Diving and flying

[Gene_Hobbs]

If you are a DAN Member, you can also access the proceedings of the Flying After Recreational Diving Workshop which was held in May 2002. Check out the Executive Summary where it talks about flight altitudes.

Actually, DAN has released this work to the general public through the Rubicon Research Repository. One can find this as well as several other papers and the 1989 workshop in our FAD suggested reading list.

Happy reading!

 

[sharkbait13]

WVE
clearly youve put some time and effort in to researching this topic
i've found your info and attached links to be very usefull
thank you very much

Gene

 

[sharkbait13]

DAN was actually doing some research on this. This article on the DAN website explains why the information is hard to come by. The article dates to 1995, so there may have been some results published. I'll be looking.

I also found this article which says that you can fly 2 hours after diving if:

1. your diving is restricted to no-decompression dives, and
2. your total dive time does not exceed 1 hour in the previous 12 hours, and
3. your altitude (cabin pressure) will be less than 2000 ft.

These latter recommendations were developed for commercial divers. I'm not sure how they would differ from recreational divers except that the dive profiles between commercial and recreational divers may be quite different.

so what theyre saying is u can spend only less than 60min in the water makes for pretty short dives.

now what about breathing 32 or 36% nitrox mix while flying? higher mix would be better one would assume would this minimize the risk by flushing that nasty niteogen?

 

[wve]

so what theyre saying is u can spend only less than 60min in the water makes for pretty short dives.

now what about breathing 32 or 36% nitrox mix while flying? higher mix would be better one would assume would this minimize the risk by flushing that nasty niteogen?

Less than an hour of no-decompression diving to qualify for the short 2 hour wait. If you dive more, you have to wait longer...

...unless you plan to limit your altitude to less than 2,000 feet. In that case, the consensus of the workshop was that there are no restrictions. Again, this ceiling is not based on experimental data, but the fact that the Navy hasn't had any problems when their divers have flown below that level. Check out the links. They go into greater detail.

People are experimenting with higher percentages of oxygen, including breathing oxygen during surface intervals. They may address that in the workshop proceedings, but it is 128 pages, and I haven't had a chance to read it all yet.

 

[sharkbait13]

Less than an hour of no-decompression diving to qualify for the short 2 hour wait. If you dive more, you have to wait longer...

yes of course i understand it is totally reasonable and acceptable for my situation to fly under the 2000 foot threshold so i could likely get away with it.
there is published info in Canadian aviation manuals that apparently state that one can fly up to 3000 feet but i havent seen this as of yet and i'm not sure i would entirely trust this.
now were getting somewhere

thanks again

 

[sharkbait13]

Actually, DAN has released this work to the general public through the Rubicon Research Repository. One can find this as well as several other papers and the 1989 workshop in our FAD suggested reading list.

Happy reading!

Gene

awesome reference material thanks for attaching those links

 

[nereas]

One reference you might like to try is the NOAA tables. See the Required SI Before Ascent to Altitude table. Be careful that the letter groups are from the No-Deco Air Table and are not necessarily compatible with anyone else's letter groups (PADI, NAUI, USN, etc.)

For your specific example of a couple of no-deco dives, two hours and 1200 feet altitude, using these tables it could go either way and depends on the exact profiles. Short and deep is actually better than long and shallow.

Exactly what I was going to say, too! Great post. Great website reference too.