Organizational Skills Required During Instrument Flight

On 2/18/2007 11:32 PM, wrote the following:
On Feb 18, 9:54 pm, Roy Smith wrote:
"Andrew Sarangan" wrote:
Don't forget the flashlight. I have yet to find a good way to keep it
from getting lost. It is too bulky to attach it to a string but it is
too small to keep from rolling off into a crevice.
Flashlights come in two styles.

Style 1 has a wrist lanyard attached to it. These get hung over a horn of
the yoke.

Style 2 has no laynard. These get lost under the seat.


How about flashlights attached to your head? Or your headset? I
tried one of the LED "headlights", but it gave me a headache after
awhile. It was sure was convenient though! Does anyone use the neck
lights, seatbelt lights, ballcap lights, and even tongue switch lights
they advertise in Sportys and Spruce?


I have actually worked this problem a bit. I found that it is very important
that the light source be above your eye level. If it is not, then your hand
casts a shadow across your pen point when you are writing on a kneeboard and you
can't see what you are writing. This problem will occur with the mic-lights and
any other light that is below your eyes.

I also found that having an adjustable light level was very important, as the
on/off type lights are waaay to bright.

My simplest solution was to put 3M "Dual Lock" tape on the headset shells and to
mount a couple of red lights like the Photon Micro-Light II. (You can also use
Velcro but it does not provide as positive a positioning.)

http://www.photonlight.com/LED-Keych...lights-s/1.htm

They used to have a model they called the "Covert" which had a little
sleeve/snout covering the LED so that all the light went forward. This is
important to eliminate reflections from the side windows, so a little home-made
engineering will now be required. They also sell a thing called a "short
lanyard clip" that helps keep the lights from going under the seat when you bump
them off the headset. If you align them properly they will illuminate most of
the panel and there is not a lot of head-turning required.

Then I went to a Clarity Aloft headset. Spectacular sound quality, etc. but
nowhere to mount the lights! For that I made my own set of "headlights" which
work well but took so much time (and a lathe and a milling machine) that only a
lunatic would do it. For this type of headset, an adjustable brightness red
headlight or ball cap light would be perfect but I have not yet seen one.