Finally dove my Oxycheq setup

[padiscubapro]

most of the oxycheq stuff is made in the US (the greenforce lights are from belguim)..
The backplates were designed by scott and is being cut in the US.. the wings are manufactured in california.

 

[Dan Gibson]

I disagree. In a completely horizontal position (includes legs) a diver has no propulsion. A flutter kick results in the fin leaving the slipstream and there is propulsion in one direction and drag in the other. The most efficient kick is a frog kick. The kick is entirely in the slipstream if done properly. The slip stream does not follow the exact contour of the divers body. It spread out as it passes the divers head. Your hands, head and shoulders break the water and everything else should follow.

I'm not sure alternate D-rings is a good idea. Why change your gear setup in the middle of a dive. I know exactly where my gear is and how to remove and restow it. It's a muscle memory thing. If you change it, you just throw one more curve ball that isn't necessary. Make the adjustment with your body and not your gear. I also don't get in the habit of using my drysuit to fly me. Just enough to take the squeeze off. I certainly don't want extra air in the form of a bubble that can move around, not to mention that my body has to try an heat the excess air.

Now if the current is really strong, why would you be trying to swim with all this stuff on against it. Maybe a scooter (assuming one is proficient in its use and has access) would be appropriate in this case. If not, maybe the dive shouldn't be done.

padiscubapro once bubbled...


If a person is wearing steel doubles, unless he/she is using a neoprene drysuit any extra weighting is probably unnecessary, so all the weighting is gear.. a diver with a good rmv usually hits the planned run time well before gas loss in the back tanks are a problem... the main buoyancy shift is the deco bottles and these can be easily shifted under water, by chooosing alternate d rings if their harness is so equipped...

If you are trying to be the most efficient in the water the optimum head and leg positions is as straight and horizontal as possible so you really cant use them to fix your trim.. if there is no current you can pretty much do what you want, but if you are trying to swim against a strong current you want as little profile against the water as possible.. so all your tweaks have to be done by trapping air in either you drysuit or wing at the approproate positions..

 

[TCDiver1]

Dan Gibson once bubbled...
I disagree. In a completely horizontal position (includes legs) a diver has no propulsion. A flutter kick results in the fin leaving the slipstream and there is propulsion in one direction and drag in the other. The most efficient kick is a frog kick. The kick is entirely in the slipstream if done properly. The slip stream does not follow the exact contour of the divers body. It spread out as it passes the divers head. Your hands, head and shoulders break the water and everything else should follow.

Well, knowing a little about hydrodynamics and hydraulics, i would have to agree with padiscubapro. I have always thought the frog kick (in the skyjumpers position, feet and lower legs above head) was not the most hydraulically efficent. It is however the best way to get close to the bottom w/o kicking up slit.

I believe a horizontal position with the feet directly behind the torso at head level, presents the smallest hydraulic profile thus less drag than having your feet sticking up.

Just an engineers opinion.

 

[padiscubapro]

Dan Gibson once bubbled...
I disagree. In a completely horizontal position (includes legs) a diver has no propulsion. A flutter kick results in the fin leaving the slipstream and there is propulsion in one direction and drag in the other. The most efficient kick is a frog kick. The kick is entirely in the slipstream if done properly. The slip stream does not follow the exact contour of the divers body. It spread out as it passes the divers head. Your hands, head and shoulders break the water and everything else should follow.

I'm not sure alternate D-rings is a good idea. Why change your gear setup in the middle of a dive. I know exactly where my gear is and how to remove and restow it. It's a muscle memory thing. If you change it, you just throw one more curve ball that isn't necessary. Make the adjustment with your body and not your gear. I also don't get in the habit of using my drysuit to fly me. Just enough to take the squeeze off. I certainly don't want extra air in the form of a bubble that can move around, not to mention that my body has to try an heat the excess air.

Now if the current is really strong, why would you be trying to swim with all this stuff on against it. Maybe a scooter (assuming one is proficient in its use and has access) would be appropriate in this case. If not, maybe the dive shouldn't be done.

the frog kick is great for maximum propulsion per kick and not disturbing the bottom, but against a current its not as efficient as a properly executed flutter kick... with the frog kick you push ahead but end up p getting pushed back bewteen strokes.. the flutter kick keeps you moving foward and uses less muscle mass reducing your metabolic oxygen need.

Scooters are good when you have access but they are also a crutch.. a diver who cant swim against the current shouldnt be diving that dive.. if the person depends on the scooter and it fails hes now in worse shape since the scooter now has to be dragged... either that or drag a second scooter with you, definately not the best solution..

Scooters are great in caves where most of the time you are starting against the flow and if it fails you are swimming out with the flow, in an open water situation this may or may not be possible...

 

[Dan Gibson]

gedunk once bubbled...


I believe a horizontal position with the feet directly behind the torso at head level, presents the smallest hydraulic profile thus less drag than having your feet sticking up.

Just an engineers opinion.

Whick would mean you won't be moving forward. The flutter kick requires your legs to go up and down. On the down stroke, your fins are out of the slipstream. On the under side of the diver, where the water can flow relitively onubstructed if one is horizontal and nothing dangling, the slip stream closely follows the diver. If you drop your fins into this area, you will create drag.

When using a frog kick, the fins are kept up and in the slipstream created by the hands, head shoulders and tanks.

But then again, what do I know? I guess that degree from the Tulane University Engineering School did little for me.

 

[Dan Gibson]

I definitely disagree that the frog uses more muscle mass. That just isn't correct. If you are using that much muscle mass, you are not doing the frog kick correctly. The frog is mainly from the calves and ankles, depending on whether or not you use a modified version. Very little is required from the quads. The flutter kick involves quads, hamstrings, abdominal, hip flexor...... There are many more large muscles involed, therefore, metabolic oxygen needs increase.

I realize scooters can be a crutch. That's not what I'm referring to in the previous post. If the current is so strong that you have to swim your butt off, you had either use another form of propulsion, drift into the site, or just call the dive. Failure of a scooter is something that should be thought out ahead of time. If an acceptable contingency plan can't be executed properly in case of a failure, then it is time to call the dive before it begins. I would say that this probably comes back to the argument of whether or not the boat should be anchored or free to drift with divers. That is a whole different topic.

padiscubapro once bubbled...


the frog kick is great for maximum propulsion per kick and not disturbing the bottom, but against a current its not as efficient as a properly executed flutter kick... with the frog kick you push ahead but end up p getting pushed back bewteen strokes.. the flutter kick keeps you moving foward and uses less muscle mass reducing your metabolic oxygen need.

Scooters are good when you have access but they are also a crutch.. a diver who cant swim against the current shouldnt be diving that dive.. if the person depends on the scooter and it fails hes now in worse shape since the scooter now has to be dragged... either that or drag a second scooter with you, definately not the best solution..

Scooters are great in caves where most of the time you are starting against the flow and if it fails you are swimming out with the flow, in an open water situation this may or may not be possible...

 

[Dan Gibson]

Assume I fill my 104s to 3000 psi. That is approximately 240 cft of gas. If I dive 1/3 my gas, I have used the equivalent of an 80 cft tank. That is approximately 6 lbs if using air or nitrox.

Now, look at the difference in diving a ss backplate versus an aluminum. That is only about a 4 lb difference. Yes it does make a difference. I have witnessed this first hand during the January ITC/IE for GUE. I was acting as a student even though I had taken the course a year earlier. My buddy had 104s and a ss backplate while using a DUI 350TLS with the 300 polartech undergarment. At first he was all over the place. The instructors quickly switched him to an aluminum plate. This made a huge difference. The next day they switched his Pro 14 to a Helios 9. That is a 3.5 lb difference. Now we are talking about a 7.5 lb difference. He looked great the next day. This was because he was no longer top heavy.

6 lbs (1/3 of the gas) will make a huge difference when its not placed correctly and your body can compensate because it can't vary the lever arm enough.

padiscubapro once bubbled...


If a person is wearing steel doubles, unless he/she is using a neoprene drysuit any extra weighting is probably unnecessary, so all the weighting is gear.. a diver with a good rmv usually hits the planned run time well before gas loss in the back tanks are a problem...

 

[padiscubapro]

Dan Gibson once bubbled...
Assume I fill my 104s to 3000 psi. That is approximately 240 cft of gas. If I dive 1/3 my gas, I have used the equivalent of an 80 cft tank. That is approximately 6 lbs if using air or nitrox.

Now, look at the difference in diving a ss backplate versus an aluminum. That is only about a 4 lb difference. Yes it does make a difference. I have witnessed this first hand during the January ITC/IE for GUE. I was acting as a student even though I had taken the course a year earlier. My buddy had 104s and a ss backplate while using a DUI 350TLS with the 300 polartech undergarment. At first he was all over the place. The instructors quickly switched him to an aluminum plate. This made a huge difference. The next day they switched his Pro 14 to a Helios 9. That is a 3.5 lb difference. Now we are talking about a 7.5 lb difference. He looked great the next day. This was because he was no longer top heavy.

6 lbs (1/3 of the gas) will make a huge difference when its not placed correctly and your body can compensate because it can't vary the lever arm enough.

yes but the weight in doubles is spread out over a much larger area.. most backkplates are around 15" long by about 10" wide, while your 104s are about 26"long by about 17" wide. thats about 3 times the area...

the helios is only 2.25 neg, the pro 14 is 6lbs negative, better placement of the light would have probably helped.. oops you DIR guys can't do that you have to put it in a specific place... I guess thats one way to sell more gear....

 

[Dan Gibson]

If you look at the backplate and the doubles and look at their centroids (the governing factor as opposed to how spread out the weight is), I don't think you will find the distance from their centroids to the cg of the diver that significant. If the lever are is not significantly different, your argument below would not hold water. Obviously any change in weight (i.e. brand of plate or regs or waterever else is different) could result in slightly different moments. For this very reason, utilizing the body to compensate for the every changing moments is crucial.

The extra weight of the light propobably had less of a direct effect on the guys trim than the plate. The centroid of the light is closer to the divers cg than the plate. The effect was related to overweighting. This made the guy inflate his wing more than necessary. In that case, small changes in depth are more pronounced when you try to compensate due to the greater change in the volume of the gas in the wing. Now that indirectly lead to bad trim depending on the shape of the wing (i.e. is the center of lift of the wing fore or aft of the diver's cg).

padiscubapro once bubbled...


yes but the weight in doubles is spread out over a much larger area.. most backkplates are around 15" long by about 10" wide, while your 104s are about 26"long by about 17" wide. thats about 3 times the area...

the helios is only 2.25 neg, the pro 14 is 6lbs negative, better placement of the light would have probably helped.. oops you DIR guys can't do that you have to put it in a specific place... I guess thats one way to sell more gear....

 

[Jackknife]

I'm diving mine again this weekend! Can't wait to have more in-trim fun with this wing.

It's good to hear from a great deal of you guys that there is a wing that is really making a difference in your diving, and I like I said before: no bungies, less drag, more horizontal in the water, which results in better forward movement when kicking, less effort, less exhaustion is good for me.

Which sounds like what the DIR controversy is always complaining about and gives their take on what is the right way to dive.

This wing sounds more DIR every day in peoples discovery's after diving it, huh?

There's appears to be a strong following brewing for Oxycheq's Wing soon it will be a standard, I can see that already.