DAN is putting a real "flying after diving" study together, since Bennett at the DAN conference last weekend admitted that everyone, including DAN, has simply been guessing to date.
Roak
Roak
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Rick Murchison once bubbled...
Without getting into the details, the main concern isn't growth of existing bubbles, but bubble formation in the first place.
Airliners are pressurized to 8000 MSL, not 4000.
General guidance is to wait 12 hours or more after a single dive, 24 hours or more after multiple dives.
There is a table in the NOAA diving manual that gives specific FAD recommendations based on the maximum repetitive group you have reached (Navy tables) in the 24 hours preceding the flight.
Rick
annie once bubbled...
However I noticed last night they seem to have very different flying after diving recommendations . . . .. no such thing as waiting for 12 hours - more like 3 - 4 hours. I don't have the tables right in front of me to quote the details.
Why the difference? Is this safe for people to be flying 3 hours after a dive - I certainly wouldn't. Does any other certifying body recommend this?
Dr Deco once bubbled...
Dear Readers:I do not know the answer to your question, either. If Dr Buhlmann proposed such a limit, it certainly was tested to some degree with respect to use with his tables. All decompression strategies will have some restriction implicit in them. As I have mentioned on many occasions on the SCUBA BOARD, tables are tested on subjects at relative rest following the dive. Thus a diver who lifts equipment or plays volleyball is not acting according to the conditions under which the table was tested. Though not explicitly stated, this is a restriction. :nono:
I cannot imagine under what conditions a three-hour interval prior to flying is possible, but I will not argue that he said it. There are points on decompression theory which I used to argue with Professor Buhlmann, but I never heard an explanation from him for this short duration.
Unfortunately, diving and flying have more scenarios than just diving. When you test a dive table, you can simply couple dives together for a day or so. Flying after diving should probably count as several days of diving. This makes the test program very difficult. When the dive study involves multiple days, the cost rises and supervision increases. The PADI series with six dive days in a row was a logistical problem for our group at the Institute of Applied Physiology and Medicine in Seattle, Washington. It was costly and complex. It required breaking the group into five groups with six-day supervision and was a monster.---Dr Deco
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Dear Readers,
As you might imagine from my handle, the subject of "flying after diving" (FAD) is a subject near and dear to my heart.
One point that our good Doc makes that is NOT emphasized anywhere else, is his point about the testing regime utilized when the tables were constructed.
As he points out, ANY factor that varies from that strict set of conditions begins to skew YOUR particular situation AWAY from the conditions used to set up the table. Thus, the more the variables, or the the larger the factors, the LESS that table result will appy to you!
Example: You dive, shower, throw your gear in the bag, take the golf cart to the airstrip, and fly Tropic Air to Belize City Airport. The Cessna Caravan you are in has you at 1000+ feet for the trip. You check through the lines, carrying your bags, moving your gear, and a couple of hours later you are in a Fun Jet 727 going to Houston. Your body is now at 7600 to 8000 feet cabin altitude. (Please note: This is a hypothetical example. Do NOT do this at home, kids!)
Does ANY of this match the conditions which were extant when the testing was done for that particular table![]()
Don"t make yourself into crash test dummies, please! Use some common sense, and adopt conservative guidelines. The DAN Research folks, under Dr. Richard Vann and others, have "volunteer crash test dummies" working on this study now. When all is said and done, we'll know more about this subject!
Until then, to paraphrase what Mr. Natural used to say: "Get the right TABLE for the job, kids!"![]()