Anybody try combining hookah with SCUBA?

[calypsonick]

Although my ultimate dream is to afford a rebreather, I have started toying with the idea of extending bottom time by combining hookah with SCUBA.

The idea is to gear up as if going into a regular dive with SCUBA but add hookah. While on hookah you could extend your bottom time while having the redundancy of a full tank. If the hookah were to fail, you would abort the dive and use the tank to ascend and if needed have enough air for a deco stop if your bottom time warrants such a stop.

Given greater possibility of going into deco, due to longer bottom times, you would take two computers with you just in case one were to fail.

Has anyone tried this ?

 

[DA Aquamaster]

It's a solid idea and is basically what commerical divers do - surfaced supplied gas with a back mounted bailout bottle.