Bronze Turkey Award Number
Two: Back Inflation Silliness
Dive industry professionals are notorious for seeking “innovative solutions to nonexistent problems.” Lose your buddy under water? No problem! Find him with our personal, hand-held sonar. Did you fail to pay attention in your beginning scuba class? Again, no problem. We have remedial classes in everything from boat diving to buoyancy control — and, coming Real Soon Now, be the first on your block to earn your Wetsuit Diver rating.
Few pieces of equipment have engendered more downright silliness than back-inflation buoyancy control devices.
Many divers think these are a relatively new development in buoyancy control. The fact is, back-inflation BCs have been with us since 1972, when Watergill introduced the first back-inflation BC, the At-Pac. The At-Pac was revolutionary in a number of ways:
- It was not only the first back-inflation BC, it was the first BC to come standard with a power inflator.
- It was the first BC to have an integrated weight system.
- It was the first device that enabled divers to assemble their BC, tank, harness, regulator and instruments into a single system they could put on and take off at one time.
We take all these advances for granted now; however, in the early 1970s, they were not only revolutionary, they were too downright radical for a lot of people. The At-Pac also had some limitations:
- The wings tended to wrap themselves around the sides of divers’ tanks. trapping air. Very often, the only way you could vent air from an At-Pac was to go into a nearly vertical position. It was almost impossible to vent air while in a normal swimming position.
- The At-Pac’s integrated weight system relied on lead shot, held in place by a trap door at the bottom of the back pack. If the weight released successfully, you could find yourself as much as 30 pounds positively buoyant and rocketing to the surface, out of control (there was also no way of easily recovering the weight, once dropped). On the flip side, salt- or sediment-laden water had a tendency to “cement” the lead shot in place, making it impossible to drop.
- Because power inflators were so uncommon in those days, using the At-Pac required special training. Think about it: If you put a power inflator into the hands of someone who knows nothing about them, uncontrolled ascents are inevitable.
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