Hi Jennifer,
WELCOME TO JESTERDIVER's GEAR REVIEW
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I actually did see these in use at a demo near me. They are a very interesting bag. I'm a bit of a dive gear junkie so I'm always checking out what's new. My impressions is that it's a marriage between a mountaineering backpack, travel bc, and a back plate and wing setup. The Aeris has taken lessons from all these to create it's all in one solution. It uses mountaineering backpack concepts like cinching separate compartments together. It takes lessons from technical back plate and wing designs by going with rear inflation and keeping the front of the diver free of much clutter. The travel part comes in using plastic as the back plate to minimize weight and going with detachable weight pockets.
I saw it at the demo being stuffed with gear and was rather impressed by how much it could hold. I actually think it's a very good backpack. The problem is that in such a specialized sport like scuba, equipment that is designed to perform multiple functions, rarely performs all of them well. I felt it was a much better travel solution than it was a BC. Take a look at the videos on the Aeris site. Only one of the three videos has even some footage showing the divers actually using the BC in the water.
Now watch that first video on their site and pay very careful attention to the divers actually diving the BC. You'll notice that the divers are all rotating over to their left. The BC looks very big in the water even though out of the water it looks small. The divers are all out of horizontal trim and fighting the bc's tendency to want to spin over to the left on the diver. There's a couple of reason's it's happening. First, the wing is oversized for the type of diving the diver is doing. In Aeris's attempt to make this an all in one solution it made the wing a 31 lb lift wing so it can handle a wider variety of gear configurations. But because the bc is more backpack than BC, it doesn't have a good way to pin down the large wing. It does have some attachment points to keep the wing down, but not in optimal locations because the those locations are being taken up by stowing features of the backpack part of the system.
So you're getting what's called "tacoing of the wing" as it stands straight up on either side of the tank. As the BC rolls on the divers body, more and more air slides over to the right end of the wing compounding the problem making the diver want to spin over even more. What's worse is that since the air is trapped at the ends of this taco, the center line of the wing, where the dumps are located are below the air trapped at the ends of the taco making venting the air out of the BC extremely difficult.
Also, the shoulder straps start out great attaching at the bottom rear near the back at the plate. Which is optimal for keeping the backpack/BC's back plate flat against your back. But the moment you want to use this as a BC, it starts to fail. What happens is that in order to attach the weight pockets, you have to move the lower shoulder strap attachment point form behind the diver directly to the plate, and shift it forward along the cummerbund over the weight pockets to support the weight of the lead. ESPECIALLY, since it seems that the cummerbund/waist strap is only attached to the BC via velcro! So like most BC's, in moving the attachment point forward to support weight integration, it makes the BC prone to spinning on the body. And that's way many divers suffer from "cinch it down tight syndrome". All those quick adjust straps are there to compensate for the fact that the shoulder straps aren't attaching around the back of the diver keeping the diver's back flat up against the backplate, so divers squeeze down all the straps to make the BC feel secure and stable.
I've had jacket style BC's, rear inflate BC's, and travel BC's. I tried a backplate and wing once, went home and sold all my BCD's. I'll never go back to a BCD. And it's compact. On my last trip I took my backplate and wing, regs, wetsuit, fins, mask, computers, camera, lights, dive boots, some clothing, all in my carry-on! For me I want my BCD system to be at it's best under the water not above it. Just my 2 psi
J
Has anyone had any experience with these?
http://www.diveaeris.com/jetpack/
Seems like a pretty neat system - I am putting together my first ever complete divegear and it is quite enticing to be able to carry everything with you on the plane. I've met a British couple on my recent Maldives trip, who both used head to toe Aeris and they were raving about them!
They are easily twice as expensive as regular BCDs, but a couple of trips where you save on the airline fees for dive luggage, and it pays for itself. Don't know about flights originating from the US, but over here in Europe you can easily pay $100 PER flight on your checked dive luggage.
The BCD also looks quite compact, which I like. I have so far always dived with rented Scubapro gear, and all these BCDs were massive on me. On the other hand the rentals always had a lot of straps and fasteners, which I found reassuring - the jetpack only has the waist and sternum strap....hmmm...
Thoughts, anyone? 
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