Design & Set-Up

The Fal Pro Air 2 has a dome-style design, with two poles crossing each other at the apex of the tent in an X-shape. This gives good headroom, creates an internal floor space of 210x130x100cm, and is very simple to set up.

“For the all-round spaciousness and liveability 1.7kg is more than acceptable.”

Snow Peak claim the Fal Pro Air 2 can be set up in less than a minute, allowing you to get out of bad weather quickly and find shelter at the first sign of a coming storm. We haven’t tested it under the pressure of a stopwatch, but erecting the tent is certainly very straight-forward and quick: you simply lay out the flysheet, thread the two poles through the sleeves, secure the poles into the end-sleeves (to create a semi-freestanding structure), cinch the outer flysheet taut, and then secure the poles with Velcro. Simple. It is all-as-one pitching, meaning you don’t have to faff around with the flysheet and inner separately (though you can detach them if you need to).

Weatherproofing & Materials

The flysheet of the Fal Pro Air 2 is made of a 20-denier ripstop silicon polyester, with a hydrostatic head rating of 1,500mm. The PU-coated tent floor, which is also 1,500mm rated, consists of a slightly stronger 30-denier ripstop nylon, while the two poles are made from what is called ‘ultra-light duralumin A7001’.

The hydrostatic head ratings are on the low side, particularly considering the four-season rating (some UK-ready tents have 5,000 to 10,000mm ratings), but it’s worth noting that the hydrostatic head doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story on waterproofing. The tightness of a fabric’s weave, the effectiveness (and repetition) of PU and silicone coatings, and many other factors will affect how water-tight a shelter is.

Weight and Packed Size

The Fal Pro Air 2 weighs 1.7kg, which is pretty good for a two-person tent – that’s only 850g per person. It’s not the lightest we’ve ever seen, but certainly not the heaviest either, and for the all-round spaciousness and liveability 1.7kg is more than acceptable. It packs away pretty compactly, with the flysheet and inner stashing in a stuff sack sized 33x17cm and the poles fitting into a separate sack sized 50x11cm.

Tester’s Verdict

Will Renwick, editor of Outdoors Magic

“We used this during our two-week Outdoor 100 trip to Snowdonia as well as on the rather windy Outdoors Magic Test Team event and I liked what I saw. There’s something very simple and reliable about it, with a traditional crossed pole design that not only brings plenty of headroom but that also can withstand some pretty rough conditions.”

“Pitching it for the first time was intuitive and therefore very easy and quick. There are plenty of pegging points and guy lines, which I always like to see, and the materials all have a quality feel about them – that seems to always be the case with Snow Peak products.

“The sleeping space is generous, though I would say it’s not the biggest of porches. There’s certainly enough room for two backpacks and two pairs of boots but that wouldn’t leave you with much space if you needed to cook from the porch in rainy conditions.”