Interesting to see that one of Outwells most expensive new range of polycotton tents has reverted to steel poles rather than inflateable beams!.
Polycotton tents on the whole - the fabric lasts much longer than most polyester tents - however apart from Karsten ( whose inflateable beams resemble truck inner tubes and inflate to 55psi rather than 7-10 of regular air tents )- i do wonder how long the Bladder and the tubes that contain it along with the polyester stitching lasts in mainstream airbeam tents - esp as they are getting quite pricey now!.
There was an article in the telegraph newspaper recently about a family who had spent £2000 on an Outwell airbeam tent, then lockdown came, they recently went to use it to find the airbeam valves and bladders had perished in storage and that Outwell no longer stock the replacement parts as that model of tent is no longer in production.
The family rightly so are outraged that a once used £2000 tent is now fit only for the bin!.
When the newspaper contacted Outwell, the best goodwill offered was something like 60% off the full retail price of a new tent - which meant spending even more money with Outwell! Talk about insult to injury!.
I dont recall the outcome, but id think safe to say they didnt buy another Outwell airbea, tent!.
Separately, Outwell fairly recently had quite a problem with some of their airbeams and had to recall them, Im wondering if this has prompted them to launch some of their most expensive new tents in longer lasting polycotton along with long lasting steel poles too?.
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One of the BIG problems with Cotton/PC airbeam tents is the unwieldy pack size/weight of the larger sized ones.
The advantage of poles is that you can split the pack into two, with flysheet and poles separate, much more user friendly than the all in one of an airbeam! ... So not necessarily an airbeam issue as such, perhaps just done for practical reasons.
I've got an airbeam awning for my caravan, and back of my mind is that the airbeams are not likely to last as long as poles would, but I do appreciate the benefits of airbeams when erecting it on my own. - probably wouldn't be able to erect many similar sized poled awnings on my own!
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Topic: the return of the Poled tent!
