Spare Air

[NAUI Wowie]

I’m looking to do a 19cf mounted onto my plate.

very difficult to turn on and off. just sling it in front of you mounted at shoulder and waist. Im an idiot and it was easy.

 

[NAUI Wowie]

I have heard you can screw the Spare Air reg into a paintball bottle. It would be an easy way to double the gas but then it is that much bigger and I'd have to figure out new mounts.

why in gods name would you risk your life with that setup? I did competitive painball forever. I wouldnt use scuba equipment on a paintball field.

well actually im lying I used an 80cf aluminum to fill my own PAINTBALL bottles for years.

and even then the scuba stores wouldnt fill my refill bottle without a current stamp....

just buy a 6cf spare air or better get a 13cf pony bottle and cheap reg for it.

 

[rhwestfall]

I disagree with the "a cheap reg" statement.... For the same reason that my back-up is the same as my primary, I'm certainly going to put a dependable first and second stage on an alternate air source. I prefer SP MK-2 firsts, and 109/156 seconds for a pony bottle. They hold up to just about anything...

YMMV

 

[Diver below 83]

very difficult to turn on and off. just sling it in front of you mounted at shoulder and waist. Im an idiot and it was easy.

I believe it’s happydiver who has it mounted directly to his plate on the right side of the main tank. He has the tank upside down so he can easily reach the valve to turn it on and off with his right arm. It’s very easy to operate according to him.

 

[DogDiver]

53 years of diving and I have never run out of breathing gas. Nore has anyone I have been diving with run out of air. Now I have been in the water where another diver has run out and was sharing with his buddy. There is absolutely no reason any diver should run out of breathing gas. None. That’s why you have a SPG attached to your kit. Now when I cave dive, I’m using twin steel 120’s with an AL 40 with 100% oxygen for deco. Spare Airs.....Pony Bottles...leave them in the trunk of your car or at home.

 

[BRT]

53 years of diving and I have never run out of breathing gas. Nore has anyone I have been diving with run out of air. Now I have been in the water where another diver has run out and was sharing with his buddy. There is absolutely no reason any diver should run out of breathing gas. None. That’s why you have a SPG attached to your kit. Now when I cave dive, I’m using twin steel 120’s with an AL 40 with 100% oxygen for deco. Spare Airs.....Pony Bottles...leave them in the trunk of your car or at home.

No reason, unless the gas just stops flowing.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The best way help OW divers is to increase there watermanship skills. The Spare Air can be used to assist a CESA, however one can not be in near panic mode when doing it.

When I started diving, after years of snorkeling/freediving, one way to end a dive was an OOA event, because SPG's were not in general use, and j-valves may not be on the tank or used properly. Because it happened enough, it was not the panic inducing issue of the first OOA the diver ever had. Also someone that has spent a lot of time in the water and freedives knows they have more time to deal with an issue than a diver without that experience.

The best thing you can do for your divers is get them at home in the water, and teach them about freediving. It will give a perspective on the OOA experience.

Safety in the water has nothing to do with how much, and what type of gear you carry. If necessary, one should be able to ditch it all and swim home.


Bob

I would imagine most regs then were not balanced either so there was a gradual draw down as the air began to run out. Kind of a built in heads up. Of the times I actually ran OOA it was on purpose and I was long done with the dive and back in shallow water. These were test dives to see how different regulators acted upon running OOA.

I hear about all this OOA stuff these days. Wasn’t the SPG supposed to cure all that? What are people doing short of a total freeflow or catastrophic reg failure that they are even remotely close to running OOA?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

No reason, unless the gas just stops flowing.

What would be some of the reasons that the gas just stops flowing?
And what are the statistics of a catastrophic gas flow failure in percentages?

 

[Bob DBF]

I hear about all this OOA stuff these days. Wasn’t the SPG supposed to cure all that? What are people doing short of a total freeflow or catastrophic reg failure that they are even remotely close to running OOA?

Well the SPG is a great tool, but you have to check it occasionally for it to help. Having intimate knowledge of going OOA, I found it to be more usefull than my BC, but back then SCUBA was not sold as being safe and easy.

Freeflow and catastrophic reg failure, or catastrophic loss of gas are rare, even rarer now than when I started diving. The usual problem is narrow bandwidth on the part of the diver, and not understanding that tracking their gas is one of the three most important things to do whilst underwater. Compound that with minimal training and experience, and panic is not far away. From my experience, panic is more likely to kill than OOA.


Bob

 

[DogDiver]

What would be some of the reasons that the gas just stops flowing?
And what are the statistics of a catastrophic gas flow failure in percentages?

today’s regulators are designed to fail wide open, as in free flow. Still plenty of gas to get to the surface. Again, with proper situational awareness and ridged equipment maintenance, there is no reason to have an out of air situation. Now, if your doing something stupid like diving beyond your training or equipment configuration.....can’t help ya.