Any correlation to diving?

So I was talking to a pilot (small single-engine type) about a recent accident and he made some sort of reference to a “500 hour pilot”, good enough to get into trouble, but not good enough to get out of trouble.

So I was talking to my dental hygienist about her favorite hobby, skydiving and she made a comment about a guy she knew not surviving a jump; “500 jump syndrome”.

Then I was looking at my dive count and said to my self, “Self….hmmmm.”

Some things have changed. I don’t get nauseous when I put on my gear any more (because of nerves). When diving with less experiences divers, I don’t get tension headaches any more. Am I beginning to become too cavalier in my approach? How would I know? There is a large contingency of people who believe they are competent when in reality they are not (some are plain scary). How do you measure it? Is there a crossroads where a diver is “good enough to get into trouble”? Or are these simply urban legends & I am reading too much into them?

I have certainly hear the analogy of pilots and at the risk of inciting a flame war hold it as a concern for vacation divers and others who dive all to infrequently.

Are you diving with a spirit of continuous improvement? I'd consider that a sign that you are staying in a safe frame of mind.

Pete

Being comfortable diving and being complacent are two different things. If you are someone who might in a conversation say something like "I've reached the level of diving I want to do, I don't feel like there is anything else I need to learn in order to enjoy diving." Then complacency can become an issue. Now, I'm not saying that you need to keep pushing the envelope in terms of going deeper, or longer, or with doubles, or anything else. What I"m saying is that continuing education is good, even if it's only through the median of discussing ideas, seeing how other folks do things and then deciding your approach is best for you, or perhaps there is credibility to someone else's methodology. Even simply taking time to review your practices, and the training you've had up to now is enough to avoid becoming complacent in the sport.

Being an active member of scubaboard is an indication to me that you probably willfully and knowingly review your diving practices, and the merit of those practices in both the practical and safety realms. If you engage in dialog where you share your diving methods than you are reviewing your own practices before posting. If you are listening to others you are going to be comparing those practices to your own, and that will serve as a critical review of practices. Scubaboard is great because it the conversation forces ourselves to be critical of our practices and that alone helps us avoid being complacent divers.

Complacency kills; it's been proven over and over. Sound judgment to me is the single best factor in making a safe diver, pilot, skydiver, or whatever you try to do. Sound judgment is not taught--it is developed by an individual who garners information from many sources, checks his ego at the door, admits he has limitations, knows them, and doesn't exceed them.

I think the 500-hour pilot, the 500-dive diver, etc are all at that experience level where the routine can be mundane and the individual can do the task without really thinking about it. That's where complacency can creep in with bad results if the person is not careful.

I think ego has something to do with it, too. Some people, usually men, just have to creep a little closer to the edge of their perfomance envelopes and push themselves a little bit more, and if they're not careful the consequences can be disastrous. Women don't seem to have the ego hangups that men do. They're smarter that way.

I close with an old adage that can be adopted to whater task you're doing: "A superior (pilot, diver) uses his superior judgment to avoid having to use his superior (flying, diving) skills".
I think that sentence says a lot if you think about it.

I gotta say that I'm a 650-hour commercial pilot who hasn't used his pilot license in 20 years because it's so DAMNED EXPENSIVE!!!

First off, I think if you're completely honest with yourself, the signs of complacency are obvious. Are you still planning your dive? Do you still do a buddy or self-check methodically? Are you careful to make sure your tank is full, and your gas is on, before you get in the water? Are you more and more willing to accept small malfunctions and still dive? Do you pay less attention to hazard warnings on dive sites?

But, on the other hand, you don't really improve if you don't stretch your limits. If you walk out every day and say, "No, the surf's too high for me," you'll never get better at surf entries in water a little bit more than you are comfortable with. If, like me, you don't hit current-sensitive sites on big exchanges, because you don't want to miscalculate and get caught in heavy current, you won't get better at timing or at managing current.

As we gain experience, we all need to do a few dives that are a little bit out of our comfort zone in order to stretch a little bit, and in order to find out where our current limits actually ARE. The key is to stretch a little, and do it with care, and not to throw caution to the winds and decide we can tackle anything.

I think there is a correlation to diving. Most risk sports have that point where you start gaining a lot experience and the risk of becoming too cavalier with your safety routines increases. Not sure if it happens at any given level (i.e. 500 jumps in skydiving or 100 dives), but it can happen. I've seen it happen to people I've done various sports with.

That's not so say that it will or does happen to everyone. But I think we could all benefit from doing like you do and take a objective look at our routines (as objective as possible, anyway) every now and then, and check ourselves for "experience laziness syndrome".

Interesting thread. As a former pilot, and skydiver, I would have to agree with the the OP: you quickly reach a level of mistaken self confidence but it takes time to get the experience. Looking back, I honestly think it took nearly 300-500 dives in doubles alone (after a lot of single tank dives............)just to feel truly comfortable in double tanks. Sure I could do the dives but there was definitely a difference as to what side of the power curve I felt I was on. Everytime you move the bar, that curve changes. It took a lot of deco dives before I felt comfortable with the Tech I level dives (single deco bottle/gas) and then you move the bar again and those dives seemed easy. I don't believe there is any substitute for time in water and experience. 100-dive instructors scare the beejeezus out of me and the same goes for once a year vacation-only divers. It is my view that all diving "issues" are a question of statistical probability and as you gain experience and your dive numbers increase, you approach a reasonable level of statistical certainty that particular incidents will occur to you. This is why an instructor or mentor with a lot of diving experience is so valuable. They have most likely "been there, done that" when it comes to solving UW problems and emergencies and can give you the first hand perspective that you just can not get from a newly hatched instructor. I think part of the problem for divers who dive infrequently is that they confuse the number of years they have been diving with the number of dives they have done. Thus, someone who has been diving for 20 years but only 10 dives a year could possibly feel that he has the experience to solve most diving problems when in reality, he or she is most likely simply re-setting the clock everytime they get in the water.

Just my 2 cents here.

Bismark, that's one of the things I write frequently here. You simply don't know how you are going to handle problems underwater until you have them. Someone who has done 200 lovely, uneventful dives may not be significantly ahead of someone who has only done 20, although one would hope the former person has more solid buoyancy control and better relaxation than the novice. I can imagine it would be easy to begin to think you had this diving thing sussed, without realizing that your composure and effectiveness had never been tested. We don't learn and grow much through easy experiences; we really evolve fastest when tested. This is one of the things I love about the training I've done. Although artificial scenarios are NOT the real thing, they are far better than not facing any of the issues simulated at all, I think.

Yes, complacency can be a real issue. I've known of several incidents over the years where very experienced divers died because of really simple mistakes. It's especially dangerous if you are involved in task oriented diving (eg. lobster hunting, marine biology, oil rig service). You focus on the task and forget to monitor you vitals, or push the limits to complete a task. (one more lobster syndrome)

The answer, I think, is to make reviewing the basics part of your pre-dive prep. I try to visualize the dive after I've packed my gear, but before I leave the house. It's mostly to make sure I haven't forgotten a piece of equipment, but it also serves to reinforce the basic procedures.

My instructor gave an analogy when I was in open water that on a boat you might see 3 groups of divers.
1. Divers inspecting their gear, talking about the dive plan, doing buddy checks
2. Divers put gear gear togetherand jumping in. Back at 500 psi.
3. Divers inspecting their gear, talking about the dive plan, doing buddy checks


Divers in group 1 = less than 50 dives
Divers in group 2 = 50 to 100 (or pick another number)
Divers in group 3 = lots of dives


His numbers not mine but, you get the idea.