Corking thread about airjackets over on COTH

kerilli

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Since I am not allowed to talk about them on pain of expulsion from this place, unfortunately (and it's one of my favourite playgrounds so I manage to desist), I can't start a thread over here, but I can draw your attention to this one without getting a slapped wrist I hope.
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=371037
Some VERY interesting comments, incl from my hero Reed Ayers (event rider, rocket scientist - for real - safety researcher etc), a Spinal Surgeon, etc. The debate rages on... elsewhere... ;) ;)
 

Lolo

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I am a massively long time lurker there and I love the debates they have. There's so little petty slagging off or personal attacks even though they seem to hold opinions a lot stronger and express them even more strongly!

It also has a totally different feel to here. In that, very well known and respected people use it openly. Reed Ayers is my hero :D

Not the H/J forum though. They're scary :D
 
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Nicnac

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Oh dear - I'm now even more confused :confused:

In the absence of data, I'll continue with my P2 on top of normal BP. I call it my brave pants top :p
 

kerilli

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lolo, yes, the quality of the debates and the depth of knowledge of the posters over there is very impressive. the thread about the explosion in the pressure chamber was SO educational, for example. fascinating stuff.

Nicnac, "in the absence of data"... exactly. Got to the crux of the matter in 1... ;) ;)
 

dafthoss

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Interesting, I haven't really ventured over there before but I'm currently sitting watching the pony in his new field, might have to lurk a bit more.

Love that they can openly discuss these things without some one getting worried they will loose some advertising money :cool:
 

Lolo

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Well they do, but I've never seen/ never registered a 200 post thread revolving round someone judging someone else for something they know nothing about and is entirely irrelevant to them... :D
 

dieseldog

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This is the only thread I have ever read on COTH and it is full of petty slagging each other off. Some poor girl mentioned flip flops, another happens to be friends with someone else - it looks exactly the same as HHO, agree with the names or get petty thrown at you.
 

Lolo

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This is the only thread I have ever read on COTH and it is full of petty slagging each other off. Some poor girl mentioned flip flops, another happens to be friends with someone else - it looks exactly the same as HHO, agree with the names or get petty thrown at you.

That's not a personal attack, just a general comment on someone saying something a bit thick/ observing an oxymoron. Look, it's just my observation from being a long-term lurker that the atmosphere is hugely different (and that's not in a better/worse way, as clearly HHO is for me as I post a lot here!) and that seems to stem from there being slightly less of an attacking for truly personal reasons over attacking for being thick/ saying dumb stuff.

K, a bit of both?! ;) If I were braver I would post, because they're really into their OTTBs and offer some really interesting thoughts from a different perspective.
 

glamourpuss

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I've skimmed through it but its obviously a thread involving a self selecting group who don't like air jackets. Kerilli your dislike of air jackets is well observed so I've no doubt you find it very interesting (please note I've typed that last line 3 times now & yet it still seems snippy which it honestly isn't meant :) )
I too have a trauma background (trauma specialist radiographer) & I'm married to an orthopaedic surgeon, I've also discussed them with a well respected spinal surgeon. So I certainly didn't buy my Hit Air because I thought it was 'cool' ;)
I'm happy with the choice I have made....& I'll be even happier when I can upgrade the BP I use with it to a Kan
 

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I know very little about air vests (although my much hated body protector left the only bruise free area on my body after my nasty fall), but I understand human nature very well.

There is something called confirmation bias. This is where you have a belief about something and then you notice everything that agrees with said belief and ignore anything that doesn't. We all do it to some extent. It can be particularly strong when there's something you don't want to do. So someone doesn't want to wear a body protector/air vest and so will collect every anecdote about them not helping, and discount every one where it does.

You also get a similar thing called group think, where anyone that disagrees with the prevailing opinion gets shouted down. A good example of that is the barefoot Taliban. People just give up pointing out any alternative views because they get tired of the abuse and so you end up with a situation of no dissent on barefoot threads.

Paula
 

cptrayes

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I got as far as the word "rigid" and the claim that it is so rigid that it can cause injuries, and I could not be bothered to read any more.

When mine went off in anger after my horse failed to get his undercarriage out when landing over a five foot hedge out hunting three weeks ago, it was not "rigid" but it did feel highly protective. I bounced, laughed, remounted and jumped out of the field with it gently deflating and still wearing it.

There is an awful lot of rubbish being written on that thread!


Kerilli I understand from previous posts of yours that your main gripe is a lack of testing. I am told that the Exo cage, which you prefer, has never been tested at all, only the conventional body protector which lines it. Is this true?
 

Santa_Claus

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an interesting thread which supports my own beliefs in the whole ;)

in regard to the exo it has as I understand it passed the various BETA standards which test the body protector as a whole not just the foam so it has been tested a test which air jackets can not pass due to the nature of them. All the tests relating to air jackets are whether they pass various industry standards not how they react in event of actual falls etc.

Also with regard to EXO testing in regard to its strength was undergone, hell they parked a land rover on the chest of the inventor wearing one which proved it could with stand several ton on top of it. ;)

Btw i'm not an exo wearer, did have one but a dodgy back/shoulder disagreed with it. ;)
 

cptrayes

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an interesting thread which supports my own beliefs in the whole ;)

in regard to the exo it has as I understand it passed the various BETA standards which test the body protector as a whole not just the foam so it has been tested a test which air jackets can not pass due to the nature of them. All the tests relating to air jackets are whether they pass various industry standards not how they react in event of actual falls etc.

Also with regard to EXO testing in regard to its strength was undergone, hell they parked a land rover on the chest of the inventor wearing one which proved it could with stand several ton on top of it. ;)

Btw i'm not an exo wearer, did have one but a dodgy back/shoulder disagreed with it. ;)



Personally if I was going to wear metal staves around my chest I would want them repetition stress tested to the hilt. If one of them ever snaps, it could cause the most horrendous injuries. My limited understanding is that lightweight alloys are prone to internal brittleness and snapping if not absolutely perfectly manufactured, which is why alloy WOW headplates have been withdrawn.

I just find it very odd that someone is so intensely anti air jackets trusts an equally untested product as the exo cage.

And I keep reading comments on anti threads about air jackets being rigid, hard, passing force directly through to the wearer, etc which are simply completely wrong.

And for anyone thinking of buying one, the P2 only leaves you breathless if you buy the wrong size or do it up too tight!
 

kerilli

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the Exo did undergo testing, as S-C says, as did the Kan, which I am using for xc at the moment. All body protectors have to undergo mandatory testing (CE Certification) in order to be acceptable to BETA and to BE. cptrayes, what on earth makes you think that any of them don't?

There is a dissenting voice on that thread, actually, a medic. I didn't post this link because they all say things I want to hear, but because I thought it was an interesting debate.
I have huge respect for Reed in particular because he works right at the cutting edge of safety testing etc.

edited to add: if the Exo snaps, you can guarantee your own ribs would have snapped far earlier, so you'd already be a meat sandwich between the horse and the ground... ;) ;)
 
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cptrayes

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I was told that the exo cage has not been tested for safety as a cage, only with the same testing for a standard body protector which will not tell you whether a set of alloy ribs is safe or not. I take it that my informant is incorrect?

I don't agree with you about the snapping. Those specialist alloys are very difficult to make to a price and a bit of crystallisation can weaken them totally. In general, people's ribs don't have manufacturing flaws in them :D They also deform under pressure without breaking, which the alloy that the exo is made from will not.
 
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kerilli

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I was told that they had been fully tested for safety as a cage.
People's ribs break under far less pressure than the Exo, allowing the torso to be completely flattened. :( :( :(
If you fancy lying down with an airjacket on, and i'll have an Exo on, and they park a land rover front wheel on both of us, we'll see who is still reading their book a while later (I believe this is the test the Exo underwent).
THIS is the sort of testing these items should ALL be undergoing before they are allowed on the market... ideally with crash test dummies, but hell, we could do it with 2 watermelons inside them fgs and see if they are deformed or not...
 

Santa_Claus

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unfortunately its all a bit of a moot point in regard to the EXO as Woof Wear no longer make them as they never had a PR job quite like air jackets did (i.e. didn't have lots of money thrown at huge amounts of advertising/marketing/freebies to top riders etc ;) think the best one was one comp 3* i think all riders offered one for use at the event with a prize for the best placed rider wearing one of several hundred £ and oddly enough almost every rider took them up on it then it was publicised that x% of riders at said event choose to wear said jacket :rolleyes: )
 

cptrayes

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unfortunately its all a bit of a moot point in regard to the EXO as Woof Wear no longer make them as they never had a PR job quite like air jackets did (i.e. didn't have lots of money thrown at huge amounts of advertising/marketing/freebies to top riders etc ;) think the best one was one comp 3* i think all riders offered one for use at the event with a prize for the best placed rider wearing one of several hundred £ and oddly enough almost every rider took them up on it then it was publicised that x% of riders at said event choose to wear said jacket :rolleyes: )




Ummm. There were adverts everywhere when EXos were launched (before they were bought by Woof) and they were on the racks in Derby House. I tried one on and decided that because I am tall in the body and slim that the additional weight high up would make it more likely that I would fall off.

Of course I would prefer to be wearing a cage when someone parks a Landrover on top of me, but that did not, for me, outweigh the likelihood of falling off more often, while the likelihood of a Landrover being parked on me is slim :D

Kerilli, parking a Landrover once on one cage is not scientific testing any more than seeing one person walk away from a rotation fall in an air jacket is.

Personally, I am convinced, even more so since falling off in it, that my air jacket is safer than nothing out hunting, and since I would be very ,very uncomfortable hunting in a standard body protector, I wear it. My faith in it is no different from yours in your Exo, in my opinon.


Whilst everyone I know personally who has fallen off in one loves the jacket, I have never seen anyone post who has fallen off in an air jacket that the jacket caused them injury. Has anyone? I have seen ridiculous claims by other people that they have seen injuries caused by them - one reported that her instructor hit a cross country fence hard and that the bruising she got was caused by the jacket (the post got withdrawn quickly) - but I have never seen any personal claims.

Anyone???
 
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Santa_Claus

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if i remember rightly it also under went multiple tests involving large weights falling on top of it etc to simulate a horse landing on top from various heights. but struggling to find the articles as such. There was a fair amount of publicity but nothing to the extent of one of the leading air jacket companies ;)

I'm not saying that is why it failed but for me the concept is one I far prefer to the air jacket and I think had research continued newer version which were perhaps lighter and more comfortable could have been developed, but that needs money which wasn't forthcoming for whatever reason.

edit to add

"This is a brilliant, innovative design that’s been rigorously tested to well above the BETA Level 3 2000 standard. In testing 650kg was dropped on it from two metres and the sensors positioned beneath the Exo detected no force – very reassuring. My first impression was it being heavy and difficult to fasten on my own. I phoned Woof Wear who was extremely helpful. With practice I learned the knack. I wore it for cross country schooling or competition up to one and a half hours once a fortnight. I haven’t fallen off with it but feel significantly more protected.”
 

kerilli

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The Exo advertising was, imho, a bit of a joke. I was told by someone in the industry that when Woof bought them, it shifted all its advertising budget that year to a different category. I have no idea if that's true.
No, of course parking a car on one once is not scientific testing, but it's a start! I gather they did a lot more than that - using sandbags of the appropriate weight for a falling horse, etc. It definitely wasn't a case of 'make any old alloy into a cage and stick it in foam and sell it'.
Why did you think it would make you more likely to fall off? I'm tall and slim too... well, top half especially! I've never heard that reason before. I know someone very tall and slim who rides in one (3* level), someone very short who rides in one, etc.
The combined weight of airjacket and bp is more than you might think actually, I read the comparisons somewhere and remember being quite surprised.
 

cptrayes

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Because I thought it would make me more likely to fall off :D

I'm very sticky in the saddle cross country. I can get well out of balance and recover and ride on. But getting out of balance with that additional weight pulling me over would, in my opinion, have made it more likely that I would fall off.

I do not ride in a modern body protector and I never have. They were at the time much lighter than they are now. The additional weight of the Exo, sat very high on the body, was significant at that time.

The difference with the free fitting air jacket weight is that it is distributed much lower down the body and over a much greater area. The Racesafe which has it integral to it also seems to be a much lighter body protector than others.
 
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cptrayes

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"This is a brilliant, innovative design that’s been rigorously tested to well above the BETA Level 3 2000 standard. In testing 650kg was dropped on it from two metres and the sensors positioned beneath the Exo detected no force – very reassuring. My first impression was it being heavy and difficult to fasten on my own. I phoned Woof Wear who was extremely helpful. With practice I learned the knack. I wore it for cross country schooling or competition up to one and a half hours once a fortnight. I haven’t fallen off with it but feel significantly more protected.”


This is wholly inadequate testing for a rigid metal product. Sensors should have been placed throughout the cage for stress points and following the tests it should have been examined internally for stress damage. The test should also have included a lower impact repeated many times, to simulate the life of the product. It may well be that the next time that cage was subjected to even a light impact, that it would fracture. They don't know any more about the true safety of that product than the air jacket people know about theirs.

The main difference is that one product did not sell and the company selling it went bust, whereas word of mouth is increasing the wearing of air jackets so that they are seen everywhere. There are several of us now out hunting in them each week and most buyers seem to be buying them after recommendations from people who have fallen off in them.
 
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