Deco dive plan sheet

[Jax]

What are you using for deco tables? I'll be doing my Normoxic class with Dayo Scuba in Orlando, and it's V-Planner all the way, although I'll have to use it to cut tables, and run my X1 in gauge mode during class.

Navy tables.

 

[Jax]

Few comments to get the type of feedback you asked for started:

• Even if your bottom gas something extremely hypoxic, what do you need three different travel gases for?
• The profile diagram (which is a waste of real estate AFAIC) doesn't match the gas list. There are only spots for 6 stops even though you're listing three deco gases.
• The ATA chart is insufficient for the gas list. If you need travel gas or more than one or two deco gases, you're probably deeper than 160'.
• I'm not certain what use a single "Ascent Pressure" figure is for gas-switch diving.

Different gases - I stole this from the Cananda TDI planning worksheet. You use the fields if you need them, or leave them blank.

Diagram - it was on the instructor's original, so I left it. You can annotate as you see fit. He wants run times, turn times, and ascent pressure . . . to be re-written in the "ascent pressure" box.

Agree on the stops -- I'm going to squeeze them and add more lines.

This is for training, and is part of the record when I'm done. I do the plan "by the book" and navy tables, and then by dive computer, and then by vplanner, and we discuss the differences.

And we have to clear all three before we come up.

 

[rongoodman]

Perhaps a spot to note Equivalent Narcotic Depth? (If you add a formula to calculate it, you'll have to decide if you're going to consider O2 narcotic.)

 

[Blackwood]

Are you doing this as an assignment? Or to make it useful to yourself? Not attempting to be petulant, but your answer will color my further responses.

Different gases - I stole this from the Cananda TDI planning
worksheet. You use the fields if you need them, or leave them blank.

Put it this way: can you conceive of a dive you'll ever do which will require three distinct travel mixes? Maybe some extremely sawtoothed deep cave? If not, you have places to enter data which you'll never use. So why keep it?

Diagram - it was on the instructor's original, so I left it. You can annotate as you see fit.

Deleting it seems fitting, since it facilitates fitting key data on the sheet.

He wants run times, turn times, and ascent pressure . . . to be re-written in the "ascent pressure" box.

Then you may need to make it bigger. Just looking at it, my interpretation was that box was intended to be a sum of the individual pressures consumed, which would be a useless figure.

Agree on the stops -- I'm going to squeeze them and add more lines.

I'd not sacrifice functionality for form. My suggestion is to exchange the whole chart for two columns (depth | time).

 

[Jax]

Few comments to get the type of feedback you asked for started:

• Even if your bottom gas something extremely hypoxic, what do you need three different travel gases for?
• The profile diagram (which is a waste of real estate AFAIC) doesn't match the gas list. There are only spots for 6 stops even though you're listing three deco gases.
• The ATA chart is insufficient for the gas list. If you need travel gas or more than one or two deco gases, you're probably deeper than 160'.
• I'm not certain what use a single "Ascent Pressure" figure is for gas-switch diving.

It looks like a "Recreational Dive Log" with some oxtox and gas stuff shoehorned in. Problem is, those logs don't really facilitate detailed dive planning. My humble suggestion is to ditch the attempt to make it pretty, and instead to make it functional.

Gases, depths, times, obligation, reserve, turn pressures, total CNS/OTU, etc.. That's what you need to plan a dive. Those things need to be clearly laid out (rows and columns work well) such that they're easy to both use and error check.

The reference charts are nice, but I wouldn't find them particularly useful in this format.

Things like dive leader, leader #, and the aforementioned profile chart just confuse things. Even the CF to PSI references probably don't belong. I'd keep all my references in one place rather than picking and choosing which ones to add to a planning sheet.

Again, this is for a training class. I fully expect him to take my pre-plans away, hand me a blank, and say "plan a dive to . . . . ". Then, once we are descending, I expect him to flash a "change of plan, this is our depth, what now?" in which case I have to pull the table out of my pocket, and compute the dive plan off the cuff.

And while I'm at that, he might ask for my mask . . . maybe a valve drill . . .

Is it okay to shoot the finger at your instructor? :chuckle:

 

[Blackwood]

"Is it okay to shoot the finger at your instructor?"

In some cases it's mandatory

 

[sea_ledford]

I don't really see any run times, stop times, oh wait... that's on the bottom. I also second the need for END. Do you need the MOD formula if you keep the pressure T?

Here's the one I did, which is the NAUI Tech dive palnner.

Once I was done excellizing (yes, that's a word ) it, all I had to fill in was the blue columns and my working and resting SAC rates.

After spending the time to make it in excell, I understood it all a thousand times better than just filling it out. I also could have just filled it out a heck of a lot faster, but I wouldn't have gotten the understanding.

I know your instructor won't let you use excell, but it might be worthwhile anyway.

Chris

 

[Jax]

Nice work! :cool3:

When I'm "allowed" to not plan manually anymore, vplanner all the way!

Actually, I wrote a spreadsheet somewhat like yours, but <sigh> he wants me to do it by hand so he "knows" I can do it. Either that, or he is deliberately torturing the technogeek in me.

 

[waterpirate]

I do not understand the reasoning for the "manual approach" but hey you picked your instructor right? If it is being done to humor him or her, perhaps a good dose of your day job into their life. I find that that to be usefull as a playing field leveler.
Eric

 

[rx7diver]

Y'all are NOT helping!!! Besides, I already whined my fair share to him. He's an HS teacher in his day job, so he is immune to whiny students.

Jax,

It could be worse! I'm an old-school pencil, calculator, O2 exposure chart, legal pad type of guy, myself. (I do check my hand calculations, though, using my old version of Abyss.)

Good luck!

Ronald