Is a Pony Bottle too complicated for a beginner?

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I think the simple answer to your question OP, is it would be better to refine your fundamental skill set to include your SCR and dive planning. This will ensure the confidence needed to move on to more task loading and bigger dives that might require more gas. Do you have a community around you that can help you with this?
 
My SAC rate is still higher than most of my buddies, so now when we are deep, my pony allows me to look over at my buddies and wave cya up top, when my gas supply dictates is time for me to head up. The pony gives me knowledge that my 2nd air source is right with me the whole time, and my buddies are confident in my ability to actually be smart about how I come up by myself.

Your buddies are leaving you to ascend alone enabled by your pony? There is stuff that can go wrong other than a gas failure. They get a longer dive out of that, what do you get?

Honestly, read the bsac incident reports Annual Diving Incident Report the short version is 1 don’t be old, 2 follow your training.
 
Your buddies are leaving you to ascend alone enabled by your pony? There is stuff that can go wrong other than a gas failure. They get a longer dive out of that, what do you get?

Honestly, read the bsac incident reports Annual Diving Incident Report the short version is 1 don’t be old, 2 follow your training.
I get to solo dive up in peace and contentment, unencumbered by photographers. And it is me, leaving them, not the other way around.
I just got the medical form today, to take to my Dr., so I can start the Solo course.
 
If you read the BSAC incident reports and you will find one or two fatalities caused this way.

Also, if there are rookies and rookie mistakes…
I'm not going to search through years of BSAC reports to validate your claim. So I will reject it unless I stumble across it. Looking at the 2019 report (page 67), there is an incident where a diver made the mistake of breathing from his pony first, but he lived.

Catastrophic gas loss is exceedingly rare. I'm sure that the diver learned to ensure that it didn't happen again.

I get the impression that you and I differ dramatically on our views of the average new diver. I don't think they are stupid. They are typically undertrained, and I'm guessing we agree on that point.

But the idea that a new diver cannot handle a pony bottle after learning to receive gas from their buddy just doesn't make sense to me at all. The key is their reaction to a potentially stressful situation. Panic is deadly, and that applies to not just new divers.
 
I get to solo dive up in peace and contentment, unencumbered by photographers. And it is me, leaving them, not the other way around.
I just got the medical form today, to take to my Dr., so I can start the Solo course.

So in other words you have already been doing a little solo diving now and then, before having taken the Solo course. Not something I would advise new divers to do.

I don't mean to give you a hard time--you're apparently doing fine, and closing in on 200 dives and diving several times a week you are not really a newbie, despite what you said. Again, the OP really does seem to be a new diver. If I understood the OP, this thread is about whether a pony bottle is a good solution for a new diver to that feeling of insecurity we all felt as new divers. Even if the OP decides to carry a pony, I hope others who find this thread in the future take the full debate into account.
 
The primary reason for a pony is because you have sucked down your primary
Absolutely NOT. Any event where you need a pony should be treated as a critical incident. Anyone who sucked down their primary & relies on their pony is absolutely doing things wrong & should fix whatever reason they're running out of air, and resort to safer dives. Most of the criticism against pony-bottles comes around the idea that divers will abuse the idea of having a pony to be less safe (not check air as often, use more air on a dive, etc), which I think almost all of us would agree is using your pony incorrectly.

A pony-bottle used properly on a standard dive should be treated like an insurance-policy, seat-belt, or air-bag. You hope you never need it, but in the rare-event that you might need it, you'll be glad it's there.
 
So in other words you have already been doing a little solo diving now and then, before having taken the Solo course. Not something I would advise new divers to do.

I don't mean to give you a hard time--you're apparently doing fine, and closing in on 200 dives and diving several times a week you are not really a newbie, despite what you said. Again, the OP really does seem to be a new diver. If I understood the OP, this thread is about whether a pony bottle is a good solution for a new diver to that feeling of insecurity we all felt as new divers. Even if the OP decides to carry a pony, I hope others who find this thread in the future take the full debate into account.

The thing is, I was a brand new diver with a pony. I had one on my side from the 1st dive I did as an OW diver. I even did a change over drill. to my pony, on my very 1st dive using it. I also did that change over with a flooded mask, just for shits and giggles. (I have since been told the drill I did, is straight out of PADI Tech 40) I put my primary stage 2 on a necklace, so I would be able to find it if the drill went south. A new diver CAN carry a pony and practice using it. And just to complicate my new diver status, I was also a new diver using a drysuit. I will always say yes, a new diver can carry a pony.
I also had over 85 dives before I started doing my little solo trips to the surface.
 
I will always say yes, a new diver can carry a pony.

If a diver is capable of receiving a second stage from another diver, that diver is capable of using a pony.
 
I'm not going to search through years of BSAC reports to validate your claim. So I will reject it unless I stumble across it.

You ought to read them anyway. Learn from the mistakes of others etc. Much more informative than the ramblings of Internet forum users.
 

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