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Welcome. Yours is a question that crops up from time to time, may be worth looking back through previous post (use the 'search' button towards head of the page - it is a bit clunky though!)
FIRST and really not to be overlooked with an airbeam tent, or distracted from by all the fancy bells and whistles of the tent in use, is HOW HEAVY, and HOW BIG is it packed! Especially relevant with higher berth number tents, TBH some are borderline stupid/impractical weights, that even two fit people may struggle with! And not to be dismissed, can you fit a huge unwieldy heavy holdall in your vehicle to transport it, sheer size, lifting over high boot sills etc.!
Unlike a poled tent where if not already supplied in two holdalls, you can split the poles from the flysheet to make the packed holdall handling easier, an airbeam tent is 'all in one' and ALWAYS going to be that way! I've got two heavy steel poled 5 and 6 berth tunnel tents, they're both a struggle unless the poles are separated, but much easier when poles split from flysheet, I've also got a moderate sized (3.3m) airbeam porch awning for my caravan, and that's a bit of a handful!
Spare parts. Fact of life, airbeams do fail, BUT not many manufacturers seem to supply replacement airbeam bladders after maybe a couple of years from date of manufacture, and even when they theoretically do, they can be hard to find. Airbeam bladders are generally specific to a particular model of tent, and AFAIK there are no 'universal' replacements. Poles in most cases are far more universal, and spares available from a number of sources if they are straightforward fibreglass or even aluminium tube types, the only drawback being you may have to buy overlength and cut down to match your needs, but it's easy to do with a suitable fine toothed hacksaw.
The pros and cons of airbeam vs pole in terms of tent use (holdall pack weight aside) are perhaps weighted slightly towards airbeam IMHO. Airbeams can be a one man job to erect even a huge tent. Airbeams of the right design can be more tolerant/less susceptible to damage (snapped poles) in high winds, having a tendency to flex and spring back unharmed. In terms of speed of erection, an airbeam may just nudge ahead slightly, but MOST of your time will be spent with pegging out regardless of type anyway, so a narrow advantage.
With a large airbeam tent, you may find the standard supplied hand pump too much like hard work (especially on a hot day!), so you may want to buy an electric pump (budget extra!) - then you have to consider if you will have a suitable power source to hand, some are 12v, some 240v, very few self contained with their own in built battery power (you may have to budget yet more for a suitable portable power pack!)! AND the hose fitting to the inflation point is often unique to the brand, not a universal fitment!
On the subject of airbeams, it's a while since I looked, so may no longer hold true, some had permanently interconnected airbeams with a single inflation point, so an air leak brought the whole tent down, whilst others had individual isolated airbeams and multiple inflation points, and some had interconnected airbeams with a single inflation point but with isolation valves to stop an air leak in one beam deflating the whole tent. When I chose my caravan airbeam awning, I deliberately chose one with isolation valves!
Cost. I think airbeams probably still command a premium over a poled equivalent, so for any given sum of money, you 'may' be able to buy a superior poled tent over a slightly inferior airbeam!
It's swings and roundabouts, rather than simple like for like, you have to decide on which aspects appeal/suit YOU best, our preferences are for OUR reasons, rather than one technology being inherently superior to the other.
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Topic: Newbie Air or Pole
via mobile 10/9/2024 at 8:47pm
