Who said OOA was non-existant? Let's not be stupid about this.wedivebc:OOA situation is a non-existant problem? You wish
I said Air 2 was an expensive cure to a non-existant problem. That problem supposedly being the extra hose for the octo.
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Who said OOA was non-existant? Let's not be stupid about this.wedivebc:OOA situation is a non-existant problem? You wish
During an ascent you are normally vertical and looking up. In that position the Air 2 is essentially above 90% of the aircell and venting is not an isssue. You can vent with the big square button while you are breathing off the Air 2 and there is no need to remove it from your mouth.Parrothead_Diver:My thought is this:
1) In an OOA situation with the other diver breathing from your primary and you breathing through the Air2 you need to start your ascent.
2) During your ascent you should be dumping air from your BC on the way up to maintain neutral bouyancy.
3) If the common practice is to hold the inflator tube above your head while ascending. How can you also be beathing from it at the same time?
This means 1 of 2 things,
1) Your OOA buddy gets to breath on the way up while you blow bubbles, (i.e. Emergency Swimming Ascent).
2) You have to alternate between breathing and dumping, which is something I have never seen anybody practice.
Just my .02
DA Aquamaster:During an ascent you are normally vertical and looking up. In that position the Air 2 is essentially above 90% of the aircell and venting is not an isssue. You can vent with the big square button while you are breathing off the Air 2 and there is no need to remove it from your mouth.
Alternatively, if you have a pull dump mounted at the base of the inflator hose, you can also tug on the middle of the corrogated hose with the Air 2 in your mouth and it will dump air. The dump valve is operated by increasing the lenght of the corrogated hose and in turn pulling on the cable. This can be done just as effectively from the middle as from the end as long as the end is anchored - in this case in your mouth.
Lastly, if you have a Scubapro BC, it will almost always have a right shoulder dump operated by its own pull cord. This keeps the dump function totally isolated from the Air 2.
In short, the dump issue legitamately sounds like it could be a potential problem to most divers but is in fact only a concern to divers who have never actually used an Air 2 or devoted even a minimal amount of practice to dumping while using it as an alternate air source. With a minimal amount of familiarization, the problem dissapears.
Mandy3206:Just because some people don't like it (for what ever reason), doesn't means that it doesn't work.
If you don't like it, don't use it, but all arguments against it are as ridiculous as saying that you can choke with the 7' hose around your head in the long hose config.