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df8m1

AAD Market / Competition

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This thread is open to all manufacturers to post information in, however, I do respectfully request that posters identify themselves and the manufacturer they represent or are promoting.

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I had an interesting conversation with a friend last night about how to decide if it is worth the investment to introduce another widget to a market where there are already competing widgets.

He fancies himself as a business guy and was all for me making the investment to compete the AAD market, (he is not a jumper, but does invest in other markets). Even after the liability aspect, small market, yada yada, he was still insistent that it was the right move, no risk, no gain, he said. Well that was until I said that he would obviously be interested in covering the majority of the investment, as, this was a "no brainier".

Needless to say he quickly had an excuse why he couldn’t invest at this stage, and excused him self from the table. It is interesting to see the different attitudes regarding reoccurring maintance requirements, price point, etc, depending on a consumers perspective, or from an investment / manufacturer qualty control side.

Also, like a previous poster said, the market always has an eye out for a bus to through you under.

Regardless of weather or not I decide to “produce” an AAD for the Sport Market, I can always license the cutter to another manufacture if the design efforts show worth while results. I know of at least one off hand that needs a cutter…..

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With the latest AAD issue putting Cypres under the microscope it makes me wonder why someone would voluntarily subject themselves to the rants of skydivers complaining about an AAD not being perfect, service not being immediate, and since they paid for the device it should be perform perfectly and without flaw always and forever.

Sure you want this pain? :P

"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

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With the latest AAD issue putting Cypres under the microscope it makes me wonder why someone would voluntarily subject themselves to the rants of skydivers complaining about an AAD not being perfect, service not being immediate, and since they paid for the device it should be perform perfectly and without flaw always and forever.

Sure you want this pain? :P



Why?? MONEY... “If” the market can support the return requirement, then all the drawbacks with dealing with the public are compensated for.

It does however look like a licensing deal with another manufacturer would be a better business decision. There is another thread with a pole for the best AAD and that also supports my interpretation of the posts in this thread.

So to answer your second question; No, I don’t think there is enough gain to for the pain. ;)

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I am asking, "what if you had the option of an AAD, (comparable in performance and options to current AADs), that was made in the USA?" Would you be more inclined to "buy American"?.



Yes, I would. My rig & canopies were made in the USA by USA companies...giving me a good/proud feeling. But that's not entirely why I bought them. They had good products/reputations and I need these items to skydive. Price was also a factor.

I don't have an AAD, don't need one to skydive [in USA], and I feel that they are all overpriced. But if you design a good AAD, have the Chinese make it, charge $500.......I'll buy it.

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The complexity of an AAD seems to be mostly in the control electonics. I'd worry that a new player coming out of nowhere with a new AAD might not have the experience to insure reliability in that part of the system. If you think you have a better cutter design (cheaper, more reliable, etc), you might try seeing if a company that has experience with the control electronics side would be interested.

For example, Argus: they went of of business mostly because their cutter suffered from enough catastrophic (or near catastrophic) failures that they lost the confidence of the container mfgs and the buying public. Their electronics were (IIRC) otherwise as reasonably good as the competition (more or less). Maybe a better cutter would induce them to reenter the market. They at least have an established name (albeit tarnished at bit, but I'd think more valuable than say, "df8m1" in the AAD marketplace), and had enough units in service for long enough time that there would be some confidence that their control electronics won't quickly reveal themselves to be problematic.

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The complexity of an AAD seems to be mostly in the control electonics. I'd worry that a new player coming out of nowhere with a new AAD might not have the experience to insure reliability in that part of the system. If you think you have a better cutter design (cheaper, more reliable, etc), you might try seeing if a company that has experience with the control electronics side would be interested.

For example, Argus: they went of of business mostly because their cutter suffered from enough catastrophic (or near catastrophic) failures that they lost the confidence of the container mfgs and the buying public. Their electronics were (IIRC) otherwise as reasonably good as the competition (more or less). Maybe a better cutter would induce them to reenter the market. They at least have an established name (albeit tarnished at bit, but I'd think more valuable than say, "df8m1" in the AAD marketplace), and had enough units in service for long enough time that there would be some confidence that their control electronics won't quickly reveal themselves to be problematic.



Peter, I agree that it is the software and electronics that are most likely to fail.

That said, if someone came into the market with a Class 3 medical device background, or specific areas of safety critical design in a mainstream regulated industry, or specific aspects of military design (not all military design is hi-reliability).

Personal experience is that everyone is an expert UNTIL they have to actually do it. Then they discover all the tradeoffs and just how difficult it actually is.
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

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The complexity of an AAD seems to be mostly in the control electonics. I'd worry that a new player coming out of nowhere with a new AAD might not have the experience to insure reliability in that part of the system. If you think you have a better cutter design (cheaper, more reliable, etc), you might try seeing if a company that has experience with the control electronics side would be interested.

For example, Argus: they went of of business mostly because their cutter suffered from enough catastrophic (or near catastrophic) failures that they lost the confidence of the container mfgs and the buying public. Their electronics were (IIRC) otherwise as reasonably good as the competition (more or less). Maybe a better cutter would induce them to reenter the market. They at least have an established name (albeit tarnished at bit, but I'd think more valuable than say, "df8m1" in the AAD marketplace), and had enough units in service for long enough time that there would be some confidence that their control electronics won't quickly reveal themselves to be problematic.



Peter, I agree that it is the software and electronics that are most likely to fail.

That said, if someone came into the market with a Class 3 medical device background, or specific areas of safety critical design in a mainstream regulated industry, or specific aspects of military design (not all military design is hi-reliability).

Personal experience is that everyone is an expert UNTIL they have to actually do it. Then they discover all the tradeoffs and just how difficult it actually is.



Both of the above posts make good points, and the quality systems that address those concerns, account for a large portion of the cost to produce an AAD. The best designed board can fall victim to a poor production process, and if the quality control and validation process is not up to the challenge, some of those low quality boards could make it to theater.

There are advantages for designing an AAD now as apposed to 20 years ago, as, circuit board design is not as new as it was then, and, with the introduction of safety systems like airbag systems in cars, that level of hardware safety feature design, as well as the approach to safety system software design, are standard concepts that are used on all the time, and the production houses that are capable of that high level quality production and validation are plentiful. However, that level of quality and the extensive validation systems that each AAD has to, (should), go through is very time consuming, and that equates into cost, but that is the cost for a quality product.

It would take at least 40 hours of validation testing for each unit prior to it being shipped, (that includes climate controlled vacuum chambers, vibratory cycles at different temperatures with altitude cycles, static discharge, RF, etc.), and that requires specialized test equipment and techs to over see the process, and that = cost that has to be carried by the product.

If the new AAD can only capture 10% or less of the market, then that results in each AAD costing more to cover the costs of development and production. This is where I see, from a business stand point, there is not enough market potential to justify introducing an AAD to the Sport Market.

Also, any military unit that involves a service member, either directly or indirectly, is required to be of the highest quality and reliability. If it is thought that making an AAD for the Sport Market is tuff, can you imagine designing one for the USA Military!? That has been our primary focus, only looking at if it would be profitable to reconfigure one of our military units for the Sport Market. Airtec has the majority of the Sport market solidly locked up to the point where it does not make sense to try to brake in.

As for any cutter designs that we have for our military units, we would be open to talk with other AAD manufactures about a licensing deal, however I am not expecting to get any interest.

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To my genuine surprise, I have been contacted by a couple of people asking if we had any cutters, or will be producing and selling cutters.

We will be building and testing cutters in house during the R&D phase, and the production process will include X-Ray inspection, as Airtec, and our own manufacturer for our military cutters use, as part of their quality control process.

We will be building cutters in house continually for internal use and continued testing of our AAD systems, so once we are happy with a cutter design, it is not out of the question that we could produce cutters for an end user if the numbers made sense. 100% reliability is a must first.

Once we are happy with a cutter design, we will consider putting the cutter through the TS-112 v1.0 test protocol in cooperation with container manufacturers, to obtain approval for our cutter with their container configuration. However, we will have to balance the cost of such a process against the potential return, as with out an AAD to market, it will be difficult to justify the cost for each container test.

We welcome requests and are open to talk about any potential applications that an approved cutter can benefit. I would like to have something to show at PIA, however we have a lot going on at the present, and the paperwork needs to be in place prior to any showing or demonstration.

I am open to questions from everyone, however, again, I respectfully request that anyone associated with a manufacturer of any kind identify themselves accordingly.

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I have received a good amount of positive response privately about designing a cutter and having it approved by the container manufacturers.

The good thing is that the pinched loop failure with a cylindrical cutter can be induced pretty consistently, so the new cutters can be put in the same configuration to see if the new design allows a clean separation of the loop every time.

I think this is a worth while direction, I think there is something to he said for a part that is designed by someone who not only understands the significance of its operation, but will be putting it on their own back as well.

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Hi,

Just wondering if there is any movement in this project.

Since the last post in this thread, the two most popular civilian parachute manufacturers have released canopies that are capable of exceeding the parameters of even a speed Cypres.

I am not talking about competition canopies like Petra and Peregrine, I a talking about Valkyrie and Leia.

I own one of these. I won't say which as to avoid 'manufacture wars' but recently I have been seriously concerned about firing my speed cypres.

Sub 70 foot canopies are becoming quite normal now for some (including me) and we are always looking for more speed and we are getting it. I am going to get an even smaller one as I know I can get better distances from it but the problem lies with the rules and concerns with AAD's

I have not 'upgraded' my speed cypres to the newer parameters of over 100 mph yet, but in doing that my concerns are doubled. It is still possible to exceed this fall rate, though less likely, but now if I am knocked out and spinning, probably on my back with camera wings on... there might not be enough vertical speed to activate the unit when it is needed most.

I liked the parameters of the Argus the most, switch off/deactivate once the canopy is open...

They are banned in many places including my home DZ and as we all know, there is not enough confidence in the cutter design.

The only other option I have right now is an Astra. These have their own complications.

The market is desperately in need of an answer to this. It is only a matter of time that another fatality will occur with a speed cypres, not because the unit did not do it's job, but because we are paying with parameters that are going to be broken with our everyday use.

It could be said to simply not downsize anymore an I am seriously considering that, but this is not in the spirit of skill development.

Our safety equipment is holding us back now.

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You still have the choice of jumping without an AAD or jumping your rocket on dedicated jumps only and jumping another canopy which will not let you exceed AAD firing parameters on "regular" jumps.

It seems you know all your options yet decide to take the most cornering one.
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

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'Seems'

I have a smaller canopy (3.1) on order and I am already 2.9, but that is not my competition canopy (3.3), it is my everyday canopy.

If I want to do well in competition and I am jumping over 1000 times a year for work, why not use that opportunity to progress by using as similar a canopy as possible all the time so it is not such a different picture and feeling when I compete. This canopy is also my accuracy canopy.

It opens more consistently and softly than any other canopy I have ever flown. it is a great work horse, it can out float many other canopies much bigger on long spots...

This new technology is providing more lift per square foot.

You never saw velos in the sub 70 range, because they didn't make them because they didn't work... there is a good reason for that. Even the 71's and 75's are/were also dogs and you seldom saw them in competitions, for a good reason.

New technology brings new problems, old safety devices are not designed to cope with this.

Airtec seem to think increasing the activation speed is the answer. It is not. How fast were you falling when your cypres fired? Were you unconscious? We all know someone spinning falls slower...

If by the time I get my smaller faster parachute, I will likely not jump it using a speed Cypres.

I will probably get an Astra and turn it off once open.

I would like a more modern solution though.

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coozer

'Seems'
If by the time I get my smaller faster parachute, I will likely not jump it using a speed Cypres.

I will probably get an Astra and turn it off once open.

I would like a more modern solution though.



Alpha testing (passive) will start this summer. Mainly collecting data from Wingsuit and HP Canopy Pilots to allow us to optimize the settings respectively.

Unless something unexpected is found, Beta Testing should start mid Winter or so.

We are doing this in parallel with a Military AAD Development Program so we have our hands full between the two projects.

Even though the Wingsuit and HP Canopy market is relatively small, we are excited about offering an AAD that will be able to be kept up to date as HP Disciplines advance and new ones are created.

I am not sure the platforms that Airtec and AAD are using will support the ability to keep up with the performance parameters of advancing HP Disciplines. It will be interesting to see if they decide it is worth it to develop a new platform and all it takes to make it work (basically starting over) for a small percentage (respectively) of the over all skydiving market, given the majority of the market does operate within the operating limits of the AADs currently available.

For HP Canopys, the AAD manufacturers could make them turn off like the Argus, but then they would be admitting that their AAD process is flawed, and that Argus had the right solution to the problem. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, they do in the future for the HP market.

We are looking for HP pilots, both Canopy and Wingsuit, to work with us to optimize our settings. We are looking for the best, and ideally ones that do not currently use an active AAD. The reason for that is I personally do not want someone to remove an "active" AAD for an initially passive one, given if something happens to them..... I have seen other AAD testing go bad, (not because of the AAD), and although the jumper made the decision to jump with out an active AAD (where they normally had an active one) during the test jumps, the thoughts that goes through ones head are not ones that one wants.

When the Cypres was first released, there was distrust. It is a normal part of progression, especially given the emotional connection an AAD invokes. I highly doubt that Airtec and AAD are going to stop making AADs, so all the Cypres and Vigil fans will still be able to jump their AAD of choice.

We will be offering an AAD so that the other jumpers will have an option that is designed around Modern Skydiving. Freedom of choice is meaningless it one does not have a choice that meets their requirements.

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Thank you for all the effort you are putting into this.

I am sure the market will react well. HP canopies and wingsuits are not fringe anymore.

Although there are more people that do not use high performance canopies. Those that do, do significantly more jumps than those that don't for the most part.

As time goes I am sure there will be a relatively sizable market for these... someone is going to pop a speed cypres, or go in because it didn't fire due to them falling too slow, it is not a matter of if, but when.

That is the point (unfortunately) that you efforts will be really respected.

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