OTF
Coney Island Whitefish Biologist
Posting raw AI slop comes off as trashy, even if that was not the intent. But it's reasonable to wonder about helium being used that way. In reality it makes very little difference. Technical divers do dive with high-helium gas mixes and sometimes we do end up using them to inflate suits and wings (even though this is suboptimal because it's expensive, not as good for heat insulation, and introduces issues of counterdiffusion through skin). It feels noticeably colder to dive a drysuit inflated with helium. There is no noticeable difference in buoyancy or control or anything like that. On the other hand, Argon is a great insulator and used to be common for suit inflation, but that method has largely died out. The difference is small, air is easier to get, and you have to flush all the air out for Argon to be effective. People still refer to suit inflation bottles as "argon bottles" even if they're usually filled with air these days.
As to weight and buoyancy differences, there was an excellent old thread on some Laser (dinghy) sailing forum where someone calculated the racing advantage a cheater might get by filling the boat's hull with helium. Their conclusion was "you might as well shave off your eyebrows to save weight too".
Oh, another fun thing about helium properties is that it can escape through tiny leaks that other gasses will not because the He molecule is so much smaller. Tanks filled with helium mixes and left to sit for a very long time can end up with measurably less helium because it escapes while the nitrogen and oxygen remain.
As to weight and buoyancy differences, there was an excellent old thread on some Laser (dinghy) sailing forum where someone calculated the racing advantage a cheater might get by filling the boat's hull with helium. Their conclusion was "you might as well shave off your eyebrows to save weight too".
Oh, another fun thing about helium properties is that it can escape through tiny leaks that other gasses will not because the He molecule is so much smaller. Tanks filled with helium mixes and left to sit for a very long time can end up with measurably less helium because it escapes while the nitrogen and oxygen remain.
