Avalanche and Ice-Through snowmobile rescue device

[WARY]

Avalanche and Ice-through snowmobile rescue device.

We have been working for a few years on an inflatable device housed inside of a snowmobile seat, that when inflated could float the submerged snowmobile to the surface of a lake, a river, or an avalanche.

If the sled breaks through the ice the device can support the submerged machine (tethered less than a meter below the waterline), and two riders above the water.

We have also put this same system in a series of class 2 avalanches where it floated the snowmobile to the surface of the snow. The purpose of floating a snowmobile in an avalanche is to first stop the machine from spinning and cartwheeling inside the slide and causing blunt force trauma to the rider, and secondly to bring the machine to the surface where it may be used to get out of the mountains. In our testing in Nevada, snowmobiles attached to avalanche air bags traveled in a straight line down the mountain (either leading or being led by the air bag), and did not spin or cartwheel. Having your machine ride down the mountain on top of the avalanche also causes less damage to the skis and handle bars than if your sled were under the avalanche being repeatedly slammed into the mountain.

Experts in the industry tell us that mountain riders would never use such a system due to the added weight of about 15 pounds (or 7 kilograms).

Our question to you is:

Would you consider riding with a snowmobile that had an avalanche flotation system built into the machine, but added this extra weight to your sled?

Here are some pics from a test in the Mississippi River near Red Wing, Minnesota……..

http://www.snowestonline.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=124495&stc=1&d=1292454681

 

[WARY]

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[WARY]

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[WARY]

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[WARY]

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks........

 

[SledsWest]

Riding the west, I'm a HELLUVA lot more concerned with getting my own avy bag open on my back than the one under my sled's seat. I wouldn't use it due to this factor and due to the added 15 lbs.

 

[Tec]

In that kind of situation, the last thing I would care about is my sled! That's why I buy insurance for $270 per year!

 

[backcountryislife]

Personally...

I don't really believe that an avalanche could do too much damage to a sled...

ok... maybe!

15 lbs is an awful lot of weight though. How would it be activated? I agree with the above sentiments, don't see me trying to make sure my sled is safe before myself.

For watercross or just skipping though that would be a cool thing if it could be simply attached to the tunnel or something.

 

[m8magicandmystery]

basically recovery from underwater is not a huge problem...and your set up still gets the whole snowmobile wet...so nothing saved in most instances except a bit of work...i generally have no problem hooking a ski with a hook from a canoe in most mishaps in water...and often i will wear a life jacket to scoot across the waterway to get to my areas on the mountain on the otherside and leave the life jacket on the far shore for the scoot back...but man i have spent thousands to lighten the sled up..15 lbs is a real obstacle..i really appreciatte you guys looking into this area of safety and as well the possible safety of the sleds...and im certain there may be a market...park rangers...remote area police personel...dept fisheries..etc..where performance minds are not part of the job description...so i think you are on to something with them...and as always...things evolve and im certain you will develop something more irresistable for our segment...jmo...and

 

[newmy1]

I could care less about my sled in a situation like that....that is why I have it insured. I wear an ABS but highly doubt I would be interested in spending any money for something like this nor do I bleieve you would have the time or inclination to pull a cord on your sled when you are challenged enough to get your own pack cord pulled.

 

[WARY]

What we found in our testing in Nevada was that the snowmobile without an air bag quickly began to spin and cartwheel inside the avalanche, and the sled with an attached airbag went down the mountain in the straight line on its track and skis. We’ve only done it a couple times and we don’t believe it will happen every time, but we found our snowmobile sitting on top of the debris field just as pretty as you please. All we had to do was dust some snow off of it. And that was after a monster class 2 sized avalanche had hit it and carried it down the mountain. The handlebars were undamaged and the skis were straight. The other machine without an air bag was buried and trashed.

When we do our testing we put snowmobiles and life sized test dummies in groups on the mountain in the starting zone. Then we drop explosives nearby to start the avalanche. After the avalanche, most of the time we find our test dummies in these same groups, meaning they traveled down the mountain together.

So when you start an avalanche with your snowmobile, you and your machine are going to slide down the mountain together. The massive weight of your machine starts it spinning and cartwheeling, and the body of the sled, the handle bars and the skis all work together to try and kill you.

The secondary benefit is that you’ve got a potentially functioning snowmobile after the avalanche. If you are alone this could be the difference between life and death, being able to get back out of the mountains. How ironic would it be to survive a major avalanche only to die in the mountains of exposure because you had no way out?

The scenario we imagine would be that a rider sees they are in an avalanche and immediately they pull the rip cord on their AviVest or other avalanche air bag. If it appears after continuing to try and ride out of the avalanche that the rider is losing control they would pull the snowmobile air bag ripcord located between their knees.

We’ll keep working on the weight, we know it’s a huge problem. But as with our AviVest, we are trying to design a system that would save your snowmobile and be affordable.

 

[m8magicandmystery]

if a person is healthy enough to ride his sled out after an avy...he would be generally healthy enough to avoid exposure imo...and most often there is someone in the group that is out of the slide path so i don;t buy that marketing...and is there any numbers on percentages on how many survivors of avalances have indicated they were beat up by there machines as they were involved in an avy..??..i am assuming only (so we know assume starts with...lol..).one would think the rider and machine would have distance occur quickly between them once control was lost..so im interested in knowing more about these issues backed by research that you have done or are in the process of doing...

 

[WARY]

We don’t think anyone has done any research yet on what percentage of riders who are in avalanches are hurt or killed by their machine. This might be a question with no answer, as the rider probably has no idea what is slamming into them inside the chaos of an avalanche.

But unlike a hill climb where a dropped snowmobile quickly gains momentum and spins off down the hill away from the rider, inside an avalanche the mass of snow engulfs the machine and the rider and may carry them downhill together for some distance.

A lot of blunt force trauma is caused by people being slammed into trees, but we’d be willing to bet that the rider’s own machine does some blunt force trauma damage as well.