The SCBA Horizon respirator designed for Scott Aviation in 1989. The challenge is to improve facepiece features for user line of sight, mobility, and weight distribution. Pictured below are two of Scott's industry gold standard facepiece offerings in comparison to the new facepiece design. The product name, "Horizon" emphasized Scott's desire to produce a facepiece with improved line of sight in hazardous conditions.
(In order: "Scottoramic" - "Scott-O-Vista" - "Horizon Concept")
To address the performance requirements a number of facepiece form factors are considered. The select concept form factor relocated the air supply line and regulator assemblies from a front mount to the side. The side mount regulator contributes to a reduction of the facepiece length and provides better product weight distribution. To further improve weight distribution and regulator volume we added a separate fresh air port feature adjacent to the side regulator position. Dual front mounted voicemitters provide efficient audio transmission and contribute to a reduction of regulator volume.
To verify the Horizon concept features had successfully addressed all project requirements we fabricated a high fidelity prototype assembly. A prototype is provided to Scott's engineering team to conduct initial design and feasibility evaluations. The evaluation was to verify the concept feature improvements for facepiece line of sight, fit, user mobility, weight, center of gravity, assembly, and estimate cost.
