Double alum. 80s

[rgdiver1]

Just because you're trained to fly a Piper Cub airplane does not mean you can fly a Lear Jet. It takes experience and training to go to a higher level in aviation. Scuba diving is no different. Sure, there are divers who started diving doubles with no instruction, but recommending a brand-new diver try it is ill-advised to say the least and possibly even negligent. What comes next... advice that you really don't need any special training to dive to 200 feet, since you have enough gas to do so with your doubles? Scuba diving is about safety, not taking risks.

 

[Doby45]

 

[Blasto]

Know plenty of people who dive doubles strictly recreationally, just using the set for two dives in a row. Even recall seeing setups with a single first stage (which loses all the redundancy, so IMO well worth upgrading to proper dual reg).

 

[Beau640]

I learned doubles without any classes initially.

I will say however that I ended up taking intro to tech down the road after I had been diving doubles for a while. The learning curve of learning to properly dive doubles would have been drastically improved had I just taken intro to tech right away. I pretty much figured out everything on my own through trial and error and some mentorship, but if I had just taken the class I would have picked everything up a hell of a lot faster.

Do you need a class to dive doubles? Not if you're dedicated to figuring it all out on your own over time. But a good intro to tech or a doubles based class will definitely accelerate your learning and eliminate the need for trial and error/figuring it out yourself over many dives. As always, it's always about the availability of mentorship or how good your instructor is to make the class useful for you.