Flight vs diving restrictions

[Walter]

If you drink lots of water between flying and diving, there's no issue.

 

[ianw2]

If you have no Nitrogen in your system, than flying is not an issue.

If you live and breathe anywhere on Planet Earth, you’ll have nitrogen dissolved in your body tissues.

The problems occur when relocating the body from one pressure gradient to another.

The nitrogen dissolved in your body tissues can be forced out of solution when moving from a place of higher pressure to an area of lower pressure, just like the CO₂ coming out of solution when you open up a soda bottle. If the nitrogen coming out of solution in your tissues forms bubbles, this can have major consequences.

The question I keep asking is this: When I dive at altitude, there are formulae to adjust for the lower pressure and partial pressures of air and nitrogen. I have to wait for an extended period before I fly after diving because of the nitrogen loading in my tissues. So, where is the table that give me CREDIT for LOWER nitrogen levels after I fl;y into Cozumel from California? Don’t I get LONGER bottom time because I started the first dive with a nitrogen DEFICIT?

Ian

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

If you have no Nitrogen in your system, than flying is not an issue. Going from a lower pressure environment to a higher pressure environment is also never an issue even if you are Nitrogen loaded. So jump off the plane, and go diving!

PADI has changed the no dive fly time to 12 hours. But they then say 18 hours on a multi-day repetitive dive schedule, and a lot of folks like and practice the 24 hour rule.

Just a couple adjustments to Ron's post:

Since air is ~78-79% Nitrogen, even when we are dead we have plenty of Nitrogen in our system. After diving with any recreational gas mix (air or EAN), we are saturated with excess Nitrogen due to the effects of breathing said gas under pressures greater than 1 atmosphere.

DAN (Divers Alert Network) is who changed the flying after diving recommendations, not PADI. PADI just prints new material with the new information. For a single dive within NDL limits, 12 hours is sufficient to off-gas the excess Nitrogen in the body tissues.

With regard to the diving after flying data, many vacation only divers are very rusty on their first dive after a layoff. The slightly higher than normal DCS for dives right after landing is not just due to lack of hydration. If you are properly hydrated you stand a lesser chance of DCS when miss your saftey stop after struggling mightily with buoyancy/weight/trim/finning and the extra 30 lbs you gained since your last dives 2 years ago.