Air2 / octo inflators

[imasinker]

A question for those using the OCTO inflator / AIR2 type regs. I have been looking at the various post regarding donation of octo's vs primary and something came to mind that those of you who use these could hopefully answer for me.

When faced with an OOA situation you now have donated your primary and are using the octo inflator. How easy are these to use in a situation like this where the inflator is bent round towards your face and you need to dump air upon ascending. Do you just use a pull dump instead. Would one have to make sure their BC is setup with pull dumps located on the left shoulder being your holding your buddy with your right hand as taugh? Is controlling your ascent any harder? If this is right then you would need to modify your BC or wing? It sounds like a whole different set of variables to deal with or am I missing something?

This may sound like a dumb question but I am wondering just how a diver could benefit from these, not to knock them at all!

Have any of you using these faced an OOA situation? How did you find it for ease of use? I am very curious as to what you have to say.

Thanks

 

[jmitch3938]

no problem at all, you just have to remember and get use to your inflate and deflate buttons are right in front of your face, and not trying to reach for it,,been using one for the last 15 years..

 

[blatter]

With the Apeks Octo + version I just push the oral inflate/deflate button on the reg. It is OK to keep breathing off it at the same time. You may have to position yourself to get the valve at the highest point - although I would expect in most air sharing scenarios in open water there would be a tendency for divers to orientate themselves in a more head up position. If necessary, you could always remove it to dump for a few seconds (remembering not to hold you breath on ascent) or even pull on the corrugated hose with valve in your mouth to operate the shoulder dump if needed.

The corrugated hose definitely restricts head movement - but not enough to really be problem. Other versions of this type of valve my have different controls.

 

[beanojones]

Worth pointing out that both the Oceanic and the Aqualung version have a midline pull dump that lets you pull on the corrugated hose to dump air, even with the inflator reg in your mouth.

(Practically speaking, most people just completely ignore dumping air when faced with an out of air diver. As do most out of air divers.)

ScubaPro started the whole alternate inflator reg thing, and they always had a right shoulder dump. The inflator was mounted on the front of the jacket so it could not be used to dump air anyway.

 

[djanni]

A question for those using the OCTO inflator / AIR2 type regs. I have been looking at the various post regarding donation of octo's vs primary and something came to mind that those of you who use these could hopefully answer for me.

When faced with an OOA situation you now have donated your primary and are using the octo inflator. How easy are these to use in a situation like this where the inflator is bent round towards your face and you need to dump air upon ascending. Do you just use a pull dump instead. Would one have to make sure their BC is setup with pull dumps located on the left shoulder being your holding your buddy with your right hand as taugh? Is controlling your ascent any harder? If this is right then you would need to modify your BC or wing? It sounds like a whole different set of variables to deal with or am I missing something?

This may sound like a dumb question but I am wondering just how a diver could benefit from these, not to knock them at all!

Have any of you using these faced an OOA situation? How did you find it for ease of use? I am very curious as to what you have to say.

Thanks

I've been using an Atomic SS1 for over 5 years. BTW: It breaths nearly as well as my Atomic B2 primary. Depending on your position in the water you can use other pull dumps on your BC or reach up an pull the hose while it's still in your mouth. Although I've only experimented with it a few times, when ascending I just take it out of my mouth, hold it up and dump as I normally do. No probelm. Easy as pie.

No modifications needed. All the cool divers use them.

 

[imasinker]

Thanks for the replies. I see you all have no issue's with using them, I see they are easier to use than I thought. Cool..

 

[fnfalman]

I just hold down the deflate button and swim up while sucking off the inline octo. The air vents out just fine. BTW, mine came from Dive Rite and looks identical to the Scubapro unit.

 

[TSandM]

Unlike the people who have posted here, I found the Air2 quite awkward to use when air-sharing, and difficult to control buoyancy with. That's a large part of why I went to a bungied backup.

(Practically speaking, most people just completely ignore dumping air when faced with an out of air diver. As do most out of air divers.)

This is very unfortunately true, and leads to injuries and deaths. I don't think it's something we should accept with fatalism.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

dumping air is easy, you just pull down on the thing.?????

 

[RJP]

Air2 / octo inflators?

Sort of like having the little "donut" spare tire in your trunk. Seems like a really good idea right up until the point where you need to actually use it for it's intended purpose...