legendary innovator

VACUUM PACKED ULTIMA THULES

Several weeks ago I wrote about the Air Force putting out a solicitation for 24 vacuum packed Ultima Thule bags to be put in the survival kits of fighter aircraft. A charlatan offered a bag to them for $240.00 each versus my bag which would have cost him $395.00 each. Having known of the solicitation before it came out which was a surprise versus coming directly to me I prepared the bags.

These are packed in 13x13x3 inch shapes.

I could have broken them out of the packaging but I decided to leave them as is and I have put them on the web site for $325.00 each which includes shipping.

If you fly your own plane and need a survival bag that was their intended purpose. Or if you just want something in your vehicle because you drive in cold country it will save your life if you get stuck.

LEGENDARY INNOVATOR/INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR

A few innovations in the outdoor industry are according to the Sporting Goods Business web site SGB.com has an article about a Columbia Sportswear Company employee being responsible for these innovations.

The first innovation mentioned is and I quote; “Columbia introduced Omni-Tech, now one of the world’s leading waterproof/breathable systems for rainwear”. How is it possible that waterproof/breathable was an innovation of Columbia I believe sometime after the year 2000 when the Gore Company had been selling there product since 1977 when it was shown to me. Not that either one actually works. It reminds me of the Albany International company putting Primaloft a chopped polyester fiberfill product on the market in 1988 or so as a “synthetic alternative to down” when chopped staple polyester fiberfill was already being sold since 1960 by the DuPont Company.

The second miraculous innovation is “Omni-Shade” which I am not clear on. It and I quote; “revolutionizing how people protect themselves from the sun in hot climates”. Then and I quote;“they set their sights on Omni-Freeze Zero, another ground breaking technology that made fabrics “smart” by letting them react to the skin’s temperature for cooling”. They further state “Omni-Heat Reflective introduced small, shiny dots on the inside of the fabric, reflecting body heat to keep people warmer with less weight”. All of what I have just rewritten from the SGB published article is not comprehensible to me other than the non-sense of the “shiny dots” reflecting body heat back to the body. That reminds me of the Outlast beads of paraffin giving heat back to the body. Smart fabrics must have a brain, otherwise how can the fabric become “smart”.

The third remarkable innovation is “OutDry” a and I quote; “a waterproof patented exclusive lamination process that bonds a waterproof, breathable membrane directly to the back of a shoe’s outermost layer creating one-piece upper, and OutDry Extreme, an award –winning proprietary technique that eliminates a fabric layer for waterproof breathable and puts the waterproof membrane on the outside to prevent a “wet out”. Is there a difference between the original innovations not really? The explanation by the writer shows a contradiction. It starts out as a waterproof entity and in the same sentence it becomes both waterproof and breathable, how did that happen; magic?

The reality of their so called exclusive lamination is probably a monolithic film being laminated to the face of the fabric versus the back of the fabric. This lamination process has been in use for as far as I know 20 years before Gore existed. To the best of my knowledge when you laminate any film to fabric you get a “waterproof” face that is not “vapor permeable”.

Now for the Columbia Sportswear employee responsible for all these developments according to SGB, Gert Boyle!