Avalanche Flotation Device tested in Invermere, British Columbia
- Thread starter WARY
- Start date
W
WARY
Well-known member
After the slide the helicopter drops off the Chief Science Officer and the Chief Information Officer (our pal Will) on top of the mountain. They have to ski down to the debris field and the test dummy as the helicopter cannot safely land on the avalanche. Here also are some aerial pictures of the device before they reached it. In the last picture you can see the dummy's hand just left of the lift bag...........
Last edited:
"F" China, I would rather pay more $ for some AMERICAN MADE QUALITY.
Keep up the good work WARI.
W
WARY
Well-known member
Here's another avalanche where you can see the red lift bag inside the slide. The lift bag ended up completely exposed on top of the avalanche after the slide and the dummy had a hand in the air above the snow and the head was 6 centimeters below the surface....
You can see the 2 bomb holes above the crash test dunny....
You can see the 2 bomb holes above the crash test dunny....
Last edited:
W
WARY
Well-known member
Testing continues in a few weeks when we take the show to LaMoille, Nevada and produce test avalanches in the Ruby Mountains of the Wasatch Range. Some of these photos have been posted here before, but these pics are from our testing in Nevada in 2004. We plan to do pretty much the same test later this month, where avalanches are rolled over snowmobiles and crash test dummies, both with and without avalanche flotation devices (AFDs) and hopefully with a pair of skis or a board attached.
In 2004 we used 2 snowmobiles, one with an attached 20 cubic fooot AFD and one without................
In 2004 we used 2 snowmobiles, one with an attached 20 cubic fooot AFD and one without................
Last edited:
W
WARY
Well-known member
Success was followed by disaster followed by success. Every thing always works best when nobody is standing around watching, and trouble always comes when the film crew and the audience shows up..........
First test a success. A nice class 2 slide that hammered the 2 machines. The snowmobile attached to the AFD floated right out of the bottom of the avalanche unscathed. It's skis were not bent, and it could have been riden out of the mountains if it wasn't a junked engine (we didn't want to use working snowmobiles, so we used 2 sleds with blown engines).
Then in our haste we quickly longlined the sleds to the next hill for another test without switching out AFDs. The harness couldn't take 2 avalanches in a row and it blew apart, sending the still inflated bright red lift bag out into the front of the 100 foot vertical powder cloud, where it remained, and ended up sailing down into a gulch hundreds of feet out from the stopped leading edge of the slide. Oh, and a film crew from National Geographic was showing up in 6 days to film another test.......... Repairs could only be made in Truckee, California so it was Go Time.
Here's the first successful test.............
First test a success. A nice class 2 slide that hammered the 2 machines. The snowmobile attached to the AFD floated right out of the bottom of the avalanche unscathed. It's skis were not bent, and it could have been riden out of the mountains if it wasn't a junked engine (we didn't want to use working snowmobiles, so we used 2 sleds with blown engines).
Then in our haste we quickly longlined the sleds to the next hill for another test without switching out AFDs. The harness couldn't take 2 avalanches in a row and it blew apart, sending the still inflated bright red lift bag out into the front of the 100 foot vertical powder cloud, where it remained, and ended up sailing down into a gulch hundreds of feet out from the stopped leading edge of the slide. Oh, and a film crew from National Geographic was showing up in 6 days to film another test.......... Repairs could only be made in Truckee, California so it was Go Time.
Here's the first successful test.............
Last edited:
W
WARY
Well-known member
....................and here's the snowmobile with the attached AFD emerging from the snow as the avalanche subsides. The snow sheds off the machine and it looks like a mole tunneling out of the snow. Eventually all of the snow sheds off the snowmobile and AFD, and you can see it sitting on top of the snow. The snowmobile without an AFD was buried deep. We think this it the part of an avalanche where a person should be swimming and using their arms and legs to thrash about and shed the snow as the avalanche slows to a stop. You're not really swimming to the surface, but instead, your movement is helping shed the snow off of you.........
In this pic the snowmobile is beneath the avalanche but starting to emerge. You can see the trench it is digging in the middle of the pic, moving downward left to right.
In this pic the snowmobile is beneath the avalanche but starting to emerge. You can see the trench it is digging in the middle of the pic, moving downward left to right.
Last edited:
Good reading.Did you have dummies without packs on?Hopefully the price is lower cause I have friends that go once a year or every couple years that would buy a pack just for those times if the price was good.
where is the final resting picture from this sequence? this was certainly a huge avy, but i couldnt see the bag in the last few pictures... im sure the bags ended up on top of the slide, but i would like to see the final pictures...
Rolling like a freight train into the valley below..........
Pretty much the whole mountain cam down...........
I just meant would the dummy be buried everytime with out the FD.I imagine it would but just wondering to see results to compare to not having a FD.
Similar threads
