When does PADI teach gas planning?

[LG Diver]

Yes PADI does NOT teach "rule of thirds" but should they? The only diving they teach is "OpenWater" that is diving when you always have access to the surface. Now if you are inside a cave you need to be able to swimm out of the cave before you can ascend so your turn around pressure needs to concider a long horizontal swim or maybe a deco. Another way to think about it is that a guy in a cave still has half of his cave dive to do after he turns around. When an open water diver hits his "rock bottom" his dive is over he is headed straight up.

There's more to gas planning than the rule of thirds. I agree that thirds is not applicable in most open water situations, unless you're in a "soft overhead" like a boat channel that you need to swim out of before ascending.

To compute a turn around pressure for an Open Water dive all you need is enough air to get you and a buddy to the surface and a three minute stop and a 500 PSI reserve.

Great. Where does PADI teach you how to do that?

Assume two divers breathing off the tank at a SAC or 1.0 per diver. Your average depth durring ascent rom 130 feet will be 65 so you could have a 6 cu ft/min "burn rate". It takes five minutes to get up from 130 ft so two divers would use 30 cu ft. or a lot less gas if you do a 60 fpm asecent up to 65 feet then slow down to 30 fpm. PADI sugests having a 500PSI reseve when you get to the surface. If you change that 500 PSi to be "one third of a tank full" which for an AL80 means to return with 1000 PSI then your turnaround pressure changes.

Yes, this is the basic rock bottom calculation. I know this after reading about it here. Why is it that I needed to come to the internet to learn about a basic diving skill that every diver should know.

But if you accept the 500PSi reserve then using a 1500PSI turn around pressure works out.

Not always. It wouldn't from 130'. With an Al 80 it would take 2100 PSI would get you to the surface with a 300 PSI reserve, assuming spending one minute at the bottom to sort things out before beginning the ascent. This is the problem with people using arbitrary numbers without understanding where they come from and where they are and are not applicable.

Edit- that last comment wasn't a dig at you Chris, but moreso a dig at my instructor who thought it would be sufficient without being able to explain why.

 

[Tollie]

Hi LG,

I hear you and remember that the basic ow cert is for 60 feet in a non overhead, relitively benign environment. For deeper diving the student should be training further.

Yes most folks will not take training beyond o/w sad to say and will put themselves in situations that they should not be in... situations that require more knowledge and stronger skills than they have been trained to have or likely have acquired.

Thats the argument for continuing diver education be it with PADI or any other agency.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

Sure there is a way to know whether your instructor for a class knows gas planning or anything else for that matter - ask. Look at his/her dive history. If you don't know your instructor's qualifications (not certifications) to teach the class you are interested in taking from him/her (past your open water class), well, that is no one's fault but your own. To think that all instructors from any agency are the same is ridiculous.

Please come back when you understsand how Padi's courses, by design, do not allow for the instructor to interject what he/she has the ability to do so if it is also not written in the standard.

Sure, you can do it, but it's NOT what the agency wants. and at worst, puts you in a spot you'd (Instructor) rather not be.

I think you need some more time in dude, you really don't have a true understanding of how pooched this whole thing is.

I've discussed many of these things with CD's and DSAT IT's and if they can attain this level within the Padi ranking, I don't relly need to look any further as to why they are the laughing stalk they are.

If the video has the divers and instructors on their knees, hanging onto wrecks blowing bags as even an option, it ain't likely to get any better from there.

They're a joke, plain and simple.

And as Mike has said before, even at the level of Instructor, by the standards, gas planning other than a casual mention or worse yet never as a definitive "this is how it's done" is NEVER mentioned.

Whether a wise instructor adds it in on his own accord makes little difference when he's told he really shouldn't be doing that, nor can the student be tested on it as it's not part of the curiculuum.

 

[Hoyden]

Another point that most of you are missing is that GUE doesn't condone diving below 100' until you are at least RecTriOx certified. Fundamentals has a depth limit of 60', Rec triox has a depth limit of 120', Tec 1 has a 150' limit.

 

[LG Diver]

Hi Tollie,

I totally understand what you're saying, but I don't think that dives to 60' are benign enough to do without a gas plan. Let's do the math on a 60' dive on an Al 80 with two stressed divers at a SAC rate of 1:

One minute at depth: 5.64 cu ft
Ascent: 6.94 cu ft
Safety stop: 8.73 cu ft
Total: 21.31 cu ft
Rock bottom pressure: 1299 PSI (to get to the surface with 500 PSI)

How many OW divers doing benign dives to 60' start their ascent with 1300 PSI in the tank? I'd venture to guess very few. What's the point in stressing the use of an octo if you're not teaching divers to carry enough gas to actually get two stressed divers to the surface?

 

[Tollie]

Thats true Hoyden... and DIR-F training is mostly done in the "simulator" at 30 or so feet.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

A similar Question is - When does GUE teach gas planning? the answer is - when you want to go tech diving. Or have all you dir wannabees forgot that that is what DIRF is, the INTRO to TECH diving? Or rather the Test to see if you are qualified to TRY to be a technical diver.

No, actually the answer is in the purely recreational DIR-f course. They teach that either on the first or second day.

They teach it to the level of the students, meaning they teach it to recreational divers so they don't bother with stages and deco bottle concepts, but they do however realize that this is so fundamental of a skill, that recreational divers need it to dive single 80's safely in 60ft of water. They save tech-level gas planning until an actual tech course.

The dir-f is not exclusively for those going tech, but it is a prerequisite due to the fact they got sick and tired of re-teaching people how to dive properly before they could even start to bother with taking them any further.

It a lack of basic skills, and it comes from rec agencies like Padi that design YOU (The Instructor) and what YOU know and want to teach OTHERS, out of the system.

I used to blame the instructor, and I'll admit I sometimes still do, but I find the root cause is that the agency is biffed because they stifle and make it very difficult by design to make the courses better without making it destinctively UN-Padi, which begs the question I've recently been asking, why bother at all with them?

 

[LG Diver]

PADI's open water class is designed to teach you to dive to 60'. The plenty of people you know who are OW only and doing dives in excess of 100' are not following the training that they received. Pointing to people who are ignoring the information they were taught in a class doesn't seem to me to be a good arguement for including more information in the class.

Try telling a diver with >100 dives and only an OW cert that they should only dive to 60' and you'll get told where to go. Fact is, as people build experience they will naturally think they can progress deeper. Unfortunately, diving a lot by itself will never teach them how to gas plan. This is why I think it's something that should be part of the basic course.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

Hi Tollie,

I totally understand what you're saying, but I don't think that dives to 60' are benign enough to do without a gas plan. Let's do the math on a 60' dive on an Al 80 with two stressed divers at a SAC rate of 1:

One minute at depth: 5.64 cu ft
Ascent: 6.94 cu ft
Safety stop: 8.73 cu ft
Total: 21.31 cu ft
Rock bottom pressure: 1299 PSI (to get to the surface with 500 PSI)

How many OW divers doing benign dives to 60' start their ascent with 1300 PSI in the tank? I'd venture to guess very few. What's the point in stressing the use of an octo if you're not teaching divers to carry enough gas to actually get two stressed divers to the surface?

That's not how it's done.

If you're actually planning rock bottom, why are you planning getting back on the boat with 500psi at the same time?

 

[BDub]

I'll respectfully disagree. Basic OW is the only course that every diver is required to take, and I think that gas planning is something that every diver should be proficient at. If prospective divers are intelligent enough to learn to use the tables they should be more than smart enough to be able to calculate rock bottom and develop a basic gas plan. I know plenty of people that would not hesitate to go deeper than 100', yet have no idea what a gas plan is, have never advanced beyond OW, and don't intend to ever take any more courses

As others have mentioned, students who finish OW are certified to 60'. I completely agree that the student, as a diver, must be proficient with air/gas management. I have personally tried to teach RB at the OW level and I am sorry to say, it caused quite a bit of confusion. Ok, maybe not confusion, but maybe a feeling of being overwhelmed with information. I do, however, inform the students that I'd be more than happy to talk with them about other methods of air/gas management if they'd like to learn more, and I'm happy to do it.

You can still make an impact on the importance of air/gas management without teaching RB at the OW level, IMO.

To follow your point, if all these divers wouldn't hesitate to go deeper than 100', then should we teach them line/reel management techniques in OW should they decide to enter a cave or wreck without training?