Kelty Airlift Instant Setup Tents

Deal Chatter Sports & Outdoors
1
2

[Preview 1][Preview 2][Preview 3][Preview 4][Preview 5][Preview 6][Preview 7]

Kelty Airlift Instant Setup Tents
Price: $249.99 - 299.99
Shipping Options:: $5 Standard OR $10 Two-Day OR $20 One-Day
Shipping Estimates: Ships in 1-2 business days (Tuesday, Sep 29 to Wednesday, Sep 30) + transit
Condition: New

[http://www.wootstalker.com/images/buy.png

Buy It](Kelty Airlift Instant Setup Tents) [http://www.wootstalker.com/images/amazon.png

Search Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=Kelty Airlift Instant Setup Tents) [http://www.wootstalker.com/images/google.png

Search Google](Kelty - Google Shopping Airlift Instant Setup Tents)

3

Check out the product page for the 6 person tent and the 4 person tent

4

Review on the 4-person tent over at REI

5

From looking around, the only bad reviews are from people that never actually bought the tent, or from one person that set it up incorrectly and had rain pool up.

Here is the best thorough review that gives the pros and cons of these tents.

The only negative that keeps me from buying is that the rain fly is integrated so there is no way to see out from the inside the main tent. All the windows are covered. No sky view.

6

For anyone curious about the 1800mm [waterproof] rating on the fly and floor fabric, see here for a brief discussion.

I have no personal experience with this tent, but the tarps I use have similar ratings, and they keep the water out just fine. If you’re extra paranoid, you can add your own ground cloth to boost the effectiveness of the floor.

7

Based on the review you referenced, the tent can be raised without the rain fly. There are two inflatable sections. One holds the main tent up, and the back of the rain fly can optionally sit on top of this. The second inflatable section holds up the vestibule section of the rain fly.

8

I’m curious about the longevity of this holding air. It’s a bit much for an impulse buy, but a 1 minute setup time is WAAAY better than my current pole tent.

For $300 I’d expect it to last for years, but my experience with any air-up items to date is they last a few times before developing pinhole leaks. Having this collapse in the middle of the night due to loss of frame air pressure would not be fun!

9

I have a tent from Airzone that I believe were the first to market an airpole system. I like it a lot. Really handy, goes up and down quickly, and the rainfly goes up and down with it.

2 drawbacks:
A little on the heavy side (16 lbs for mine) but I use mine for car camping, not backpacking, so meh.
No privacy without the fly, the screen side/roof has no zip-up cover, so the fly must be on for privacy which can make it warm and stuffy if it’s not cool outside. This Kelty appears to be designed similarly in that regard. The vestibule windows have zip-up covers but the interior sides don’t appear to have that option based on my observations in the video on their site.

Pretty good price but can’t beat the $60 I paid for my 4-person Airzone from Big Lots a few years back! Apparently a large Canadian retailer ordered a bunch and couldn’t sell $500 4-person tents alongside $100 ones and ended up dumping them on Big Lots. I bought 10 of them and sold them for $100 each.

10

Actually no, since the air tube poles are part of the fly; the tent hooks to the fly and hangs from it. There’s a separate tube for the vestibule, but that doesn’t mean the rain fly is optional. It’s necessary.

11

It appears to me that the rain fly is connected to the tent poles by velcro straps. Perhaps I’m wrong. The manual doesn’t provide any info on detaching it, which would support the idea that it has to go up with the tent.

Good thing that years of marriage have made me very comfortable with the possibility of being wrong.

12

TO cut to the chase, you can get the newest model over at Kelty cheaper.

https://www.kelty.com/product/sonic-8
Free shipping over $99.

I would rather spend the extra 30 bucks and get the 8 man tent. Didn’t find a “wind speed rating” for these yet. Just like sleeping bags have temp ratings, these should indicate the sustained winds they can handle before they collapse.

13

Why is there no longer a link to this discussion from the sport.woot page?

14

Unfortunately, since we took it off the main page, it’s now considered a VIP Plus sale. To keep sales off the front page, all VIP sales have to launch without a comment thread. It’s not at all ideal and I’m positive we want to change it, we just haven’t yet.

15

Actually the review specifically says that the fly is integrated and the con is that there is no view out other than out the front door flap. It would be nice if you could remove the fly but based on the images and first hand experiences, it can’t be removed. Good tent for those not looking to be star gazing at night.