airbag Articles
Pictured: the future
In the future, our race suits will be capable of predicting crashes, inflating prior to impact in order to absorb forces exceeding even 23g without injury. In the future, those suits will sync to mobile devices more powerful than the computers used to put men on the moon. In the future, all those components will add only 450 grams of weight and require no additional space in the suit. In the futur...
Jun 13, 2012
Testing Dainese D-Air
This is what it looks like to put Dainese's new airbag-equipped D-Air race suit through its paces. Pictured here is Leon Haslam crashing his World SBK S1000RR at Misano practice last year. Despite landing heavily on his shoulders and back, Haslam walked away without injury. D-Air hides its airbag underneath the suit's leather, wrapping it around the shoulders and collar bones. Three accelerometers...
Mar 28, 2012
Dainese D-Air: the safety race is on
Both Dainese and arch-rival Alpinestars have spent the past decade developing real-life, airbag-equipped superhero suits and now they're ready for public consumption (even though no dates have been given on purchase availability). Alpinestars spilled the beans on TechAir back in August and, this week, Dainese did the same with this new D-Air suit, finally ready for public consumption. The safety a...
Jan 27, 2012
The universal, retrofittable motorcycle airbag
While Dainese and Alpinestars have only shown track-use airbag-equipped racing suits, the other big gear maker in Italy has been busy selling airbags for both road and track, fitted to both leathers and jackets. Now, Spidi is releasing an airbag vest that promises to be work with anything you’re wearing. The Spidi Neck DPS Vest is the first universal motorcycle airbag. The big difference bet...
Nov 08, 2010
Dainese D-Air: satellites, accelerometers and the safest suit ever
This is the final production version of Dainese D-Air, the new airbag equipped racing suits that you’ve seen Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo racing in this year. Dainese’s is the most sophisticated motorcycle airbag yet. 10 years in the making, D-Air incorporates GPS, three accelerometers, three gyroscopic sensors, the ability to fully inflate in .05 seconds, deflate in 5 seconds and it will...
Oct 27, 2010
Dailies
Dainese's airbag and the two biggest crashes of 2010
Both Unlike less sophisticated systems already on the market that rely on a lanyard between bike and rider to trigger release of an airbag, Dainese's setup and the similar Alpinestars TechAir instead rely on multiple sensors that detect acceleration in different planes at different areas on the riders' body. If the suit's computer determines that the data is sayin...
Jun 16, 2010
Dailies
Alpinestars TechAir race suit available July 2011, $2500 over the "Race Replica"
Shoulders and collarbones can leap for joy as The TechAir is a 6 staged system using sensors located in secret positions throughout a suit designed not to trigger unless a series of criteria are all met that meets a kind of mathematical definition of a crash. Here's how it works.During Stage 1 the sensors placed throughout the race suit record data and then that data is used for a diagnostic check...
Apr 30, 2010
Dailies
Spidi beats Alpinestars, Dainese to market with airbag-equipped race suit
Little known in the US, The problem is it has the same problems the system's always had; namely high risk of accidental inflation, the inability to self-inflate if the rider doesn't separate from the motorcycle in a crash and unpredictable results upon inflation. Because Spidi relies on a lanyard to set off inflation, it's easy for riders to forget to disconnect w...
Jun 29, 2009
Dailies
APC Airbag helmets to go on sale
APC announced it will be putting its new airbag helmet system on the market May 13. Utilizing gyrocopes and accelerometers similar to the Dainese project for racers, the airbag is activated via a remote switchboard placed under the seat that interprets changes in movement. The total time between detection and full inflation is slightly less than 1½ seconds.>Attempting to provide support similar t...
May 06, 2008