captain
Contributor
rndboulder,
I've always loved the silver Cousteau suits, especially the helmet with integrated light. But, I have two questions: (1) when diving with this gear, how is buoyancy controlled without a BCD?, and (2) how do you know how much air you have left without a SPG? Thanks!
Since the silver suits were mostly for show they were not very thick and were probably made from G-231 neoprene which did not compress as much as the materials used today do so a BC wasn't needed.
Cousteau generally used triple and quadruple tanks, one of which was held in reserve.
When they used up the air in the first two or three tanks they opened the valve on the reserve tank. As a side benefit the other divers could hear when the tanks began to equalize and would know someone had gone on reserve.
Notice in the picture of the yellow quad tanks the three on the left have no isolation between them, only the one valve at the top but the resrve tank on the right has a valve on the botton. To go on reserve the diver simply opened the valve on the right tank.