This One's Different

"Of all the things I never thought I'd be selling, it's another flashlight," Jeff Simon, president of Approach Aviation, told us here at ANN. "But this one was really different."

Approach Aviation, best-known for its excellent series of owner-involvement videos, has also expanded into the market for prepackaged toolkits, and offers two levels of those. Everything is geared to the owner/pilot who wants or needs to do minor repair or maintenance to his bird.

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The Approach-Aviation toolkits are basic, but contain high-quality items; and they don't include flashlights.

The problems with flashlights, in general, are well-known: their batteries are often dead when they're most-needed; bulbs are fragile (and use a lot of power). With aircraft, capable flashlights are often too bulky and heavy; small flashlights are too anemic.

Jeff happened upon what he saw as a solution to many of the classic problems. The Flash-Fire Micro-Light is plenty bright enough to illuminate the cockpit instruments when the panel goes dark, and it's not so bright that you'll lose your outside-the-cockpit night vision. (It's lightweight enough you can hold it in your teeth, too -- that's not recommended practice with your 4-D Maglite!) It comes with a screw-on wand that lets you put light down into a hold, or into an "impossible" area, so you can see. It uses bright-LED (light-emitting diode) technology, so the "bulb" will last essentially forever -- and it also draws very little current, so your batteries will likely run out of shelf life, before they run out of juice. (The manufacturer claims 100 hours of "on-time.")

Jeff warned me about making the most-common mistake: "Don't turn it on while you're looking into it," he said. [I didn't heed the advice; the "dots" in my vision will clear up, eventually, I'm sure...]

If you don't need continuous light, or if you want to signal your position, it also has two flash modes, putting out roughly an 80-flash-per-minute, or 200-flash-per-minute signal. [That's useful when I ride my bicycle at night. I sling the light wand back over my shoulder, put it on slow flash, and I haven't been run over yet --ed.] It's handy for seeing that combination lock on your hangar door, too...

It's in a brushed-aluminum body, that gives it the quality appearance of a piece of medical equipment.

The Flash-Fire is available with red, white, or blue LEDs, and it's small and lightweight enough to go on your keychain. (There's a pocket clip provided, too.) It's $19.95, with its four AG-5 batteries (or $10, as an optional addition to one of the Approach Aviation toolkits).

FMI: www.ApproachAviation.com