Early Air Fills?

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that is just COOL!

but I do hope the exhaust is not impacting the fill quality...... :shocked:

my guess is the black hose is a "snorkel" to a safer intake location.
 
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but I do hope the exhaust is not impacting the fill quality...... :shocked:
my guess is the black hose is a "snorkel" to a safer intake location.
you are right :)
You can see connector on the another picture of the "head", covered by black stub - this is intake connector.
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and black hose is connected to it.

BTW. We have same compressor, as Cornelius :)
Here it is named КПВ 1Б
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As I know - it was used on the small airplanes.
It has two con.s - low performance and low pressure.
 
Here in Sweden many divers in the old days got airfills from the firestations, and also many parts of the equipment was the same, old AGA/Interspiro tanks, regulators and fullface masks all started out as firefighter equipment.

And in we also have a strong club (non profit) tradition, so early on dive clubs started where interest where. Clubs often have a compressor.
 
By the 1970s we were filling our tanks at the local fire station. They were free.
 
By the 1970s we were filling our tanks at the local fire station. They were free.

We have several volunteer fire departments in our area. I have heard that all of them use the one local dive shop who fills all their SCBA cylinders for free (as a donation).
 
Amazing contributions and pictures by all of you.
Simply incredible.
 
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This looks like a V twin motorcycle engine.
 
But acces to all of this types of compressors was offered to the divers by assosiation ДОСААФ - this is like YMCA, but offered by government and army. It was possible and was very popular from second half of 1950`s. And participation in this organisation was free of charge! :)

Those time we used on the fire staions mostly oxygen regeneration equipment, and had not air compressors on the fire staions.
Now many of self-relliant divers used firestations for filling tanks by air.

This is so interesting to me, as I have an interest in the general history of Soviet society. How popular and accessible was recreational diving during the Soviet era? Did ДОСААФ / DOSAAF provide dive training/certification for recreation diving?

This opens up new questions as well - like how was the popular imagination shaped by rec diving? Was there anything similar to the "Costeau effect"? What sort of diving was most popular? Was there a lot of exchange of ideas, equipment and practice between the USSR and allied states like the DDR, Cuba and Yugoslavia? How did equipment makers survive the collapse?

It surprises me that even now, diving the waters east of the old "iron curtain" is still somewhat alien territory to western diving, and not well explored.

Hopefully some more "old hands" from the Russian / FSU diving world can shed some light on this and share their experiences - I'd absolutely love to find out more.
 

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