Spyderco Forums

First I will start with the disclaimer that i'm not very good at writing reviews. :o The Autonomy has held my interest since I heard of its development and i have been eagerly awaiting its debut.
This knife was designed for the United States Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmer program and I had the privilege to be able to perform that mission during my active duty time in the Coast Guard. I feel honored to have been able to serve with some of the best people that I have known in my life. I would be remiss for not mentioning one of the greatest influences in my life, Joseph "Butch" Flythe ASTCM Retired, one of the original rescue swimmers in the program. He was my Chief Instructor during "A" School training and upon graduating became my shop chief at my first duty station in Kodiak, Alaska and eventually Traverse City, Michigan. It is also fitting that he is the one that introduced me to Spyderco knives by ordering us Rescue Clipits, one of which I still have.

We originally wore a chest harness and we had to attach a small fixed blade to it, the knife was hard to reach when fully geared up and even harder to re-sheath. Think of trying to put a fixed blade away under and slightly behind your arm while wearing a drysuit in Alaskan waters. :eek: We ended up switching to an auto folder that we tied off and stowed in an accessible location of our gear. That was the Benchmade AFO. It's a great knife and a vast improvement over what we had. One of the only issues was the difficulty deploying the blade while wearing gloves. The actuator was flush to the frame making it hard to open with cold hands in thick neoprene gloves. Still, it was an improvement over the fixed blade and we found that if you used the heel of your thumb it wasn't such an issue.
The following pictorial is not a slam against Benchmade, just a peek into the past and a glimpse of what the future holds thanks to Spyderco's dedication to its customer. I hope the Coast Guard version serves my finned brothers well! "So Others May Live"
Semper Paratus
Dan

P.S., I sent the AFO in for engraving and sharpening five years ago. She's over twenty years old and has been through a lot. Be kind.

Now on to the picture show! :D

More pics

Thanks for looking. I hope you enjoyed it, sorry for all the pictures. I had to throw the Rescue in there for old times sake. :D

Thanks for posting. Very interesting.

Also, thank you for your service!

I would also like to thank you for your service and great back story on your experience. I received my autonomy today and am beyond impressed, such a stout knife that fires hard and fast.

Very nice review and pics. I am surprised at how nice your AFO still looks after all this time and with use. I imagine it certainly holds a special place in your collection--even if it's not a Spyderco. I'm also a bit surprised to see the size of the Autonomy. For some reason, I had imagined it was a lot larger. I still love the design--don't get me wrong. If anything, it makes it even more desirable to me!

SpyderNut wrote:Very nice review and pics. I am surprised at how nice your AFO still looks after all this time and with use. I imagine it certainly holds a special place in your collection--even if it's not a Spyderco. I'm also a bit surprised to see the size of the Autonomy. For some reason, I had imagined it was a lot larger. I still love the design--don't get me wrong. If anything, it makes it even more desirable to me!

I had thought it would be smaller!

farnorthdan wrote:I would also like to thank you for your service and great back story on your experience. I received my autonomy today and am beyond impressed, such a stout knife that fires hard and fast.

+1 Thank you very much.

So...,now I'm going to have to acquire one. Ugh..spyderco keeeeps killin it!!

SpyderNut wrote:Very nice review and pics.I am surprised at how nice your AFO still looks after all this time and with use. I imagine it certainly holds a special place in your collection--even if it's not a Spyderco. I'm also a bit surprised to see the size of the Autonomy. For some reason, I had imagined it was a lot larger. I still love the design--don't get me wrong. If anything, it makes it even more desirable to me!

Thanks Michael. The AFO was sent back west about five years ago for a once over so that helped. We also had a maintenance card on it because it was a piece of gear. This required a detailed break down, cleaning and fresh lubrication after every deployment/exposure to salt water and every 30 days regardless.
I'm guessing this won't be needed with the Autonomy due to its design. Pretty awesome how much thought they put into this knife.

Dan

These threads are not helping me to want this knife any less.

Evil D wrote:These threads are not helping me to want this knife any less.

Do it :D. I've handled many Autos and the Autonomy is as good as any I've seen. I'm amazed at the fact you get a knife made in Golden at this quality for the price.

That benchmade sure held up