlight that might work well for pilots. Normally, two color lights are needed — white for pre-flight inspection of the plane and red for inside the cockpit to preserve night vision. Some unique requirements below…

Requirements:

  1. Size should be able to attach onto a kneeboard comfortably while not being too crazy bulky
  2. White and Red LEDs
  3. White LEDs should have brightness adjustment and be strong enough to easily illuminate the plane. We normally would be within 10-20 ft of the surface being lit.
  4. Red light should be able to be turned on independently (i.e., not have to cycle through white to get to red)
  5. Red light should be relatively dim or have brightness adjustment to help keep night vision
  6. Sturdy construction to be able to get tossed around in a flight bag

Nice-to-haves:

  1. Green LED is a plus as it actually helps us read sectional charts better sometimes. But, it should be able to be relatively dim as green will ruin night vision faster than red
  2. Built in SOS signal would be useful
  3. Ideally waterproof or usable in light rain

Any thoughts or recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks!

2

I have my PPL, and the light that I found to work awesomely is the small Nitecore EC11. It has a nice and dim red light that can be turned on independently, and a white light that can go up to 900 lumens! It’s a great, compact light that can reach 150+ meters. It has an SOS signal, and is waterproof. I made a review on it where I briefly talk about using it in the cockpit.

Here’s my review on it: https://bestlight.io/blogs/reviews/88628545-nitecore-ec11

3

some nitecore lights have red as “low“

ec11 and MT10 can be started in low (red) / turbo or last mode afair

4

I think the nitecore SRT 3 would be very good for your needs. Feel free to check it out.

The only problem is that the SRT3 has a blue diode not green.