Air management for beginner.

[Blackwood]

My husband had a couple of conversations about this with the PADI instructors we went to Indonesia with. His question: "When in the PADI sequence is gas management taught?" And the answer was that it's not. It's felt to be overkill for recreational diving.

Agreed. That's particularly funny since PADI preaches the 'plan your dive' mantra incessantly.

 

[haha49]

Gas management for OW Divers:

"Be on the boat with 500psi"

Class concluded.

the question is if its a shore dive and your on the surface with 500 psi and you inflate your bcd i personaly will only have 100 psi left..

 

[Soggy]

The OP asked for some guidelines for a Newbie. Perhaps my definition of that person is different than others. Under my definition that person doesn't yet have the consistent numbers necessary to do a "proper" job of gas management.

The new diver can use very conservative numbers like 1 cft/min (or more). Problem solved, and the student now knows how to figure out minimum gas reserve/rock bottom.

 

[PerroneFord]

the question is if its a shore dive and your on the surface with 500 psi and you inflate your bcd i personaly will only have 100 psi left..

Hmm, see if you can take that OMS wing back. :mooner:

 

[Jasonmh]

Thanks TSM, why didn't they teach this before??

Most agencies don't teach this as part of their OW or even AOW program. When I went though AOW, the most that was said about this subject was "when you dive deep you use more air and it takes you longer to surface, so keep that in mind".
Some people think it is important, others don't. I think that having even a basic understanding of gas management improves safety. If you want more info or training on gas management for rec dives, there are 2 great instructors in your state who do a great job:
Brandon Schwartz
Scot Wernette

 

[SparticleBrane]

Gas management and air management isn't something that's particularly difficult to do.
If you have a bit of common sense and have a working knowledge of 5th grade math, you can do gas consumption and management.
The industry has dumbed it down because people are lazy. They don't want to think about math, they just want to go see the pretty fishies!

 

[H2Andy]

well ... the problem is with the agencies lowering the bar as low as possible to get more students in so the shops can sell more gear

it's not the people are lazy. i think there's proof that if you raise the bar for people, and they understand why, they will rise to the challenge

some agencies make it as easy as possible to get certified, and that means eliminating some of the potential complicated and frustrating subjects

on the other hand ... when you promise people a weekend class, there's only so much you can teach ...

not a good thing, imho ... mostly because the students don't know any better... they don't know what they're missing out ... they don't know what they don't know

and i was one not too long ago, btw

and then i found ScubaBoard, and boy were my eyes opened

 

[SparticleBrane]

i think there's proof that if you raise the bar for people, and they understand why, they will rise to the challenge

I completely agree.
If you say "THIS is the bar at which you will be measured", it's a rare person that won't go for it.

 

[kidspot]

Thanks TSM, why didn't they teach this before??

This concept is also unfamiliar to many OW instructors I've met. Just this past week I was taking NWGratefuls gas management paper to a friend at work when an instructor saw it. "What's gas management?" was his first question, once I expained it (as "air management") he said it might be good for really technical dives, but didn't see much point in it for recreational divers... I think that is a commonly shared belief especially at resort destinations.

Aloha, Tim

 

[jeckyll]

I literally stumbled across Lamonts post on RB back in '05. It opened my eyes.

For a while I had RB from 30 to 130 fsw written on my light. Mind you, I've never actually been to 130, but the 30, 60 and 100 fsw numbers were very useful