Flying with an underwater housing

[jgttrey]

My housings (2 nauticam, 1 fantasea) only have a single o-ring, but I always, always remove it for flying -- and for storage.

Best practice is to inspect and clean the o-ring groove and lube/run the o-ring through you fingers before a series of dives anyway, so why wouldn't you remove the o-ring for travel and assemble properly on arrival? It should already be part of the program. Just put it in a ziplock inside your housing. It takes 10 seconds to remove and about 1 minute to inspect and swab the o-ring grove, lube the o-ring and reinstall. I do this for ports too. Any time I've stored or traveled, I just assume the main o-rings on anything require removal, inspection, lubrication, and reinstallation. Same on rebreather o-rings.

If I traveled with a housing propped open, I'd just be assuming that some little something got in there anyway.

FWIW, I've found that foam tipped makeup applicators are awesome for swabbing those grooves. You'd be amazed how often there's a little something in there.

 

[Chris Ross]

So for the Fantasea, do I remove the black or the grey o-ring just to be on the safe side before the flight?

If you go the remove o-ring route you need to remove both as both can create a seal, I would guess that the inner one would be more likely to give you problems of sealing by itself.

 

[Chris Ross]

Same here. As for the lights, I switched to lights with metal bodies and screw-on caps. To make them pop, you'll have to throw them into a campfire.

again, checked in the hold or in carry-on the pressure is the same, they don't want to make a pressure tight floor between the two so it's easier to pressurise the lot, but it's only pressurised to 8000' -2400m equivalent.

 

[Ash176]

Thank you for all the replies. It's really a learning curve for me. Please keep the info coming. Thank you