Hurtubise's Halo Suit

[SML]

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VIDEO

ARTICLE

From bears to bullets


John Rennison, the Hamilton Spectator

Hamilton-born Troy Hurtubise has developed a feature-filled suit of armour out of high-impact plastic, ceramic bullet protection and ballistic foam.
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Inventor hopes to sell armour suit to the military
By Wade Hemsworth
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jan 11, 2007)

The grizzly man is back, and this time he's ready to take on bullets and bombs.

Troy Hurtubise, the Hamilton-born inventor who became famous for his bulky bear-protection suit by standing in front of a moving vehicle to prove it worked, has now created a much slimmer suit that he hopes will soon be protecting Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

He has spent two years and $15,000 in the lab out back of his house in North Bay, designing and building a practical, lightweight and affordable shell to stave off bullets, explosives, knives and clubs. He calls it the Trojan and describes it as the "first ballistic, full exoskeleton body suit of armour."

Using the hard-learned lessons of his Project Grizzly experience -- a 20-year odyssey that included a National Film Board documentary, an appearance on CNN and personal bankruptcy -- he's ready to start selling his newest idea.

Already, he says, the suit has stood up to bullets from high-powered weapons, including an elephant gun. The suit was empty during the ballistics tests, but he's more than ready to put it on and face live fire.

"I would do it in an instant," he said. "Bring it on."

Yesterday, he returned to Hamilton to show off the suit, hoping to generate some publicity that will get him the meetings he wants with military and police outfitters.

On Saturday, he plans to wear it to Nathan Phillips Square in downtown Toronto and wait for the reporters. It shouldn't take long to create a stir.

Hurtubise, 43, wore his suit -- helmet and all -- on the four-hour drive down south, partly as a way of making sure it would be comfortable enough in the field. Even sitting on his armoured butt cheeks, he said he was fine.

As he drove his black pickup in his black getup, other drivers gawked and honked. Just south of Huntsville, he was delighted to be pulled over and gave an apprehensive OPP officer a close-up look at the suit.

Once he established that he could see just fine in his helmet and that the guns attached to his magnetic holsters were just props, Hurtubise was free to continue his trip.

The whole suit -- which draws design inspiration from Star Wars, RoboCop, Batman and video games -- is made from high-impact plastic lined with ceramic bullet protection over ballistic foam.

Its many features include compartments for emergency morphine and salt, a knife and emergency light. Built into the forearms are a small recording device, a pepper-spray gun and a detachable transponder that can be swallowed in case of trouble.

Dangling between the legs, that would be a clock.

In the helmet, there's a solar-powered fresh-air system and a drinking tube attached to a canteen in the small of the back. A laser pointer mounted in the middle of the forehead is ready to point to snipers, while LED lights frame the face.

The whole suit comes in at 18 kilograms. It covers everything but the fingertips and the major joints, and could be mass-produced for about $2,000, Hurtubise says.

He said he hopes to earn enough of a living from the suit so he can keep on inventing, but the real reason he did this, he says, is "for the boys."

The twelve year old in me loves it.

 

[Nesagwa]

I love this guy.

Every year or so you see him pop up with a better version of the suit.

Fucker rules.

 

[Lagduf]

Awesome.

The military will so not buy that.

 

[SML]

All the shit he's doing is awesome. He's like a Canadian Tesla or something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Hurtubise

 

[Jedah Doma]

The world clock on the crotch rocks.

 

[PUNJABEE]

Too bad it doesn't come in green with a gold visor.

 

[Lagduf]

All the shit he's doing is awesome. He's like a Canadian Tesla or something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Hurtubise

LOL

So he'll be overshadowed and pushed aside by other inventors and all but forgotten to history?

At least in a hundred years or so they'll be a band name Hurtubise. I guess they'll write a song called "Bear's Medicine."

 

[Circa2113]

I want one of those.

 

[SML]

LOL

So he'll be overshadowed and pushed aside by other inventors and all but forgotten to history?

At least in a hundred years or so they'll be a band name Hurtubise. I guess they'll write a song called "Bear's Medicine."

Really, that's pretty much exactly what I'm saying.

 

[Average Joe]

That actually looks far more practical than I would've thought.

Certainly a lot of interesting [and seemingly] useful ideas in that thing.

(Especially that 3% Oleoresin Capsicum spray... God damn I don't even want to think about what the stuff could do to a person.)

I'd like to see it put to the test in terms of mobility though, which I would imagine being the biggest problem overall with the suit.

Then again, with that sort of level of protection and amount of equipment at your disposal, I can see that a drop in mobility would be a fair trade-off.

 

[Bishamon]

HAHA! It's the bear-suit guy!

My wife used to know one of his neighbors. I could have sworn he lived up near North Bay.

 

[Takumaji]

Heh... bit silly, but in a good way, I like the guy.

He will have a hard time selling his suit to the military, partly because they are in the process of making suits like that themselves.... and I guess his suit would be not expensive enough for them...

What he should have invented instead is a proper (and inexpensive) invisibility suit, it is believed that prototypes of such a suit exist in certain labs but the technology used is too clumsy and shaky to be an option for heavy-duty use on the battlefield or in police raids.

 

[barf]

That guy will die in one of his tests.

On the wiki about him, at first i felt the guy was a good guy, then i arrived at the Angel light and God light, not only does he lie, but he is dangerous too, proclaiming to be able to cure cancer, make blind men see, cure parkinsons and stuff...

 

[Takumaji]

not only does he lie, but he is dangerous too, proclaiming to be able to cure cancer, make blind men see, cure parkinsons and stuff...

Just checked the corresponding Wiki page, there's an anti-neutrality sign over the Angel Light and God Light articles which makes it difficult to judge what's really going on here...

The guy sounds like one of those mad scientists, I mean, why not... most of us believe it takes one MIT and a half to come up with really innovative/revolutionary inventions but that is not true, sometimes it's just a matter of alternative thinking outside of the fixed ways of science, kinda like Tesla did.

 

[aria]

Too bad his neck, knees and sides were very obviously vulnerable in that video of the new suit.

Here's a good video of all his bear suits from the Wikipedia article:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3CzYw5-qdA
(this video is awesome)

 

[SML]

Motherfucker died crashing into a gasoline truck last year and nobody told me.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/police-say-bear-suit-inventor-troy-hurtubise-died-in-northern-ont-highway-crash-1.3985350

 

[Heinz]

Yep I'm sold, that guy is definitely from the future.