Neox, Argox, Ken Clayton & Billy Mitchell Fleet talk Our World Underwater Chicago

[sandiegoaes]

I will be speaking at Our World Underwater in Chicago on both Saturday and Sunday on Ken Clayton’s dives on the Billy Mitchell Fleet and exploring his use of Neox and Argox during his epic dives in the 1990’s on the Frankfort.

Ken and Gary Gentile dove the Ostfriesland during a pioneering period in technical diving. During this time, he transitioned from using deep air (they dove the USS Washington at 290 fsw on air!) to Heliox. Subsequently he transitioned again to using exotic gas mixtures such as Argox and Neox on a 7 gas switch dive to 420 fsw! This is the first recorded non-military use of a neon based gas mixture since Haans Keller’s infamous 1962 dive to 1,000 feet off Catalina.

I was lucky enough to interview Ken Clayton about his dives a few years ago and I am presenting two lectures on his dives.

The first is exploring the 10 ships in the Billy Mitchell Fleet that Ken helped discover, dive and document. Along the way, Ken helped blaze a path for using new technology in diving and pioneered some pretty wild gas mixtures.

The second lecture will detail Ken’s dives and use of Neox and Argox gas mixtures for his decompression. I will also examine if Neox has any practical application since rebreathers have become commonplace since the 1990s and also examine argox as a breathing mixture.


Shipwreck Room #48
Saturday
10:00am

DIVING THE BILLY MITCHELL FLEET

Sunday
10:45am

THE USE OF NEOX AS A DIVING GAS

Details on the show here:

http://ourworldunderwater.com/attend...inars-chicago/

Hope to meet a few of you guys there!

 

[RedPoppita]

Hi!

Appreciate this was a while ago, but by any chance do you have a copy or notes from "The use of neon as a diving gas" lecture that you'd be willing to share? I'm writing a paper on the use of exotic gas mixes, but am finding practical application evidence of neon surprisingly hard to come by.

 

[michael-fisch]

There is a reason why NeOx has been so rarely used in the past. Look into what 1000 cuft of Neon (6 9s grade 99.9999 pure) costs. Even 5 9s grade 99.999 pure makes a new car look cheap in comparison.

Michael

 

[sandiegoaes]

Hi!

Appreciate this was a while ago, but by any chance do you have a copy or notes from "The use of neon as a diving gas" lecture that you'd be willing to share? I'm writing a paper on the use of exotic gas mixes, but am finding practical application evidence of neon surprisingly hard to come by.

I have it somewhere. I will dig to see what I can find. I will send it to you directly or can post it here if the Mods will allow it.

 

[sandiegoaes]

There is a reason why NeOx has been so rarely used in the past. Look into what 1000 cuft of Neon (6 9s grade 99.9999 pure) costs. Even 5 9s grade 99.999 pure makes a new car look cheap in comparison.

Michael

True. Ken Clayton got the Neon donated to him. It was extremely expensive at the time and probably more now. His dives were on open circuit, so the dive was extremely expensive for that reason alone. A small 20 cu ft bottle piped through a rebeather wouldn't be cost prohibitive for decompression purposes. I am not sure what benefit you would get out of it though.

 

[O-ring]

VB Tech did quite a bit of diving on the Billy Mitchell fleet back between 1999-2003. I included some links below to photos and writeups from those trips:

1999 Trip

Ostfriesland

capt-jt.com

Frankfurt

capt-jt.com

Billy Mitchell Dive Story

capt-jt.com

VBTech FL ive

capt-jt.com

2000 Trip

Billy Mitchell Trip - June 10 and 11 2000

capt-jt.com

Billy Mitchell Trip - June 10 and 11 2000

capt-jt.com

Billy Mitchell Trip - June 10 and 11 2000

capt-jt.com

Dive Profiles

capt-jt.com

2001

Ostfriesland 2001

capt-jt.com

2002

Billy Mitchell 2002

capt-jt.com

Osfriesland Dive

capt-jt.com

Ostfrisland Story 2002

capt-jt.com

Miss Lindsey 2002 Ostfriesland I

christinayoung.net

Miss Lindsey 2002 Ostfriesland II

christinayoung.net

Miss Lindsey 2002 U-117 I

christinayoung.net

Miss Lindsey 2002 U-117 II

christinayoung.net

 

[sandiegoaes]

Great write ups! Any chance any of the divers may have Ken Clayton's old Neox tables? I asked Ken Clayton and Bill Hamilton for copies before they passed away. Maybe JT has a copy laying around?

 

[sandiegoaes]

PS - Do you still have photos of "Gary Geeeeentile" and "Capt Janet" getting into a fight at Halloween over diving the Doria on deep air? That was one of the funniest posts I saw in a long time....

 

[O-ring]

Great write ups! Any chance any of the divers may have Ken Clayton's old Neox tables? I asked Ken Clayton and Bill Hamilton for copies before they passed away. Maybe JT has a copy laying around?

I suppose it's possible since they might have communicated about those dives before VB Tech went out there since not too many people had been on them. However, I do know that the VB Tech guys, Christina, etc. were all on trimix and did not use Neox. It wouldn't hurt to ping him on his website or social media. I am sure he'd be glad to discuss it and might be able to give you some more info for your presentation.

 

[sandiegoaes]

I suppose it's possible since they might have communicated about those dives before VB Tech went out there since not too many people had been on them. However, I do know that the VB Tech guys, Christina, etc. were all on trimix and did not use Neox. It wouldn't hurt to ping him on his website or social media. I am sure he'd be glad to discuss it and might be able to give you some more info for your presentation.

Thanks. I will do that.

I spoke to Ken extensively about his profile. He was a Ivy League trained chemist and told me he had the tables in front of him on his dive slate when we spoke over the phone several times. I wanted to include his actual profile in the presentation but he refused, despite me asking multiple times. He mentioned something along the lines that "as a non-chemist, you wouldn't understand the tables" which I found curious, since I have a very strong math background. Mathematics seemed relevant to the discussion more than chemistry IMO.

Plus, I really had no interest in doing a six gas, open circuit heliox dive with air deco at 220fsw and including dcompression gas switches to Argox and Neox along the way but Clayton was adamant that he didn't want others following his profile.

I spoke to a few decompression modelers that were going to attempt to re-engineer Ken's dives but they got busy with other projects before I delivered my presentation at OWU, so it never happened.

It would be fun to have his profile from those dives. I don't think anyone but Hans Keller and Ken Clayton have done recreational diving using Neox. At least, I cannot find anyone who has.