Pony thoughts (I know prob beaten to death)

[JeffG]

EDIT: N/C

Edit?

You seemed to have misspelled "Not a valid test, but hopefully you will never find out"

 

[JeffG]

Couple this with a 50lb/bag luggage restriction and the 6 cu ft starts to look pretty good.
Thanks,

Get yourself a spare air. Saves more weight from having the built in reg.

 

[Tanked]

Get yourself a spare air. Saves more weight from having the built in reg.

I was wondering when you would show up.

 

[JeffG]

I was wondering when you would show up.

and now you will no longer have to wonder.

 

[Rainer]

Now just waiting for Soggy...

 

[Jersey Chris]

I can see this thread going to hell in a hand basket

 

[seaducer]

Never use the pony tank unless you need to resolve a MAJOR screw up in air planning. .

I will disagree, it is not a tool to use in place of proper planning, and no reason to screw up your air planning. A pony is for emergencies, and they should be caused by an equipment malfunction, not poor planning. I know, semantics, but hey, what is the internet all about??

...you should never us it unless your life depends on it. It is NOT a means to extend a dive due to a depleted primary source

Absolutely. For emergencies, not extra bottom time. But should somebody want to use it for extra safety stop time, extra bottom time, whatever, who am I to say no?

 

[burna]

...A pony is for emergencies, and they should be caused by an equipment malfunction, not poor planning....

Agreed, but the question I haven't been able to answer is, how likely are you to suffer a failure that will shut off you air?

If a failure is more likely to cause a freeflow, then you would have time to swim to your buddy or make an immediate ascent with, most probably, some sort of SS. Wouldn't you???

Deep or deco would be different.

I'm still sitting on the fence!

 

[captain]

Agreed, but the question I haven't been able to answer is, how likely are you to suffer a failure that will shut off you air?

If a failure is more likely to cause a freeflow, then you would have time to swim to your buddy or make an immediate ascent with, most probably, some sort of SS. Wouldn't you???

Deep or deco would be different.

I'm still sitting on the fence!

I tend to agree that failures that completely shut of the air supply are extremely rare. A few possibilities are debris in tank that blocks the dip tube or on regulators with a rotating turret, breakage of the turret bolt and loss of the turret and all IP hoses or breakage of the first stage spring. Even with failure of the primary reg IP hose a switch to the octo and hasty accent is possible.

 

[seaducer]

Agreed, but the question I haven't been able to answer is, how likely are you to suffer a failure that will shut off you air?

If a failure is more likely to cause a freeflow, then you would have time to swim to your buddy or make an immediate ascent with, most probably, some sort of SS. Wouldn't you???

Deep or deco would be different.

I'm still sitting on the fence!

Well, it depends how vigilant you and your buddy are about staying right on top of each other. A free flow can drain an AL80 from 3000 PSI to 0 in a really shocking short amount of time at 10 feet. Now imagine you are getting close to ending a dive at 80 feet and you free flow and your buddy got distracted by a pretty fish? Realistically you may only have 10 to 15 seconds before the tank runs dry, and if you exhaled just before that happened? In the tropics with an insta-buddy you may not get to him/her in time...

Edit- you might be able to get to the surface from 60-80 feet uf you had a free flow at the start of the dive, however you will have no time to do a safety stop and would have to rush the ascent faster than I like to go for sure. If you purge your octo you can leterally watch the needle drop...