From: njs@scifi.uucp (Nicholas J. Simicich)
Newsgroups: rec.scuba
Subject: Re: Power Inflator Second Stages
Date: 16 Apr 92 00:55:43 GMT
Organization: Nick Simicich, Peekskill, NY

In article <1992Apr14.140515.6921@cattnts> craig@cattnts (Craig
Campbell) writes:

>Your buddy has an OOA emergency.  You give him your primary and you
>breath from your BC inflator whip reg.  Now, you need to loose
>buoyancy, and for that you need to hold the BC mouth piece above you.
>To do that, you must remove your reg from your mouth, but remember to
>keep exhaling because you're too positive, and are ascending.  Now
>add some task loading to this scenario.  Say you're inside a wreck or
>cave... perhaps you need to coil a line in (drift dive flag,
>cave/wreck dive line, etc...), say you're now in zero vis, or a night
>dive with light failure.

Craig, many BC's have pull-hose-to-dump features, and in my particular
case, given the layout of my Scubapro BC, I'll have to lay on my back
to get the last of the air out of the BC, and I can't do that anyway,
given that I'm air sharing and face to face with the out-of-air diver,
so I'll just use the dump ripcord.  But I've taken students through
drills where they've done emergency air sharing ascent practice and
it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.  In practive, the biggest
problem is that the out-of-air diver has to orally inflate their BC,
and must take the donated regulator out of their mouth to do it.  And
that applies no matter which regulator is passed.

As far as the second point goes, if you actually have this problem,
you immediately adopt the 'littering' approach.  You drop the $125
wreck reel or the even more expensive cave reel, or the drift dive
flag reel, and just follow the line up/back.  You would never need to
coil a line under these circunstances, unless your sense of proportion
as to what is important is all wrong.  It is harder to drop the
camera, but you probably do that as well.

About wrecks/caves: When this has come up in the past, I think
everyone involved agreed that this sort of regulator was not suitable
as the only backup for overhead situations, but, as Jon points out,
neither is the standard octopus on the 2.5 foot hose.  You have to
totally rethink the problems on a wreck or in a cave where you may
have to traverse a narrow passage head-to-foot on the way out.

>You decide whether the investment is correct for you or not.
>
>I've never used one, and am not likely to.

Absolutely.  The best action is to make an informed decision.  IMHO,
the important point here is to avoid the need for a buddy breathing
ascent in an emergency situation, which will result in much higher
risk.  You do this by having adequate equipment.  

One other reason to adopt the chest mounted regulator/inflator is that
when I dive using a pony bottle, I like to have one physical area for
the pony (which is on my lower right chest, provided that the reg
holder works, which it only does about 20% of the time) and the AIR II
on my lower left chest.  I've done some diving with someone who
insisted (for training purposes) that I have a lower right side
standard octopus as well, and I kept confusing the two second stages.
I believe that, while it is not required that you have a second way of
getting air out of your main system when you have a pony, it is a good
idea, and being able to do that without adding to hoses or confusion
is a very good idea.

Finally, you mentioned the possivility of being on a night dive with a
dive light failure.  I'm a great deal more confident of my ability to
find my AIR II quickly, by touch, in the dark, than I am of being able
to recover my pony regulator.  I'm quite likely to be able to do
either, but the AIR II I could do without thinking, as I handle my
inflator several times/dive.  

I have reason to believe that this applies to novice divers as well.

-- 
Nick Simicich - uunet!bywater!scifi!njs - njs@watson.ibm.com
SSI #AOWI 3958, HSA 318, NAUI #14065
Join the movement ---  turn 'to bush' into a verb.