Crab, I had imagined your techniques was to come to a 200 - 300 ft agl hover and go through the transition there - but your method appears far superior to that, thanks for the clarification.
When gogs went to Gen3 they did indeed incorporate the coating onto the objective side of the microchannel plate (MCP) to protect the bit that turns photons into electrons. As I was taught (and my memory has never been that flash) it is the protons that do the damage, and the excess of protons caused by the excess of electrons produced at the MCP during white light ops is the issue. As I understood it, the Gen3 not only incorporated the coating (some form of boron alluminium chloride from memory) but advances with the MCP modulation technology prevented excessive damage in white light. These advances did not stop production of the protons, and the coating is like any other coating - it is able to be worn down. Thus, using white light will not cause the goggles irrepairable damage like in the Gen2 gogs, but it degrades the coating and thus lessens the life of the tubes. The ANVIS 6 publications still contain a warning that they are not to be used in anything more than "full moonlight". White lights obviously significantly exceed this. Hence my earlier comments that white light is sometimes the safer way to hover, but not allways, and when you do, you are causing a bit of wear and tear that may very well be worth it for the safety enhancement offered by the white light. In other words - there are still no free lunches!
