essentials dive gear on airplanes

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!

IAmJimbo

Registered
Messages
34
Reaction score
0
Location
Portland, OR
# of dives
100 - 199
I'm coming to SD by airplane. Normally I drive down, so I just bring all my gear, but this time since I'm on an airplane, I have to decide how much I can bring and how much I should just rent. Thoughts? Opinions? Experience? I'm thinking a tank is an obvious rental, but what about weights, wetsuit, fins? All heavy or space consuming, is it easier to just rent on location?

JimD
 
Hey Jimbo.....(not a rebuke) there are lots of threads on this from the past and some are quite detail actually.

Having said that......I would say it depends on your gear and here is what I mean.

I have two bcds and one is much more easy to travel with than the other. In fact, I will take a computer like roller bag and put my bp & wing inside and a mask. And, I will attach my reg bag to that. On my back is my camera back pack. These two bags are allowed on every plane I have ever flown. (dive computer is in camera bag by the way)

The only things I put in check in is my pony, fins, suit, extra mask and the like. TSA generally checks my carry on because of all the metal....and especially the huge metal plate of the bp. But once they know what it is....no problem.

TSAs rules even say you can take a pony on board....but dont try. Drain it, take off valve, put in plastic plug and wrap TSAs rules around it you have printed off their website and I have never had any problems.

I prefer my own gear as when the fecal matter hits the oscillating air rotation device I know exactly where everything is hooked or stowed and its not a "where the h*** is that thing" situation. Plus...a lot of rental gear I have seen was pure junk.

Take care...rich
 
My wife and I flew to Hawaii last year and took our dive gear with us. You'll obviously be happier diving with your own gear, so bring most of it. Leave your tanks and weights behind - those are easily rented in San Diego or anywhere else in SoCal. Besides, airport security gets really leery about tanks on a plane.

I purchased some of those TSA-approved baggage locks for our dive bags and pretty much did the same thing Rich did. I checked most of the gear in, and kept the really valuable stuff like my camera and dive computer with me in a carry-on backpack.
 
I recently went on a dive trip to Thailand and took most of my gear. I carried on all my dive gear as I don't like to leave my gear in the hands of strangers. The only things I ended up renting were weights, 3mm shorty (didn't need my 7mm for the trip :wink: ) & BCD. Everything else fit into my carry-on and backpack with no troubles.

Hope you have a good trip.
 
Same here. Regs, computer and mask in carry-on. Fins, wetsuit, gloves, boots, BCD in checked luggage. Don't bring my handheld depth finder because it looks too suspicious (like a PVC pipe with end caps). I rent weights and a tank when I get there. I use TSA locks on my luggage. Never had a problem. My carry-on was only checked once, when leaving Kona. The guy said "don't you guys carry knives?". We then had a discussion of what a regulator is.
 
Remember not to carry any tools in your carry on. I can understand not being allowed to carry on a hammer or large screw driver but I was pretty pissed coming back from Bonaire the other week when I had some wrenches taken off me
 

Back
Top Bottom