Thursday, October 15, 2009

Shedding New Light on an Old Topic

As I have mentioned in the past I am a big fan of some of the high lumen flashlights that are out on the market. LED Technology has come a long way and we can see this in the newest line of lights made by Fenix. What immediately prompted me to research these lights in more depth was the strobe feature that many of them sport. For awhile I have been pushing the Surefire line since they were the originators of the tactical flashlight. But then I had a conversion experience so to speak.

A few months back I had the opportunity to do some tactical SWAT training through a different venue. One of the guys on the entry team had a Fenix TA30 hooked up to his entry rifle and when he came in to the darkened building with it going on strobe I was immediately blinded by the 180+ lumens. And to boot, I had trouble tracking his movement since the strobe was tricking my iris to open and close at a rate that was below that of the strobe. The feeling was a sense of visual overload, essentially this light got into my OODA Loop!

After the initial "oooh wow that was cool!" we got to talking about it. His optic bayonet was a Fenix TA30. While slightly unwieldy to carry its still a heck of a bargain at $98 it also has 4 settings (low, medium, turbo, and strobe; each with their own power consumption rates). So this gets me to thinking if some of the other models can easily be slipped into a pocket or a purse. Lo and behold Fenix has done their work and made smaller models as well. I picked up a $53.00 LD1 for Eileen to try out (which also runs on 1 AA battery - nice!). I thought about making a video and posting it to YouTube but it seems that someone else has beat me to it. <---Check it out. If your still considering a tactical flashlight as part of your personal protection arsenal. I strongly suggest the Fenix line of flashlights.

Stay Safe!

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