Geoffrey

Weight and fitment.

chris walrod

+1

ltc

Interesting since weight should not be an issue with something that is worn so tightly against the torso; unlike unrestrained mass like a helmet.

gbaker

SFI in PCA and NASA, although NASA will probably add RSI.

ltc

H&D would likely say that there is no issue with belts slipping off the HANS.
IIRC, they also said that a 3" belt (with or without HANS wings) is fine; there is no need for a 2-3" HANS specific shoulder belt.
It still amazes me that a device with such an obvious physical/design flaw has gone on this long.

kurt M

Perhaps it has something to do with all the people it has worked for? Flaw or not there is an ever growing list of people that are walking and talking today due to having one of the flawed systems on during a high G event. Before HANS there was little and nothing as simple for H&N and BSF injuries unless you count the ineffective collars. There also seems to be scant evidence of real world failures in the faulted HANS system. Anyone have data of a BSF on a person wearing a HANS device? sometimes real world data produces results that you don't expect. (or don't want to see for some reason)

ltc

Disclaimer:
I own a HANS and an ISAAC, my son wears a Leatt. I am not affiliated in anyway with any H&N restraint company or product.

My job is to find mistakes in designs. Before you send a missle halfway around the world or blast some poor SOB into space, it's someone like me who has reviewed the design and not seen what was done correctly (those are assumed conditions) but rather what was overlooked. Yes, it's a thankless job, no one likes to have years of their life's work redlined and criticized.

It is just intuitively obvious to me that H&D have not come to grips with the simple mechanics of trying to restrain the HANS (yoke) under a set of belts.
Wings, no wings, friction material, no friction material, back to wings, HANS specific belts, std 3" belts, now dual shoulder belts (2" and 3"). That indicates to me that there is a fundamental issue in the physics (try lifting a weight via rope by merely squeezing it between your hands....).

Now, to further complicate matters (as is often the case), inject business, marketing, money and suddenly engineering takes a back seat. Fair enough, it's how things work (or actually don't work when there is a failure).

Yes, the HANS has saved lives, but that is not to say that those same lives would not have been saved by a better/different design. A moot point at best, since H&D have been very good at using marketing/business/politics/lawyers in order to 'standardize' H&N restraints around the HANS and HANS only. Fair enough, but IMHO it still does not change/alter the presence of the weakness in the (ever evolving) design.
Again, from my line of work, it is not the fact that you made something work 99 times out of 100, I only think about the 1 time out of 100.

JClark

There is a new HANS and Schroth combo being used by a club racer testing the design and (I'm told) a few F1 drivers. It uses rubber "teeth" on both the underside of the harness and the top of the HANS. From what I've heard it works great for keeping the belt and HANS centered on your chest and the belt centered on the HANS.

I saw it back in April so I'd imagine it'd be available to the rest of us soon.

gbaker

^ LOL. I'm sorry, that's just too funny a post. Absolutely classic timing.

pcar928fan

itc,

Good call...I am not sure exactly what the PCA requirements are. I know there was a certified Head and Neck restraint requirement by June 1st, but I guess it was July 1st...

Thanks for clearing that up!

rock2001

I'll see if I can swing the HANS and belts at once. I was planning to look into the HANS first thing next year, and as long as the HANS belts with no HANS is safer then stock 3pt seat belts, I'm still improving.

Racing is probably far enough away for me that I don't need to make decisions yet that are only required for racingyet , but I want to work towards that, and certainly protect myself during the DE's. I've done DEs for a couple years with very little protection, and I have to get serious now before my luck runs out.

Thanks

RedlineMan

Hey;

You certainly could use the 3/2 shoulders without a HANS. I've done it myself in a lazy moment or when out for a bit of a reccy. The BELTS will take it just fine, but that totally misses the point of the recommendation against it. The 3" inch belt will support more body surface area, likely lessening the possibility of shoulder injuries due to spreading forces out more evenly. The 2" belt will "sink" into the body farther, quite possibly causing more damage.

The only reason I can really see to use the 3/2 is that it loads the width of the material more evenly in a crash. Since some of the 3" belt material will not be on the HANS, but draped over the edge of it, it will not see the same loading, which theroretically could cause an uneven stress across the material's width.Splitting hairs, perhaps.

Geoffrey

John, there is no evidence that that will occur.

kurt M

Again the real world trumps intuition. Don't feel bad it happens to me too. I was told point blank to purchase a stock and my hunch was not to and it went up about 900% in 3 years. Had I dropped the coin I had ready I would have been looking at $250K My hunch is tying your helmet and head directly to the shoulder straps is going to get some heads pulled off when things like seat or lap belt mounts go wrong but it is only a gut feeling and not based on any testing or real world.

I am not saying that H&D’s system is perfect and above reproach. I am only pointing out that it does work as evidenced by real world data, wings or not, 2 belts 4 belts, 3 inches or 3 feet wide, hunches be damned. You say the lives might have been saved by another perhaps better method as well. This misses my point. I am not only thinking about the ones saved by the flawed system but also any that were not saved by failures in the system. Where are the failures in the flawed system? I seem to recall that G Baker’s group ran a test or had the sled data on a HANS test where one wing popped out but the system still worked per the numbers. The video and conversation about this was posted in this forum a long while ago. Perhaps the wings, and grip tape and belts is only tinkering to improve something that already works? Your point is not moot by rule jerrymandering it is moot by success.

All systems are a compromise. Name a system, mature or not that is not flawed or compromised is some way. You toss stuff into space and I bet you study how to get more performance from less weight with user friendliness over a wide range of user mental prowess is not a considered variable. This is not the case in H&N. One thing the HANS has for it is it is simple in use and most people can look at it and go "OK I see what it is supposed to do.
Based on your posts it seems that you hate H&D and the politics of certification. I too am not fond of rules that interfere with innovation and improvement but where do you get "HANS and HANS only"? There are a number of systems that meet the rules as they stand, even with the bully in the corner all but one are not made by H&D.

Don't pass on the very good while waiting for the perfect to materialize.

gbaker

Foreign or domestic?