At the Colorado Snow Avalanche Workshop today in alpine town of Leadville. Interesting topics, such as how to helicopter throw 550 lbs of high explosives in legal Wilderness. (Hint, they might not allow mountain bikes but pave a dam with asphalt for Denver water and the world is your oyster.) But most interesting of all, a public Jetforce airbag presentation by Nathan Kuder of Black Diamond. We’ll have more details in a few days (WildSnow exclusive!), but figured a teaser from what BD went public with at CSAW would keep your interest up.
Nathan's slide showing the Jetforce fan housing. He related that it's a ducted fan and fills the bag in 3 seconds.
Nathan blowing up the bag in front of live audience. Folks did pay attention, especially some of the rival airbag people.
BD's design goals end up being more about performance than things like weight and cost. We can live with that, as this thing apparently does perform. According to Nathan's presentation, the fan can keep the bag inflated even with 7 inch cuts, and it automatically deflates after 3 minutes for convenience or an air pocket if you do get buried. What we liked best is the idea of practicing as much as you want, oh, and the airbag packs without any special folding. Just stuff it!
Black Diamond owns Pieps, who provided super tech electronics. And we get a Pieps backpack or two, along with POC. All available fall of 2014.
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In this case, 'ease of use' = 'performance.' Take my word, Jetforce is a quantum improvement in airbage user friendliness
Jetforce airbag is a huge 200 liters that might even function as partial head protection. Near as I can tell, this well be a very easy airbag for the aftermarket to replace with a Dyneema version saving significant weight. It appears to be quite simple.
A few other tidbits from Nathan’s presentation:
– System is tested to hundreds of inflations. Our take: have fun testing.
– Battery can do up to 6 inflations at room temp, might just do one in extreme cold.
– Butterfly valve in housing is the key feature allowing the deflation cycle.
– The first compressed gas avy airbags came available about 28 years ago. Time for a change?
– Battery is nearly same thing as laptop computer battery, so traveling shouldn’t be a problem.
– Three square feet of filtered air input, some screened by the same stuff used for snowmobile pre-filter.
Look for our extensive coverage later next week. For now, rest assured, Black Diamond has it going on with this. Only bummer is fall 2014 retail seems a long way off!
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
