KANOA FLYAWAY helmets

Beschreibung

KANOA FLYAWAY HELMETS ARE BACK!!!
incredible!
incredible also the price, but this time they are handmade by the original guy, more or less just for fun. He's busy with his job, so he doesn't get to produce many of these MUST-HAVEs for oldschool heroes!
Christian Hosoi was just one of the guys wearing these charismatic helmets!

If you are interested, you better don't throw them into your shopping basket - better contact us about delivery terms. It will take us some time to get yours over to Europe!

This is what concretedesciplies wrote about (...)

THE RE-BIRTH OF THE COOL / Kanoa Flyaway Helmets ressurrected...

BLKPRJKT

Many an innovation has come and gone in the annals of the skateboarding continuum. In the most optimal periods of innovative progress, skateboarders have driven the design progression of components, not scientists in a laboratory. Frank Nasworthy may have employed science to create urethane wheel compounds, but old Frank was a rolling type first and foremost. Arguably, one unique trademark of skateboarding lies within this formula of the practitioners dictating the re-tooling of a particular component based on their drive to push well beyond the capabilities of existing equipment. The best products ever produced for the highest performance have always been designed strictly for the needs of skateboarders, only accounting for the dynamics of skateboarding, not borrowing from race car technology, utilizing space age materials, or embracing the factors of other unrelated disciplines.

Original ad from Skateboarder magazine.

If you subscribed to Skateboarder magazine in late 1970's, you were familiar with Kanoa Surf, a surf shop which had embraced skateboarding wholeheartedly. They ran 2 page spread mail order ads showing a plethora of the latest high-end skateboarding gear, the equivalent of a hot porn centerfold to a hungry young skate rat. Kanoa sponsored a couple of pro riders, including the infamous Lonnie Hiramoto and Howard Hood. Kanoa wasn''t just some non-endemic entity trying to cash in on skateboarding. And then it happened. The first Kanoa ad featuring the Flyaway helmet appeared. An odd name to be sure, the safety conscious minds might misinterpret it as meaning the helmet might suddenly leave their head and fly away. But even the most paranoid individuals could not refute the design, functionality, and style of the Flyaway, the first(and only) helmet ever designed and constructed specifically for skateboarding. The earliest models were available in simple color schemes, solids and the single pinstripe versions. Soon the multiple pinstripe variations followed. Sure they were more expensive than the cheap, blow molded plastic buckets that most wore in those days, but they were hand-made from fiberglass, and they looked so unique that they instantly became the helmet of choice of the skateboarding elite. Guys like Olson, Bowman, Blackhart, Schneider, Hiramoto, Miller, Hood, and on and on. And all style aside, the comfort, the ventilation, and the extremely light weight of the Flyaway was light years ahead of the it's plastic counterparts.

Original ad from Skateboarder magazine.

During this period, the Powell corporation as it was known in those days, gave birth to the Pro-Tec helmet. Just as the Norcon and other helmets before it, the Pro-Tec helmet was so obviously designed for something other than skateboarding. The hockey puck in the logo was a dead giveaway. What was also immediately apparent was how the Pro-Tec made your head look like a giant light bulb. That, and the ventilation was poor at best. The Powell team, Stacy included, wore the Pro-Tec most likely as a form of forced attrition. Steve Caballero wore his too, but you could often catch him sporting his Flyaway when coach Peralta wasn't in town. Perhaps Pro-Tec received enough negative feedback on the light bulb to re-tool it. And in an odd instance of mimicry the Pro-Tec cutaway appeared. It still looked bad, and still didn't breathe. The weak attempt at copying certain features of the Flyaway became the standard Pro-Tec you still see today with a few subtle changes. Still not a true skateboarding helmet, still not cool. Even further to this point, many standard plastic helmets available today are designed for single impact and must be discarded as a safety liability. The Flyaway was designed to sustain multiple impacts to a point, and remain safe and functional.

Not novelty replica collector's pieces, These babies are built for pure function.

Sadly, nearly all the concrete parks bit the blade and, seemingly, so did the Flyaway helmet. Perhaps the dwindling mass appeal of the rolling board effectively killed the best and only helmet ever made specifically for skateboarding. Kanoa Surf was sold and the Flyaway became the A.K.A. Flyaway. The helmets got heavier and weaker, the holes got smaller and there less of them and quality control was non-existent. The paint was inferior, the pinstriping was crooked and the pads would fall out sometimes only 2 sessions deep. Soon the vinyl ?motorcycle style? straps as well as the sacred chrome D rings, were replaced by plastic d rings and quick-release clips. What was once cool would now cause you to overheat, what had been light was now heavy, and eventually even the streamlined shape was unrecognizable.

Ancient video capture, Von Wolf and his original Flyaway.

Getting some.

Enter Von Wolf, Circa 2006. Wolf has been skateboarding since the days of the original Flyaway helmet. Wolf's love of his original Flyaway helmet and his lust and passion for skateboarding led him down a path that a few others have tried to follow, to bring back the original Flyaway helmet and produce them steadily to supply skateboarders with a true helmet designed and built strictly for skateboarding. Even if you have no knowledge of the horrific level of consumer product safety laws, liability, and state and federal meddling in what should be sovereign social choice, you can imagine what it must take just to be able to produce and sell a "safety" helmet. Then there is the matter of trademark legality, the shortage of original helmets from which to gather the design properties from, and all of the other aspects of making this a reality. In short, all you really need to know is that the proper and complete resurrection of the original Flyaway helmet is an enterprise that only the most dedicated soul would want to take on. A labor of love might be one way to describe it. Von Wolf spent a significant amount of time dissecting original helmets, studying them, and analyzing them to completely understand the exact design and construction. He identified each and every minor design flaw of the original and corrected it to create as perfect a helmet as can possibly exist. Why would someone do such a thing? Wolf took on this project as his art and his passion. He firmly believes that skateboarders who wear helmets, by choice, or by mandate, should be able to wear a helmet designed solely for skateboarders, not snowboarders, hockey players, or bicyclists.

To give you an idea of what goes into Wolf's painstaking process of constructing these one of a kind, fully functional, pieces of fine art, consider the following information. He spent months experimenting with molds until he perfected them. The original Flyaway shape has undercutting in the mold making it far more difficult to remove the cured product. But rather than cheat and make the process easier, he reproduced exactly, the original mold form, guaranteeing that his helmets had the exact shape and contour of the original. Wolf hand-lays premium 4 ounce hexacell surfboard glass in at least 6 layers with the highest quality polyester resin, often employing tints, metallic flake, or opalescent materials which enhance the color of the helmet. This is only one of his well-researched improvements on the original. Sure, he could spray the glass, but the resulting shell would be heavy and far less durable. The result of his labor is an extremely strong and very lightweight shell, one which I personally impact tested and was shocked at just how durable this lightweight construction is. After removing the shell from the mold, he meticulously inspects it for even the most minute flaws. If it isn't perfect, it goes in the trash, a high form of quality control to say the least. After a minimum 2 week cure time for strength, the shell is then hand-finished, and drilled with the exact 19 hole, eliptical ventilation system found in original versions. The pinstriping and airbrushing is all done completely by hand, no press on-striping or cheap printed imitations. Once the shell has been finished to his exacting standards, Wolf begins the task of trimming and inserting the dual-density foam padding, and although he created a die to cut the foam inserts, each piece of padding is custom trimmed by hand before the final application, and the padding for each helmet is custom fit for the skateboarder who will wear it. On the original Flyaway helmets, the vinyl side strapping would eventually crack and begin to tear out. Wolf has re-engineered the strap system to be far more durable than the original while retaining it's exact aesthetic and form. The stitched reinforcing and bar tacking is superior. He also upgraded the chin strap material and d-ring system, but it matches the original in size and scope. To finish the helmet off, he adds the flexible aluminum reinforced rubber trim (lighter and better than the original material), and the masterpiece is complete.

Sims team anyone?

Ngoho in high-speed R&D mode.

A BLKPRJKT personal favorite, the monochrome ghost.

Eddie's glass-in SMA custom.

Wolf's motivations for taking on this arduous task are pure. These helmets are his art, but this is hardly art for art's sake. Wolf has reached his goal of merging pure function and the highest level of craftsmanship with a timeless aesthetic. The beauty of this equation is that he has no intention of attempting to mass produce these helmets, no intention of outsourcing labor and materials to make them cheaper. He is obsessed with quality, and won't trust anyone else to understand it the way he does. He simply wants to provide a true skateboarding helmet to true skateboarders. His passion for the Flyaway runs so deep, he will even retrofit an original Flyaway for you if you have one and want to restore it to a useable state. His own helmets aren't cheap, but they are worth every penny. Based on my understanding of materials, time, labor, and perfection of craft, Wolf's Flyaway is actually a bargain.

Von Wolf is keeping this thing pure on every level, including signing original Kanoa pro Lonnie Hiramoto as his team rider, and Howard Hood to the roster. The entire SMA team buys and wears the Flyaway and Wolf has custom fabricated each helmet to fit each rider's personal specifications, just as he does with each helmet he makes. Wolf has done his research and he can replicate each and every color way and pinstripe combination of the original helmets. Not only that, but he will go so far as to build a helmet with any custom graphics you might want, or provide you with a blank canvas to vandalize as you see fit. Glow in the dark, deep metallic flake, clear, you name it, Wolf can do it. Maybe it's because I come from an art background, but I take a large sense of pride in objects that have been custom-made for me, and me alone. The Flyaway helmet is no different. A one of a kind, work of high art. And the beauty of it is, it's as functional as it is aesthetically bad ass. Given the choice, I usually choose not to wear a helmet, but in a venue that forces me to wear one, this is the only option I will trust my brain with. If I added up all of the money I have spent buying crappy plastic helmets and endlessly replacing the inferior foam liners, I could have had a few of these in my bag, the only shame of it is, they weren't available until now.

Bennet Harada's candy apple rasta model.

Objet d' art.

Currently, the Kanoa Flyaway helmets can be ordered exclusively through Rip City Santa Monica. A single pinstripe, custom helmet will set you back $189.00, with super custom jobs running up to $279.00 but as I stated earlier, in my opinion, I consider that price a bargain, especially taking into account that Wolf will replace the padding, should it wear out, and recondition the helmet if necessary, free of charge. Nobody else is going to offer you that. I value my head enough to spend that kind of money protecting it.