Lucy's Diver
Contributor
I think scubaboard people tend to overstate the advantages of a BI over a jacket, they tend to be a bit more tech-ie than the average diver. For warm water not much neoprene diving its just about a wash.
That being said, I dive a back inflate for my warm water diving (actually a dive rite trans pac with the smallest wing they have). For cold water stuff I pretty much always dive doubles so I have a BP/W set up.
I also have a jacket. If I were in a pool or doing something where I spent a lot of time on the surface I would use the jacket, it does float you better.
One big issue that I'm not sure has been raised - if you ever travel somewhere that only has steel tanks and its warm you will hate your jacket. If you need little or no lead the heavy tank will be above the air pocket in the jacket and will flip you over. On the other hand, a huge wing (aircell in a true BC) will certainly taco more readily than a jacket type air cell (this means it moves around to where its difficult to get the air bubble under the dump point). I think, however, that the taco issue is manageable with diver skill and proper wing choice.
That being said, I dive a back inflate for my warm water diving (actually a dive rite trans pac with the smallest wing they have). For cold water stuff I pretty much always dive doubles so I have a BP/W set up.
I also have a jacket. If I were in a pool or doing something where I spent a lot of time on the surface I would use the jacket, it does float you better.
One big issue that I'm not sure has been raised - if you ever travel somewhere that only has steel tanks and its warm you will hate your jacket. If you need little or no lead the heavy tank will be above the air pocket in the jacket and will flip you over. On the other hand, a huge wing (aircell in a true BC) will certainly taco more readily than a jacket type air cell (this means it moves around to where its difficult to get the air bubble under the dump point). I think, however, that the taco issue is manageable with diver skill and proper wing choice.