Air flow is regulated by a flow meter which is set according to a formula, depending on how many occupants are in the sub. This formula was developed through extensive research done by scientists and medical doctors using a SportSub cockpit in a hyperbaric chamber. The Experience One major advantage to the SportSub design is the intensity of the experience. A ride in a One Atmosphere sub is a lot like sitting in a chair watching a TV show about the underwater world. In a SportSub the feeling is more like entering an alien environment.
Passengers describe it like a trip to a foreign planet.
You feel the pressure and hear the sub's automatic buoyancy compensation system working. If you go deep enough your voice changes and you start to sound like you've breathed helium or turned into Donald Duck. You feel the air in the cockpit heat-up as you descend and cool off as you ascend, following Boyle's gas law. The interior environment is very humid and sometimes during the cooling effect of a quick ascent a cloud forms in the cockpit. Occupants are sitting in a cockpit that is half flooded with water.