Avalanche Flotation safety device prototypes

[wendigo]

So I decided to inflate the bag last night, headed out at 8:30 after a nice sushi dinner.

Step 1 Grab your ass



There is a pop and a hiss, then the bag deploys. Quickly.









It did not impede skiing in any way, actually I couldn't even see it in my peripheral vision.
So just point


and ski




the inflated bag


modeled


the orange circle below the red ball covers the air release for the bag. deflate and go home.






stop on the way for the sun rays.

[jtwassoc]

Wendigo......send that bad boy back to us and we'll recharge it for the upcoming season.

[Trackhead]

Wendigo......send that bad boy back to us and we'll recharge it for the upcoming season.

Are these available for sale yet?

[Ripzalot]

not to bag on your efforts, but isn't a device that keeps your head down and ass up, well, just fundamentally wrong?

i'm still more interested in this device simply because it seems more logical.

[summit]

not to bag on your efforts, but isn't a device that keeps your head down and ass up, well, just fundamentally wrong?

i'm still more interested in this device simply because it seems more logical.

ass on the surface head under is better than all of you under

i have an avalung and a partner. the ABS on my butt only improves my chances

otoh the horsecollar ABS does offer that much better protection in theory

[jtwassoc]

Not for sale yet, still waiting to get the suggestions from our field testers.

The lift bag brings you to the surface of the moving avalanche, where the slide begins to outrun the victim as most of the time something on the surface of the moving avalanche moves slower than something caught inside the avalanche. It takes awhile for the lift bag to reach the surface of the slide, but when it does the snow begins to shed off of the bag and anything attached to it. This means that most of the time you and the lift bag will be sitting on top of the snow after the slide has stopped moving. Of course all avalanches are different, and a monster slide (class 3 or larger) will only leave the lift bag exposed on the surface.

The other avalanche flotation device Ripzalot mentions uses a lot of technology, which you have to pay for. Currently that device costs about a grand, while we are shooting for a cost about the same as a beacon.

[LeeLau]

I'd like to get some early season snow to deploy the bag and take pictures. Can it wait till November? Or do you want more feedback now? I can type up initial impressions from 4 - 5 uses

[jtwassoc]

Lee........your call. It can wait.....

[xtrmjoe]

Still kind of wondering how it fits with a backpack, comfort/deployment?

[jtwassoc]

We are working on the device in several forms. First as a stand alone device worn like a fanny pack beneath your backpack. Secondly, we are working on ways to incorporate the device into a user's existing backpack. There is a third application that looks VERY promising as well, but it's too premature to talk about just yet.

We just returned from beautiful Invermere, British Columbia where we were setting up this coming winters testing. Should be a gas, the mountains look gnarly near Invermere.

[Scottish_Skier]

This has potential.

However dont use the description fanny-pack if you want to sell any in europe....

Doug

[Scottish_Skier]

Fanny - This is the word for a woman's front bits! One doesn't normally talk about anyone's fanny as it is a bit rude. You certainly don't have a fanny pack, or smack people on their fannys - you would get arrested for that! Careful use of this word in the UK is advised!

Fanny around - I'm always telling people to stop fannying around and get on with it. It means to procrastinate. Drives me mad!

http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml

[Micol]

Thanks to all the backcountry users who have sent us their info and expressed an interest in testing one of the 50 avalanche flotation device prototypes we are going to have ready late this season. To those of you we have contacted please be patient, we are machining prototype parts like crazy and will get you a device as soon as possible. There are still a few devices remaining. It is a small, fanny pack sized rip cord device that inflates a 3 cubic foot lifting bag. As we said before, the device has lifted 190 pound crash dummies to the surface of class 2 avalanches.

If there is anyone else who wants to wear a prototype this season and help us with design ideas, email us your info such as where you ski/board/snowshoe and how many days a season you are in avalanche country to:

john_w@nebulusflotation.com

Thanks again for all the great responses.

John,
I am researching the ABS and any others I can find. I am curious about the 3 cubic foot bag as opposed to the 6 cubic foot of ABS. I have seen that they have had some partial buried riders with their system. Can you share some details about your research and findings on that issue? I am glad to see some others getting into the business to bring the cost down and increase awareness of the potential life saving aspects of these devices. Keep up the good work. What will pricing be like on your line? thanks mc

[freezorburn]

I rely solely on my hoochie-mama.

hoochie-mama???

I guess I'm a jong?

[WARI Avalanche Research]

Thanks everyone for all your comments.

For several years now we have gone by the name JTWASSOC, but we are switching to WARI Avalanche Research from now on. We are people (engineers, avy forecasters, mountain guides) from Minnesota and California working in various development labs to create avalanche flotation devices.

As many of you have noticed, we use a 3 cubic foot lift bag (lift bags originated in the SCUBA industry) as opposed to a 6 cubic foot lift bag. Manufacturers who use 6 cubic foot lift bags have saved on or near 100 lives to date. The problem with using a 6 cubic foot lift bag is that you have to carry the gas and the material needed to produce that much lifting force. To date, avalanche flotation devices (AFDs) have been housed inside of backpacks in order to carry all of this weight.

Our research on the use of 3 cubic foot lift bags has been promising when attached to 170 pound crash test dummies. We have also had extremely good results when attaching a 20 cubic foot lift bag to a snowmobile. (For those wondering, there are 3 reasons to float a snowmobile to the surface of an avalanche; first to stop the machine from rolling down the mountain and causing blunt force injury to the rider, second to keep the machine from being destroyed by the avalanche and allowing the rider to drive out of the mountains after the slide, and third to keep the wrecked snowmobile or its parts from littering the mountain.)

We have conducted approximately 20 test avalanches using a 3 cubic foot lift bag attached to a test dummy. Most of the avalanches were class 2 avalanches that ran a few hundred or a few thousand feet down the mountain. The bright red lift bags are easy to spot as the avalanche engulfs them. The lift bags have 2 effects; they pull the test dummies up into the surface of the moving avalanche, and they slow the test dummies slide down the mountain. As the leading edge of the avalanche outraces the lift bag, it begins to seek the surface, and sheds snow in a process called inverse grading. As the lift bag sheds the snow it begins to appear to the naked eye on the face of the mountain. Eventually the lift bag sheds all or most of the snow on top of it, and in most cases is completely exposed above the snow. The test dummies were all found with an arm or hand completely exposed above the snow. All of the test dummies lay horizontally, usually 6 to 8 inches beneath the surface. We believe a living human would shed more snow than the dummies as they came to a stop on the mountainside, merely because a human would be moving and the test dummies are immobile. Most of the lift bags sought the outside edge of the slide, just uphill from the leading edge of the slide.

A few of the slides were monster class 3 avalanches that ran most of a mile down the hill and destroyed everything in their path, including test dummies (arms, legs and heads torn off) and lift bags. The lift bags we recovered from the class 3 slides appeared destroyed by two things, blunt force trauma from trees, rocks, chunks of snow, the mountain face itself, and the effects of a passing avalanche on a stopped lift bag. We found large boulder and small automobile sized pieces of cornice near the lift bags destroyed by blunt force trauma (we often use large cornice drops to initiate avalanches). One lift bag was destroyed when our test dummy Adam (our first) got caught against a 10 foot diameter pine tree. As the avalanche roared past Adam it burst the lift bag, decapitated our poor friend, and applied so much force to the lift bag that it shredded. Adam was recovered under 8 feet of snow, and the force of the slide was so great that a crew needed to be flown into the area during the following summer to recover all of Adam’s parts.

Testing continues mid January in Invermere, British Columbia.

More to come and thanks all………..

[ProHoHater]

So are there any airbag systems that you can currently buy in the US and fly with it, or for that matter even have it shipped here? The ABS system says its not DOT approved, which I assumes mean an anal cavity search if they find it in your checked luggage, and I like to fly with a bunch of drugs shoved up my ass so that simply wont work. Any more news on when the WARI system will be available, and if you will be able to fly with that one?

[Huckin eh?]

If you are still looking for testers i am keen
I am 6 foot 190lbs and I tour 50-75 days a season. I will also be travelling through Invermere often as I have residences in Golden and Fernie that I hunt pow from.

[Micol]

So are there any airbag systems that you can currently buy in the US and fly with it, or for that matter even have it shipped here? The ABS system says its not DOT approved, which I assumes mean an anal cavity search if they find it in your checked luggage, and I like to fly with a bunch of drugs shoved up my ass so that simply wont work. Any more news on when the WARI system will be available, and if you will be able to fly with that one?

I think that DOT bit is from some european company selling them (and its dated info). It is DOT approved now in the usa. You can get the ABS now from a couple of places CO and Utah. I just forked over the cash today and i'll be getting it next week. you have to contact airlines 14 days in advance minimum to fly with it, and some airlines might still turn it down. check with them before ticketing.

However, you can drive over Canadian border with it. PM me if you want the co's name I bought mine from.

[WARI Avalanche Research]

Thanks again to everyone who has helped us test the prototypes and work on the design changes. If you are one of our testers you can use the device as long as you want this winter, and then we’d like you to inflate it before your last run of the day and let us know how it feels to ski with the device inflated. Send it back to us after deflating it (push on the red button on the square black venturi valve) and we will recharge it and get it back to you.

We hope to have several different versions of the device for sale by next fall, including the waist pack featured in this posting and at least one other form of the device. We consider this forum as part of our design work so we are a bit uneasy about talking about selling something here, but we will at least mention it when we are ready to put the device into the hands of the public.

The problem with taking the device onto an airplane will most likely continue to be an issue. Obviously the concern of the authorities is the pressurized gas cylinder rupturing aboard an aircraft in flight and possibly causing a catastrophe. An option we are considering is using gas filling stations, such as SCUBA dive shops or mountain gear shops, where you could take your empty gas cylinder and get it filled once you arrive in the mountains.

We leave tomorrow for Invermere, British Columbia for this year’s first round of avalanche testing. Hopefully we will be testing an avalanche flotation device (AFD) attached to a test dummy wearing skis. We’ll report the results here. If the weather cooperates we’ll be heading for LaMoille, Nevada later in the winter to test an AFD attached to a snowmobile in conjunction with an new version of an AFD attached to a test dummy snowmobile rider.

[LeeLau]

Triggered the bag yesterday Jan 6, 2008. Skied inbounds at blackcomb all day with it on but without the pack. Seems ironic that there was an inbounds avalanche on the glacier that day.

Coupled with the pack the bag is cumbersome. It makes the pack ride high. I have carried it around over a couple of days stuff in the pack and I don't notice the weight overmuch but do notice its bulk.

If I were to use it touring I would probably stuff it in the pack on uphills then put it on for the downhills. Honestly though, its bulk means that I'd not be very likely to carry it around.

It triggered easily; I didn't have to pull the cord very hard - this surprised me in a good way.

Barely noticed the inflation. I thought i would notice it when skiing but I didn't.

Very easy to pack away back in the bag.

Can the harness be redesigned in some way so you don't have to step in and out of the bag? It's possible to unwind the webbing and wind it back on to your waist but a bit cumbersome.

Pics