emergency exit

[Mike S.]

After seeing the mods made by adding a door where the emergency exit is located (and this is a great idea), I got to thinking how I would manage to "escape" out of the window. Every way I thought possible, would be ugly. Just curious if anyone has used their window for an exit and how you did it. I know if it's an emergency it really doesn't matter how ugly it is, just curious. Does anyone carry a rope ladder? I guess putting a handle above the window would help, but how does one even get out of the window? A running start from the bed and jump through the window I guess. Not trying to be funny, but there really doesn't seem a good way to do this. Thoughts? Mike

[switz]

Some folks might need to be pushed out from behind.....

In both the 23D and the Classic, the rear window in the fire exit. Once the glass is opened and falls to the ground, probably breaking, then crawling out head first with no hand holds means falling facedown on the broken glass.

Not really a good design for egress under stress🙄

[McDave]

We like to have a window open at night, weather permitting, so we generally keep the fire exit window propped open with a stick, since it is the only window close to our bed. If I were to replace it with a door, I would want to have a window in the door that opens. I'm not sure if this would be possible with a typical Airstream door. I know the front door has a stupid opaque window that you can't see through, and I've enquired of AS whether it would be possible to replace it with one that I can see through. AS says no, which leads me to strongly suspect I couldn't get one that opens, either. Of course you could have the whole door custom made and probably put any kind of window you wanted in it, at a fairly high cost, no doubt.

As far as fires are concerned, my feeling is that there probably won't be a fire that I have to escape from. In the unlikely event there is, I'm sure I'll figure out some way to get through the window, albeit with some contusions, perhaps. For a person more concerned about that than I am, but still unwilling to spend big bucks on a custom door, I would suggest propping a 4' lightweight stepladder right below the window at night. There are times I have wished I had a small stepladder, so it might be useful for more than just escaping from a fire unscathed.