I hope you don't really believe that!

Are you suggesting that a reputable mag would avoid something as huge as potentially lethal QC failures to protect their ad revenue? Frankly, I think that's inappropriate speculation. Whether they think they either 1) have sufficient data or 2) sufficient expertise, to make such a call, is a different matter.

I'm sure this will get ugly fast, but long story short I am looking for contact info for anyone who has personally had an Alien fail in the field (by way of the unit itself failing, not the placement). The reason being that I have a meeting with an investigator from the Consumer Product Safety Commission later this week and as interested as she seems in my test results, I think she may be even more interested in speaking with anyone who's actually had a failure in the field.

So if you've had a failure and wouldn't mind me passing along your contact info (or just an account of the failure with some photos) please drop me a PM.

Thanks.

-aric.

You mean there's a chance I'm not an internet crackpot?

But to respond to your point, I was asked to forward all of my test results to the US UIAA rep shortly after the recent UIAA Safety Meeting (which took place shortly after the NRR) and have been in contact with him on several occasions about this since then (note: one of their members contacted me, I didn't contact them as I didn't yet feel I had enough data to warrant taking it that far). They have pretty much everything at this point, but I will admit that I've not followed up with him to see if they're going to do anything with it (he was on an extended climbing holiday at the time, so I didn't want to ruin his vacation by pestering him). I'm told the French UIAA rep was going to buy a bunch of Aliens to take home for testing, so my guess is that they're working on it in some fashion. But given that CCH's UIAA cert expired on 12/31/08 I don't know there's much of anything the UIAA can do.

3. Personally I'd have no beef whatsoever with CCH if they simply dropped their ratings to whatever level their gear actually performs at using 3 Sigma analysis and the standard test.

There's the thing... CCH's UIAA certification expired 12/31/08, so most likely the UIAA has no leverage against them anymore. I suspect the same goes for CE since to my knowledge Aliens aren't sold in Europe (except perhaps for unofficial grey market ones) and therefore not subject to the CE norm.

Regardless I sent all my results to the US UIAA rep weeks ago and followed it up with a copy of my final report shortly after it was posted here on RC, so its not like they weren't given the opportunity to get involved. That said I've not followed up with them on it so they may well be working on the issue behind the scenes and simply not telling anyone about it. I guess I should probably drop them an email to let them know I've passed things on to the CPSC....

My bad. Lack of UIAA cert is pretty damn interesting. My wild guess is there have been some words exchanged between the UIAA and CCH already, and they chose to go their separate ways quietly. Mountain Tools needs to change their Alien page to removed the UIAA reference I guess.

Face it Aric, you are incapable of being impartial. Your outright refusal to acknowledge flaws in your own testing and your reliance on name calling instead of engaging in polite conversation has ruined your credibility. It's no longer worth the time following your "investigation" since the results were pre-determined before you pulled the first cam. Perhaps there will be a proper investigation by somebody who knows what they are doing. But it clearly isn't you or the CSPC.

Face it Aric, you are incapable of being impartial. Your outright refusal to acknowledge flaws in your own testing and your reliance on name calling instead of engaging in polite conversation has ruined your credibility. It's no longer worth the time following your "investigation" since the results were pre-determined before you pulled the first cam. Perhaps there will be a proper investigation by somebody who knows what they are doing. But it clearly isn't you or the CSPC.

Wow. is this really the same person?

Roy, What are your climbing/ gear making credentials?

Aric, I love your work here, but... It seems Roy has really wound you up. I can appreciate why, but I've got to admit that your frustration is not suiting you well. While Roy has repeatedly refuted you and dismissed your findings on these threads, he certainly doesn't seem to hold much sway amongst the readers. Me thinks you would be better served by ignoring him at this point. Or, perhaps you should simply answer his points as you have and leave it at that.

Quite frankly, this whole quibble has been rather elementary school IMO. it is not suited to someone of your integrity.

Just my $0.02.

-W




Edit to add: Personal attacks are not allowed on the site. Mod or not. Take a deep breath dude...