To shop owners or owners of spare air tanks

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

So as a new diver not yet certified it sounds like if I mistakenly find myself at say 80 ft and ooa BUT I have a 3cf spare air BUT not a 19cf minimum pony, I might as well just take in a big gulp of sea water and be done with it.
In fairness to all, I do not think that is what is actually being said.

If I was OOA at 80ft, I would definitely rather have a Spare Air (1.7 OR 3 CF) than nothing. I imagine most of the posters in this thread would say the same thing. The more important point being made, and being directed at any diver who is serious about planning for a redundant gas supply, is that there are probably several better options than a 3CF Spare Air.

In order to have a Spare Air handy at 80 ft if I go OOA, I have to plan for that - I have to acquire one, make sure it has gas in it, make sure I have it with me on the dive, etc. If I am going to plan those steps, why not plan to have a redundant air supply that allows me to make a safe, controlled ascent from 80 ft?

LP sells 3 CF Spare Airs for ~$165. They sell 19 CF pony cylinders for less than that (~$140). Of course you have to then buy a reg, so either approach is not without cost, and I do not mean to suggest that a 'real' pony is less expensive than a Spare Air. But, if I am going to the trouble to plan to have a Spare Air, wouldn't it make more sense to plan to have a redundant gas supply that is actually useful.

Let's use 100 ft as a more practical example. If I breath ~ 0.7 CFM at the surface, I am going to be breathing ~2.8 CFM at 100 ft. Frankly, if I were to go OOA at that point, my consumption would increase substantially, to at least 4 CFM, if not more (provided, of course that I had redundant gas to consume :) ). So, if I go OOA at 100 ft, I would prefer to have an immediately accessible gas supply, that allows me to get to the surface in a reasonable manner. I want enough gas to cover 1 minute at 100 ft to sort out the issue (you don't necessarily immediately understand what is happening when you first suck on a vacuum) and deploy my redundant gas supply - that's ~ 4 CF+ right there. I want enough gas to make a controlled ascent - let's say 50 ft/m max - to the surface. Using an average depth of 50 ft for calculating consumption, that's an additional ~ 5 CF I would even prefer to have enough gas to make a safety stop as well. So, at a minimum, I want to plan for ~10 CF of redundant gas, and in reality more than that. Could I blow and go from 100 ft and get to the surface alive on a 3 CF Spare Air? Quite possibly. But, if I am going to go to the trouble to plan for redundancy, I am going to anticipate needing at least a 13 CF pony (if that is my chosen approach to redundancy) - and frankly, I want more.

I don't laugh at Spare Airs, or divers carrying them. At least, a diver carrying one has given thought to redundancy. Kudos to them. If someone asks me what I would recommend as a minimum redundant air source for recreational diving, I usually say a 19 CF pony, and I encourage them to even consider a 30, or better yet consider learning to use doubles - backmount or sidemount. I do not notice a 30 cf bottle clipped on my left side. But, I am used to that and maybe others might find it cumbersome.

So, the point is NOT that Spare Airs are 'bad', or useless, or something to be laughed at. Rather, they simply do not reflect realistic planning for redundancy. (I suspect that a few posters are also of the opinion that having that Spare Air might even give a diver a false sense of security. But, that's another issue.)

Certainly, the best plan is one in which you do not go OOA to begin with, and that is actually my preferred approach.
 
Last edited:
I never thought about the spare air as something you'd use to surface, but rather as something you'd use while you swam to your buddy.

The problem with this is the same as the problem with the underlying logic, I think they encourage inexperienced divers to push their limitations because they've added some small measure of safety, and they have no concept of the limitations of the device.

Personally, I can't think of a situation where I'd have an OOG and not be close enough to get to my buddy before I need to breathe, so I just don't see the value in them. For the cost of a spare air, you could learn to dive doubles, or buy a new pony bottle and a used reg, or take an advanced class.

Additional complexity builds additional points of failure, as well. If you are diving with a buddy, and your buddy has a problem with his air supply, you abort the dive. If you have a spare air and it has a problem are you going to abort your dive? If the system is that critical to your survival, then your answer should be yes - and there are better solutions out there. If your answer is no,then it isn't a redundant safety system necessary to your dive.

It's probably something that will let you feel better about wandering off and leaving your buddy, or vice versa when you don't know your SAC rate or even what that is and you really haven't even though about how you are going to use the bottle in an emergency.

A cheaper solution would be to go outside and walk at a brisk pace for a few minutes, exhale all the air out of your lungs and time how long you can hold your breath. Divide that number by three and it will give you some idea of how far you can safely be from your buddy's more useful alternate when the bovine excrement hits the rotating oscillating blades.
 
The problem isn't that a 3CF Spare Air is useless. The problem is that, as you've demonstrated, new divers choose it over a pony. ...//...
LOVE your handle and avatar.

Anyway, getting back on point. "They" ramp this crap up this time of year (every year) for holiday sales. Clueless divemoms and divedads have to put something under the tree. Just watch.

[OPINION]The product is total Bu11Sh1T. [/OPINION]

Is it better than nothing? Hell yeah!

Is it better than planning? Hmmm...
 
"They" ramp this crap up this time of year (every year) for holiday sales. Clueless divemoms and divedads have to put something under the tree. Just watch.

Sounds about right. Their website tries to explain why their product is better than a pony. :shakehead:

I think to sum it up for those considering one of these things, it's like buying a miniature parachute. It can save your life, but not without potentially serious injury. For the same amount of money, you can buy a normal sized parachute.

"But... but... the smaller one is easier to carry." As if the rest of your gear were compact and lightweight.
 
"But... but... the smaller one is easier to carry." As if the rest of your gear were compact and lightweight.
I carry an AL30 as a pony. I do not find it heavy at all especially compared to my back gas tank, my ss plate and wing, and long hose and bungeed second, all of which are either heavier or bulkier.
 
Wow what an interesting read. So as a new diver not yet certified it sounds like if I mistakenly find myself at say 80 ft and ooa BUT I have a 3cf spare air BUT not a 19cf minimum pony, I might as well just take in a big gulp of sea water and be done with it.
I can't believe some of the nonsense I've read here, how can even 1 or 2 more breaths of gas not give you a better chance of survival.

I have bought the 3cf Spare Air as a tool I don't plan on using BUT if I need too, it will be there.

Hopefully as you gain experience in diving you'll have a better understanding of how to dive safely. The short answer is: Don't mistakenly find yourself OOA at 80 ft. Watch your gas consumption, your depth, and dive with a buddy who does the same. DIVE BEHAVIOR is what determines dive safety, not a particular choice of gear. If you have a good instructor, he or she will emphasize this very important bit of training.

There is an exception: More demanding and risky dive practices (like solo, overhead, or deep diving) demand more exacting consideration of equipment. As a new diver, you are simply not qualified to safely dive those types of profiles. So avoid them. Once you are OOA at depth, with no buddy to assist you, you have already vastly increased your risk of dying, regardless of what type of bail-out bottle you are carrying.

I'm sorry if my post seems a little harsh, but it's intended to help you think a little more about dive safety.
 
... If you ALWAYS carry a pony then you can laugh

I always carry a pony - but why would I laugh? Something is always better than nothing. And if you are "buddy" diving the 3 cf will almost certainly get you to where your "buddy" wandered off to.

A ton of self-elected experts here, who know nothing of my diving style, SAC, skill, fitness level, etc. assure me that the 6 cf pony I now carry (downsized from a 13 cf) is dangerous and will get me killed. Many of them say anything less than an 40 cf or 80 cf pony is too small.

To each, his own. If you want to carry all that weight on the extremely remote chance that very well maintained equipment might fail, go for it. Personally, I don't, and completely understanding the parameters of the risk involved, I won't.
 
For the cost of a spare air, you could learn to dive doubles, or buy a new pony bottle and a used reg, or take an advanced class.

I don't necessarily agree with this. If you know of advanced classes or classes to dive doubles for $200 please point to where.

That being said, I am the OP on this, and now I have dove with one for a year and around 100 dives on it, I think i can better chime in on this. I still carry it on quite a few dives. It's unfair to even throw things like 100' depths into the conversation. If you do that, not only are you unrealistic, but you are violating the product's own safety rules. It's very clearly marked not to use it past 70'. I normally carry it when I do shallow (~60') drift or reef dives. I have used it to surface from that depth safely many times testing it and while I understand that isn't panic breathing I am very sure I could at least get to a place where I could do a stop and CESA safely. Are they comfortable to breathe? No, their regulators suck. Are they nice to take on a cruise when you know you will be going to look at the fish on shallow dives? Absolutely. Are they super easy to fly with? Yes. I do not take it when I wreck dive or deeper dive. I take a proper pony. If I had it to do over again and I could only pick one? I would probably go with the pony. But for the masses of recreational divers who dive a few times a year on shallow warm reefs, and don't want to lug a lot of gear on vacation, they are a good piece of mind. I have the means of owning both, and will use it depending on the dive plan.
 
I don't necessarily agree with this. If you know of advanced classes or classes to dive doubles for $200 please point to where.

Precision Diving - Doubles Workshop that was the third hit on my google search. I didn't look at the other two. YMMV. There's plenty of advanced classes that you can take for under a hundred if you are near an ocean, but even here, a 12 hour drive from salt water you can find classes for under a hundred.

As for them being "good piece of mind" I think that's potentially sort of true, or at least factual on its face. I stumbled upon a spreadsheet (http://www.scubatechphilippines.com/spare_air_ascent_calculator.xls) that @DevonDiver has on his site, and it would seem that from 60' you can make it to the surface, probably without a safety stop.

I guess you can call spare air a good piece of mind if you want, I"m going to call it:

"A crutch for having little or no situational awareness and a tendency to wander off and leave your dive buddy, while sculling your arms about wildly and trying to take pictures of marine life with your go-pro on a selfie stick until you suck your tank dry and shoot to the surface, having not once looked at your SPG."

That might not be true in your particular case, but that's what I'm thinking when I see the bottle bouncing on your belly as we wander to the back of the dive boat.

I have a pretty good idea of how long my air will last with a runaway regulator, torn hose etc, and I know how far away I can be from my buddy or another diver if I suffer a catastrophic failure, so I endeavor to wander no further than I can fin without panicking. I check my SPG regularly and have a mental estimate of how much gas I have, in my head without looking. This is my piece of mind.
 

Back
Top Bottom