Going From Tdi An/dp To Helitrox?

[CptTightPants21]

Helitrox doesn't require any more in-water skills if you use the same instructor as AN/DP. It requires more in-water skills if you GO TO A DIFFERENT INSTRUCTOR. Your entire point is that you should just be given a certification blind by an instructor based on what some other instructor signed off on you. That's almost like saying if you passed GUE fundies, you should automatically be given SDI buoyancy, computer nitrox, and drysuit cards since those skills are required to pass fundies so why should the instructor need to see me in the water.

Do you agree with the above statement about getting the various cards. Yes or No.

Sorry, at the tech level there is a little bit more to it than show up to a random instructor, take a test, get a card. Regardless of previous certifications "earned".

 

[stuartv]

No, I don't agree with your statements. Getting certs from one agency based on previous certs from another agency has nothing to do with this discussion.

I also don't agree with getting certified blind by an instructor. How is the instructor "blind" if they see my previous certs (from the same agency) and have me for a classroom session and see my exam results? The only things they are "blind" to are things that are not relevant to what they are being asked to certify.

If I go to FL and get my cert, I would be diving wet. But my cert would allow me to dive dry. Diving dry actually poses more of a challenge to buoyancy than diving wet. If I did go to FL, should the instructor require me to do my in-water skills in a dry suit? Or is it okay for them to certify me for AN/DP while "blind" to my dry suit buoyancy control (which they would be certifying)? Aren't you worried that the instructor could get sued if I go dive dry and have an accident? If you can throw "certified for the conditions in which you trained" on there and that makes it okay to certify me while "blind" to my dry suit diving skills, then why can't you do more or less the same thing with a classroom-only Helitrox cert?

I got my TDI Nitrox, which is "tech cert", right? I didn't have to do any dives for that. Why was that okay?


Let's be real here. You want to change the discussion from AN/DP -> Helitrox to "any tech cert". You want to change the discussion from a TDI-specific special case to talking about having a GUE cert and being given SDI certs. You want to change the discussion from AN/DP -> Helitrox to people who have AN/DP can't be trusted to have the skills that AN/DP standards require. And you haven't yet responded to the direct question I asked - namely, what about diving 20% Helium requires a higher level of in-water skills than diving 150' and decoing on 100%.

So, apparently, you are just here to muddy the waters and argue for the sake of arguing. I'm done responding.

 

[rivers]

There used to be a fantastic video on youtube (that I have shared on a previous thread, but it seems the owner has deleted it) to illustrate my point, but it's gone, so you have to take my word for it. But an instructor cannot guarantee just because a student has a card that says they are qualified to x depth and to use x gases, that they actually have any business at that depth. Even if it is the same agency. If they haven't seen you in the water, they cannot guarantee your skill level, and at the end of the day, it is their asses, credentials, and livelihood on the line. If you wanted helitrox, you should have either waited until your chosen instructor was able to teach the course, or found an instructor, that you liked, who taught it.

 

[stuartv]

an instructor cannot guarantee just because a student has a card that says they are qualified to x depth and to use x gases, that they actually have any business at that depth.

Understood. And if the standards were changed, the instructor would not be certifying that the student is qualified to any certain depth. They would only be certifying that the student has demonstrated the requisite knowledge to use that gas. Just like they do for Nitrox.

 

[kr2y5]

One thing to take into account is that whenever an instructor issues a C-card that says the student is qualified to do X, the instructor is putting her reputation at stake. If someone later sees the student in the water and realizes the student sucks at X, the instructor's reputation will suffer. Nobody will bother to check whether the instructor was only responsible for a classroom-only "add-on", they will judge the instructor by what the performance expectations are at that level. Or at least, that's my understanding. If I were an instructor, I would want to see the student in the water, if nothing else then at least for that reason.

 

[stuartv]

Who sees someone in the water and even knows who their instructor was?

And if you saw someone who was terrible and you decided to ask, would you fault their Nitrox instructor? Or their OW instructor? If it was a tech diver and Helitrox was a classroom-only cert, would you fault their Helitrox instructor or their AN/DP instructor?



Still no answer to what it is about diving 20% Helium that makes it require a higher level of in-water skills than diving the same exact dive with 100% for deco, but only Nitrox for back gas....

I'm starting to feel like I can relate to the people years ago who were trying to get Nitrox adopted for normal Recreational use.

 

[CptTightPants21]

1. No, Nitrox is not a "tech" cert

2. If an instructor hasn't seen you in the water, they are "blind", end of story.

3. Nothing about Helitrox requires you to have higher in water skills than AN/DP and I have never made that statement. This is strictly because you believe you should get a helitrox cert from a random instructor without having to do any dives. At any level above basic nitrox, more verification is required/expected than "oh, I see you got a 90% on the exam". Some agencies actually do require checkout dives for Nitrox, but for the ones that do not, basic Nitrox is still a very special case and is the exception, not the rule.

4. Now you are just being dense with semantics. If they are saying its ok to use the gas, then they are also telling you its ok to dive deeper than 130ft. Also, helitrox has an Advanced Nitrox prerequisite which means that the helitrox card could be used to get 100% O2 fills. If they issue a helitrox card they are signing off on your previous AN/DP skills--again, which is something I would not allow/respect without SEEING YOU IN THE WATER.

If the instructor who has issued your AN/DP card wants to give you a helitrox cert without any in water time, I (and TDI) am ok with that. You are the one who seems to believe you should be issued a higher level certification just because you read a book.

 

[CptTightPants21]

How is it you can't see the difference between getting a certification from an instructor who has done check out dives with you vs one who just met you?

 

[rivers]

It would be akin to me saying to one of my mate's, who is a GUE technical and CCR instructor, "Hey, now that I have my tech pass, and have taken ART, why don't you sign me off on tech 1? We'll sit down and go through the theory. No need for dives, it's only 3 metres deeper and slightly less O2." He would tell me to **** off and sign up for T1 if I wanted the ticket, and rightly so. And he is someone who is well aware of my diving ability.

 

[stuartv]

It would be akin to me saying to one of my mate's, who is a GUE technical and CCR instructor, "Hey, now that I have my tech pass, and have taken ART, why don't you sign me off on tech 1? We'll sit down and go through the theory. No need for dives, it's only 3 metres deeper and slightly less O2." He would tell me to **** off and sign up for T1 if I wanted the ticket, and rightly so. And he is someone who is well aware of my diving ability.

How is that the same when you are taking about a cert for more depth and I'm not? And I'm not sure what your comment about less O2 means, unless you're implying Tech 1 certs you for Hypoxic mixes, which would make it even more apples-to-oranges. Regardless, that doesn't seem the same at all to me.

It doesn't seem like a valid comparison at all.

Let me ask you the question a different way: If TDI announced that they were proposing to change the Helitrox standards to require AN + DP (currently only requires AN) either as a prereq or in conjunction with, and eliminate in-water requirements from the Helitrox standards (but no change to the DP in-water requirements), what would be your argument to TDI against this change?