Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
I've long suspected this myth originated from people who were using wings that were oversized in relation to their needs and inflated them to near-bursting on the surface. I inflate just enough to float my head above water, and I have never experienced a feeling of being pushed forward.
It is true that a very full wing will exaggerate the tendency, but that just means more body adjustment. When I am preparing for a technical dive and end up waiting for any period of time at the surface, I do indeed have my wing completely full because of the weight of all the gear I am carrying. I just lean back more. On my last such dive, my companion was having some issues getting started, and I just floated around waiting. I said to him, "Isn't this when I am supposed to be flopped over on my face?
My first back inflate BCD (Zeagle Ranger) did not have trim pockets. I discovered the concept of trim weighting accidentally when unusual circumstances led me to a week of diving on a liveaboard with an additional weight strapped to the top of my tank. It was great. Then I became an instructor and got keyman pricing on gear, so I switched to another back inflate model, the ScubaPro Nighthawk. This BCD had trim pockets in the back at shoulder height. I found that if I put the same amount of weight in the front and upper back pockets, it took care of the problem you mention, and I trimmed out beautifully in the water. I later saw that Zeagle had added trim pockets to the new model Rangers, but for some reason they put them at the same level as the integrated weight pockets, so all they did was help you stay upright on the surface and gave no help to you under water.
I recently dived for two weeks in Roatan, one from shore and one from a liveaboard, and when I arrived, I found that I had foolishly not packed the single tank adaptor for my BP/W. There was no such device to be found there, so I had to rent jacket BCDs for both weeks. With my experience, I had no trouble trimming out during the dives. After all, even while using a BP/W or back inflate for my diving career, I had taught many hundreds of students with a jacket BCD.
That is a great deal, and the wing is very streamlined and made by Oxycheq. I was just about to order this set for my daughter.
Weird. I can fully inflate and not get pushed face down. While I have read reports like yours, I have never seen issues with this in person. I personally like the endless customization depending on what I want for my current diving. I can remove or change a few things out like (If wanted) to go from cold to warm water diving.
That would be ideal if one has the opportunity to try them both.
About 7-8 years ago, I was asked to do a private AOW class for a student who had just completed OW. He had gotten immediately excited about diving and was looking to advance through the sport quickly. He had already bought a full set of gear through our shop. As usual when teaching an AOW class, I wore my personal gear rather than the shop's rental gear that I used for OW classes. When he saw my gear, he got all excited. He asked me about the kind of diving I do, and I told him. I was officially the shop's tech instructor, so I didn't see any problem with that.
I don't know where the problem of being pushed face down. My understanding is that it comes from being way overweighted, a big problem in the industry (hence one of top ten changes DAN requested in their 2016 report which with the exception of RAID seems to be ignored).
The person can try ANY BP/W. Backplates are backplates, though for taller/shorter people, they'll need the right size. Donut wings (instead of horseshoes) are the way to go as well. Harnesses are harnesses.
