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I find your bombs' affinity for the dummies absolutely hilarious.
I appreciate the effort to minimize weight and bulk, and I think doing so will be essential if systems of this type are going to be carried by users who are climbing under their own power. Based on the last photo you posted, that lift bag has increased the probability of a quick partner rescue, but I don't have the experience to judge whether or not the victim could perform a self rescue in that situation.
The damn bombs really have a mind of their own. They are called ANFO bombs and are about the size of a large bag of charcoal briquettes. The explosive medium itself looks like those little white foam balls you used to find in a bean-bag chair. The little white balls are yellow as they are soaked in some toxic crap including fuel oil. The whole mess is housed in a clear plastic kitchen garbage bag. The plastic bag then has a small explosive charge stuffed inside, which sets the whole mess off. We would post a pic but the “control” people said it was a bad idea to post any good pics of bombs or bomb-making procedures because we would probably hear from THE MAN. THE MAN, of course, being worried that some goof ball might use the pics as a learning tool for evil purposes. At any rate, the plastic bag makes the 50 pound bomb slippery, and sometimes when it hits the mountain (after being dropped from a hovering chopper) it just keeps on going. Lets just say that we never worried about filmers in the valley below getting tooled by a bomb before this year. We sure watch for those rolling little bags now.
Although our system does not put the victim on top of the debris field, it does four things for you. First, it keeps you airborne at the leading edge of the avalanche as it moves down the hill, as opposed to being ground into the mountain beneath the slide. Second, it puts you at the top of the snow when the avalanche stops moving. Third, it provides searchers with a bright red target to help find you. And finally, it always deposits you at the leading edge of the stopped avalanche, narrowing the search area significantly.
If anybody is interested, here are the pics from the snowmobile tests in Nevada a few years ago. Lift bag size was 20 cubic feet (inflated donut 6 feet long, 4 feet wide and about 2 feet thick). The camera shots are widely spaced as we did not have this years 6 shot a second camera back then (big mistake).
bomb detonation (only a 20 pound bomb here).........
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ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbll lllllllllleeeeeeeee..............
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uuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.................
gggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........................ ......
rrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmm...............
Here the slide is nearing the snowmobile attached to the bright red lift bag....
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Here's the slide about to hit the snowmobile attached to a lift bag and a second control snowmobile without a lift bag. The control sled is uphill from the test sled.
You can see them both in the lower right corner of the pic....
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How would you like to be sitting on one of these snowmobiles? Ahhhh, no thank you......
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Snowmobiles? We ain't got no stinkin' snowmobiles.......
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The hand of God...
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Here's the slide blasting into the valley below...
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whoa nelly, whoa.....
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All done.....
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This slide totally screwed us. After a successful first test of the system, we decided to immediately do a second test. It blew our harness apart and sent the lift bag FLYING down into the valley below. We'll find that pic, pretty cool. Anyway, we learned that you do not put a harness through two avalanches. We had a National Geographis film crew coming in to film the testing in 5 days, so it was back to Truckee, California for a few days of "prototyping" wink-wink-nod-nod, and harness work. The tests for Nat Geo went well, but we don't think they ever published anything.....
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Next time can you do the tests with cars put in the slide paths, and maybe lots of explosives inside the cars? If you have access to any heavy artillery pieces I'd include those as well.
I used to have a car you could have used, but it was liberated from the place where I abandoned it in Queens.
Ahhhhhhh, thanks?
We ran the car idea by management and they blew us off. But the sleds were tested with lift bags in avalanches before the crash dummies were tested. The whole project started as an attempt to reduce snowmobile through the ice drowning fatalities, so we had snowmobiles to sacrifice to the avalanche gods long before we had test dummies. There's also a growing number of sledders killed in avys every year, so we saw some merit in a flotation device for their machines.
As far as blowing stuff up goes we only use local pros, and they only use what's necessary. So we really do try to keep the explosions to a minimum, and we always use extremelly remote locations that we've scouted for humans, goats and snowmobiles and/or their tracks. Even so, this year we were 20 miles up a river valley near Revelstoke and people heard us in town. If we ruined your day in Revy......sorry about that. But we do feel we're blowing stuff up for a good cause, and not just blowin' stuff up for the hell of it.
Super cool pics. Always interested in advances in avy technology.
Here's some goats we found while scouting locations. These boys live life on the edge....