Cousteau tanks

[alewar]

What kind of tank was this? Did they have an integrated BCD or just empty space?

 

[Thalassamania]

Three cylinders in a fairing, no BC.

 

[fisheater]

You left out the oh-so-important French styling.



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[captain]

This is another of the Cousteau rigs. This one has a silver faring and was used with the silver wet suits and helmet. It has four titanium 5000 psi cylinders. The right side cylinder is used as a reserve, you can see the on/off valve at the bottom left in the picture.

 

[alewar]

Did they carry a second regulator? To share air with that double-hose regulator seems pretty cumbersome, isn't it?

 

[oldmossback]

Sharing air (or buddy breathing as we use to call it here in the states) is really quite easy, .......I taught my son to buddy breath quite fast......he grew up on single hose regs.......but loves his double now..........by the way..if your partner is in panic mode.....close face to face eye contact sometimes helps calm a distressed diver out of air while they are breathing from your hoses........other times? well......have a spare air or pony bottle.........

 

[captain]

Did they carry a second regulator? To share air with that double-hose regulator seems pretty cumbersome, isn't it?

No and no. The regulator that Cousteau used most was the single stage Le Spirotecnique Royal Mistral with only 4 moving parts and one O ring and was extermely reliable.

 

[Luis H]

This was the RAID system made by Technisub. It only had two tanks and a very well design and clever reserve valve. If the reserve was accidentally tripped it reset itself if the pressure was not low enough.

The tank valves were at the bottom for easy access. The RAID was very well design with many great features. It did not have a BC.

The RAID was commercially available to the public, but there weren't many sold. It did have outlets for a redundant regulator, but the Cousteau team did not use redundant regulators. During their filming they basically just used safety divers.

This setup is often confused with the Hydrodynamic Suit which was custom made for the Calypso / Cousteau team. The Hydrodynamic suit was used mostly in the earlier films (late 60's early 70's). The Hydrodynamic pack did have 4 tanks.

for a lot more information on this and a lot of other Cousteau equipment, you should go to this web sites:

odd_equipment

Cousteau Museum

What kind of tank was this? Did they have an integrated BCD or just empty space?

 

[WD8CDH]

The two tanks in the RAID were steel 72's (144CF total) but not like our vintage tanks. They were slightly smaller in diameter (6.75") and 3000psi. Cousteau started using them about 1977. In the later years, they were painted silver.

The older Cousteau backpacks (1966-1976) were 4 skinny tanks at 3000 psi. About 120CF total.

The newer low profile silver backpacks (1986-1999) were 4 skinny hoop wraped steel tanks or welded titanium tanks initially used at 5000psi. About 160 CF total.

None of the Cousteau backpacks prior to 2000 had an integrated BCD or much empty space. His son used triple 30s at 3000psi with a back inflated BCD.

 

[J.DANI]

Here you can see the interior of a RAID of Cousteau. 2 tanks invested:
C O U S T E A U: Equipamiento LA ODISEA (in construction....)