Dr Deco:
Hello:
I would doubt that there would be a dive/fly problem with that depth and surface duration. The NOAA manual cited above gives the numerical answer.
Dr Deco :doctor:
I appreciate this is an old thread, but if you guys are still reading I thought I'd pass on something I learned a few years ago about flying after diving.
Several years ago I spent a wonderful couple of weeks diving with my wife around the Philippines as a matching pair of newly-minted OW divers. At the time we were diving pretty hard - three times a day every day and finishing each day at pressure group T to X. We enjoyed every minute of it.
A couple of days before the end of the diving trip, we spoke to the pro at the resort about our plans to fly back out to the real world. We knew that PADI recommends leaving 12 hours from dive to fly, and that we should leave a "longer" interval after mulitple dives. But how long is a piece of string?
On the advice of the local Padi pro, we cut it less than 24 hours. After a short delay getting started for the last two morning dives of the trip, we left the water at 1155 hours at pressure group X, and boarded a B-737 flight to Manila at 1000 hrs the following morning.
I have to say I was a bit apprehensive as we climbed out of the circuit on the 737 the next morning at Balicasag, and I tuned my watch to show local (cabin) pressure altitude on the short hop to Manila. At cruising altitude, my watch showed a cabin altitude of just over 7000', which is normal for an aircraft of this class. About 20 minutes into the flight, I started feeling occasional stabbing muscle pains like I was just coming down with a flu. (You know like someone's jabbed a needle into your thigh, then a few minutes later another stab into your arm. And so on.) There was random itchiness too, but nothing severe.
Then, half-way through the flight I felt a rush of tingles up the inside of my neck like a spider was tap dancing on the back of my head. At that point I said to my wife that if I happen to keel over, she should mention to the hostess that we had been diving and O2 would be a good thing to stick on my face.
Anyway, eventually we descended, landed in Manila and checked into our hotel. That night after dinner it was still playing on my mind, and I asked my wife if she had experienced any unusual symptoms on the flight or since then. She said she had tingles, random pains, and a feeling of bubbles running up her neck on the flight. And, yes, she was very worried about them too but didn't say anything at the time. (Women are braver, aren't they?)
Neither of us suffered any ill-effects apart from the sharp pains, itchiness and sensations of neck discomfort in flight, and I've been diving every week for a few years ever since, again with no problems.
But, since this incident I've read a bit more about flying after diving, and it seems no-one is prepared to say with any authority what is a safe interval to leave before flying after diving to what level of saturation.
For me, I've learned my lesson and I will never, ever fly again within 24 hours of diving. I still don't know whether it was some form of incipient DCS we suffered on board, or whether it was a mild flu that didn't take (on both of us and within half an hour of each other?), but I just won't risk it again.
From now on, it's at least 24 hours for me and preferably 48 hours if we've been diving hard.
