Advanced training questions

[Keith.M]

It's a matter of approach. When I first started teaching AOW, I was going over the curriculum with one of my students when he asked me which dive was the one where we were going to work on buoyancy control ... I replied "all of them" ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

This is exactly it. When I did my AOW I was surprised that PPB was not one of the 5 dives. This was my first class with the CD and I told him just that. His response to me was "We work on buoyancy on EVERY dive!"

He gained my respect right there.

 

[eelnoraa]

The problem is that the OP needs a card that will allow him to deep dive on a boat that has a zero tolerance stand on diving below the recommended limit of your certification. GUE and UTD may very well be fine classes, however they will have him sitting on the boat instead of diving.



Bob
-------------------------------------
The day I can't dive anymore, I will really need some other good reasons to stay alive. DarkAbyss

This part I can't argue. The only issue with GUE fundie or UTD essential is that these agencies are not well known for their quality training. When I was in Thailand live aboard, I was not allow to use nitrox and I was group with PADI OW students all because my card says "Fundamental". Renting a drysuit can be an issue too.

---------- Post added May 8th, 2014 at 03:51 PM ----------

I thought something similar. When I took PPB, I came away thinking that two dives was not enough...it should be a course on its own.

I don't want to turn this into a PADI bashing thread, but with the business model of PADI or similar, the instructors themselves may not be a competent diver in PPB to begin with. They may have xx number of year of diving experience or yy number of years of teach experience. they maybe able to do some fancy position in water to show off to students. But when task loaded, they are not able to maintain buoyance or trim. I am not saying all are like this, but from what I have see, a good number of existing instructor or DM are like this.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

My husband teaches AOW, but it's one of his least favorite classes to teach here in Puget Sound. He'd love it, if the Deep dive weren't mandatory. Few students presenting for AOW have the skills you'd ideally like to see someone have to do deep dives. They can't control descents well enough to keep a buddy pair together, without going down a line. Their SAC rates are too high, mostly due to inefficient diving technique. Buoyancy control may be pretty decent at depth, but gets shaky in the shallows, where you want the most control at the end of a deep dive. And unless they went through our OW class or Peter's Nitrox class, they have no sense of gas management at all. You can't fix all of that in a single dive, or often in the three which are the maximum you get before you take the student deep (unless you want to schedule the Deep dive on a day of its own, anyway).

I'd like to see divers do a Fundies-like, intensive class on buoyancy, buddy skills, situational awareness, and gas management, before taking AOW. Or better yet, create an AOW that teaches THOSE things, and then let the student go on to do navigation and deep after he's had a chance to do a bit of diving at the OW level to solidify those skills.

I realize the OP's question really has to do with access. But the real question is, is that access wise?

This is why I have minimum entry requirements that must be met before I'll even sign someone up for advanced. If it means doing a couple dives to verify their skills if I don't know them or requiring some remedial instruction. Better to do that than risk their life, that of other students, and maybe mine just to teach a class. I have turned away advanced students. Some went to other instructors who had no problem taking them to 90 ft while they hugged the line and blew through their gas. They got what the wanted though, an AOW card. But at least my name was not on it.

 

[EFX]

Some level of gas planning needs to be taught to all divers. Read your DAN statistics again ... something like 40% of all diving accidents, at all levels, have OOA/LOA as either the primary or proximate cause.

What you're thinking of as gas planning especially in regards to OOA and LOA situations is already covered in OW and AOW in what I call dive planning. A typical dive plan would be: out to the planned dive site, turn the dive at 1700, begin the ascent at 700, do a safety stop and back on the boat with 500. If basic divers can't do this what makes you think they'll listen to a gas planning lecture? Now, if there is a definite mission with goal/time constraints (other than trivial looking around) than gas planning is in order. That is, get your SAC and compute SRV to determine whether an 80 will be enough or if you'll need a 95 or 120.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

What you're thinking of as gas planning especially in regards to OOA and LOA situations is already covered in OW and AOW in what I call dive planning. A typical dive plan would be: out to the planned dive site, turn the dive at 1700, begin the ascent at 700, do a safety stop and back on the boat with 500.

Actually that's not a dive plan unless you're working with a couple other known variables ... like what depth you're ascending from, the size and rating of your cylinder, what your consumption rate happens to be, and also what your buddy's consumption rate happens to be.

If you begin an ascent from 100 fsw with 700 psi in an AL80 and suddenly your buddy slashes his hand across his throat, do you think you're going to be getting back on the boat with 500 psi? Do you think you're even going to make it to the surface with any air left in your cylinder? The answer to those two questions would be "certainly not", and "highly unlikely". But without knowing what the other variables were there's really no way to tell.

If basic divers can't do this what makes you think they'll listen to a gas planning lecture?

... the fact that they've been doing it for the past 10 years. That lecture's not only a standard part of my AOW curriculum, I've traveled all over the Pacific Northwest presenting it at dive shops and dive clubs to audiences ranging from grizzled instructors to people who haven't even finished OW class yet ... and I've yet to have someone come up to me afterward and tell me it was too hard or too boring. Quite the opposite ... I've had people engaged, asking very good questions, and thanking me for providing them with information they hadn't heard before ... in some cases in spite of the fact that they'd been diving for years.

Now, if there is a definite mission with goal/time constraints (other than trivial looking around) than gas planning is in order. That is, get your SAC and compute SRV to determine whether an 80 will be enough or if you'll need a 95 or 120.

... and that's the "some level of gas planning" I was referring to. Bottom line, before you get in the water you should have some way of determining that the gas you're bringing with you is adequate for the dive you're planning to do. And by adequate that means you've also considered how much reserve you need to bring to account for an OOA emergency at the deepest part of your dive.

It ain't rocket surgery ... even someone who hasn't completed OW class yet is capable of doing it provided you do a reasonable job of explaining to them how to, and why they should ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Jim Lapenta]

That to me is not.gas planning. Gas planning requires students to know.their SAC rate. I have two classroom sessions where we go over tables, emergency deco, and actual gas planning. AOW is even more critical because before someone goes on a dive to the deck of the Duane or Spiegel they better know that the al80 they are given is not appropriate for the dive. Seen more than a few newer divers taken to 90 or so and have to.share air with a DM or the instructor because they never figured out their SAC rate and rmv before doing the dive. Not covering real.gas planning makes every dive they then do with a DM or instructor a "trust me" dive. And those can and have killed people. Calculating SAC and explaining how it's used takes a competent instructor with reasonably intelligent studenta about a half hour to do. When you explain in graphic terms why they need to know it they do listen. Instruction is not all.about sun, fun, and excitement. It's also about how fast this can kill tem.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[eelnoraa]

..., turn the dive at 1700, begin the ascent at 700, do a safety stop and back on the boat with 500.

This is NOT proper gas planning. At what depth or what tank will enable you to begin ascent at 700, complete safety stop and be on the boat with 500. At 100ft, 700 means yourself just have barely enough gas to ascent at a safety speed + 3 min at safety stop, not to mention if you buddy needs air from you, unless you have a hugeeee tank

 

[SanDiegoSidemount]

FYI, detailed gas planning like @NWGratefulDiver lectures about is a mandatory part of all of UTD's Essentials classes. It's probably the same for GUE Fundies?

Heck, planning like this is mandatory even in basic Open Water classes at UTD. As @NWGratefulDiver has observed, the students rarely find it boring or overly complicated. It's just a thorough walk-through of the gas aspects of your dive plan.

The fourth OW dive that UTD students do is planned in detail this way by the students themselves (rock bottom gas, min deco stops, etc.) with times, turn pressures, etc. and SADDDDD. Then the students go dive their plan with an instructor shadowing.

UTD Open Water training FTW.

 

[EFX]

Actually that's not a dive plan unless you're working with a couple other known variables ... like what depth you're ascending from, the size and rating of your cylinder, what your consumption rate happens to be, and also what your buddy's consumption rate happens to be.

It is a dive plan and it's sufficient. The only thing I didn't mention is you have to watch your SPG but this should have been implied. The other factors you mention are important only if you are making a specific goal or a time oriented dive. See my reply to Jim Lapenta below.

If you begin an ascent from 100 fsw with 700 psi in an AL80 and suddenly your buddy slashes his hand across his throat, do you think you're going to be getting back on the boat with 500 psi?

This is an argument from the missing middle. The context of my replies have to do with entry level average skill divers who monitor their SPG's and apply common sense. You are bringing up an exception. The fact that something could go wrong has nothing to do with gas planning but performing rescue procedures that every OW and AOW is trained for.

... the fact that they've been doing it for the past 10 years. That lecture's not only a standard part of my AOW curriculum, I've traveled all over the Pacific Northwest presenting it at dive shops and dive clubs to audiences ranging from grizzled instructors to people who haven't even finished OW class yet ... and I've yet to have someone come up to me afterward and tell me it was too hard or too boring. Quite the opposite ... I've had people engaged, asking very good questions, and thanking me for providing them with information they hadn't heard before ... in some cases in spite of the fact that they'd been diving for years.

Yes, and your talking to serious committed divers or vacation divers who are being all too polite. There is a difference between what is needed or required and what is just useful information.

 

[nimoh]

This is an argument from the missing middle. The context of my replies have to do with entry level average skill divers who monitor their SPG's and apply common sense. You are bringing up an exception. The fact that something could go wrong has nothing to do with gas planning but performing rescue procedures that every OW and AOW is trained for.

Not sure what you were trying to say there, but I don't think you got that sentence out quite right. IMHO most rescue attempts will fail when either the rescuer or the victim can't breathe -- gas planning is absolutely concerned with something going wrong.

As a sidebar, in your original plan, why does it take 1300psi to go out and only 1000psi to get back? Of course I am assuming an Al80 filled to 3000psi.