How Much Water Does A Army Camelbak Hold

CamelBak started life as a MacGyver-like experiment. In 1989, EMT Michael Eidson repurposed an IV bag as a way to carry extra water on the Hotter'North Hell 100-mile cycle race exterior Wichita Falls, Tx. He tucked the bag of water into a white tube sock, stuffed that into the back of his jersey, and ran a thin hose over his shoulder that he could use to drink from, clamping it closed with a clothespin. Decades later that experimental spirit lives on behind the iconic hydration-arrangement company Eidson spawned.

Of course, in that location are the unproblematic substitutions customers make for water.

"Java, tea, every imaginable alcohol possible," says Jeremy Galten, vice president of product at CamelBak. But there have been stranger queries, too. Customers accept asked about storing diesel and jet fuel. According to Galten, diesel makes sense, "it's basically a flexible external tank for vehicles," but the jet fuel inquiry was a niggling more mysterious. A pocket-sized, CamelBak-sized fuel tank merely doesn't seem big enough for aircraft.

Quinton T. Burris/U.S. Air Strength/Getty Images

In 2005, the U.South. Marines fifty-fifty inquired about whether CamelBak'southward reservoirs could be used to hold oxygen for high altitude, low opening parachute techniques. In HALO operations, cargo and personnel are dropped from altitudes above 30,000 feet, where aircraft are outside the range of surface-to-air missiles, but exercise not deploy their parachutes until they are low down. This means soldiers and supplies spend much less time floating higher up enemy territory and are less likely to be spotted. Merely high upward, "[marines] demand oxygen," Galten says, "and and then they were looking at our reservoir technology and our organization to use in a high altitude re-sabbatical."

NASA even became a customer in 2003. The small bluish bite values used in the hydration systems of spacesuits are made by CamelBak, and must be tested to ensure they don't leak water in nil-g.

Many of CamelBak's customers are military. A CamelBak backpack was fifty-fifty put on brandish at the Imperial State of war Museum in London. Originally belonging to guardsman Terry Brazier of the Irish guards, the pack took several bullets for him while he was on patrol in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand Province, Afghanistan in 2011.

•Sweat testing is side by side level of sports hydration

"I tried to have a drink from my CamelBak," Brazier explained, "merely in that location was no water left in it. It was but when I took information technology off and looked at it, I realized it had three bullet holes through it. I felt so lucky."

War machine, civilian, or special project, all of CamelBak'south reservoir systems are "still essentially the aforementioned thing," Galten says. In essence, they are as well recognizably the descendants of Eidson's idea: h2o purse, tube, and mouthpiece.

Scroll to Continue

SI Recommends

"Nosotros may make some modifications and adaptations," Galten says, "but we always work with the same ingredients." The bite valves are medical-grade silicone, and the reservoirs are fabricated from polyurethane sheets that are welded together to course bags by heating them with high-frequency radio waves.

A 2012 request from the U.South. Department of Homeland Security pushed those welds to bursting point. CamelBak already made a 6.6-gallon reservoir pack, called the SquadBak, designed so that soldiers could transport large amounts of h2o on their backs, merely the DHS wanted i that would survive a 35-foot drib from a helicopter. The thought was to be able to use information technology in a resupply mission in example the shipping couldn't land.

• New wearable neck collar could help reduce brain injuries in athletes

For testing, CamelBak headed to the local iii-story fire-training tower in Petaluma, Calif.

"Throwing 70 pounds, basically a lxx-pound h2o balloon, off of the top of a fire tower… in that location'due south quite a lot of free energy there," Galten says. "In that location's nothing like breaking stuff by throwing it off of a building."

Five years earlier that, Humvee manufacturer AM General approached CamelBak as the heavy vehicle maker drew up plans for a future military utility vehicle. AM General was planning to install two chemical and biological weapon-proof 20 gallon reservoirs underneath the floorboards on either side of the transmission. Partly these would be used to refill soldiers own CamelBaks, but AM General was also trying to detect a way to protect passengers from improvised explosive devices.

"They were also looking at what role that much water under the vehicle did in boom attenuation," Galten says. "Did the h2o have any upshot on the severity of the shock from a blast that transmitted up into the cab?"

There accept also been other requests that have cutting closer to where Eidson started. In the squad fourth dimension trial in the Tour de France on July 5, 2005, Bobby Julich and his Team CSC teammates used an iteration of CamelBak'due south RaceVest. The low contour reservoir, which held about ii water bottles-worth, was strapped to their backs. CSC won that stage, just, Galten says, "they outlawed information technology after that considering basically information technology gave an aerodynamic advantage."


•The scientific discipline behind your body's need for water

And a bicycle manufacturer even began exploring the possibility of getting rid of the haversack entirely in 2008. The plan was to stuff a reservoir inside the hollow wheel frame instead, but that project stalled because of the difficulty of gaining access to the h2o container. CamelBak suggests cleaning and drying reservoirs after each employ, which might be a piffling tricky if they are threaded inside a bicycle frame.

Still, at that place would have been a nice parallel to that experiment had it worked. Eidson had blimp his water bag within a tube sock for a wheel race, and ii decades later the company he created was trying to stuff their reservoirs within a bike tube.