And I don't see why you say "no-one is going to be able to calculate a continually changing NDL". How were we doing before computers became cheap?
You weren't. You were pre-planning a dive to specific depths and times.
Don't you know that, for the US Navy tables for example, there are easy techniques for multilevel diving?
As I said, I am well aware of those techniques. They limit you to following a preconceived plan that may not match the reality of your dive. Let me describe a recreational dive I did several years ago.
We had planned a specific depth, time, and location for the dive. As we headed for that location, we looked down and saw a manta ray in a cleaning station. We immediately abandoned our plan and went down for a look. We watched until the manta left and were about to leave ourselves when an eagle ray arrived at the station for a cleaning. We looked at our computers and pressure gauges and decided we were good to stay a little longer longer. Then we ascended and stopped at a shallower depth when we saw a helmet conch successfully stalking a decorator urchin. After that drama, we went up and finished our dive at the top of the reef. It was one of the best recreational dives I have ever had, it was not at all what we planned, and I am glad it went off as it did.
Pre-planning a multi-level dive like that also leaves little room for error in case the plan has to be changed due to circumstances. In technical training, we teach divers using tables (like V-Planner) to make a primary plan and a couple of contingency plans. If they run into issues that take them beyond those contingency plans, they have to make their best guess as to what to do to ascend safely.
That is my point, quite a high number of instructor have no clue about that they are teaching and that why for them computer is a easy way to bypass that
I am not sure you realize it, but this does not in any way respond to the point I was making about the difference between teaching decompression theory and teaching tables or computers.
I don't say that, I said why some divers need to reach the level of "tech"in order to be able to plan a dive...nothing about computer in gauge mode...
Remember the context was the contention that it was important that recreational computers be able to go into gauge mode.
Here is what you might not understand about teaching computers in the OW course. When the tables are taught, students are taught to plan dives using tables. What then happens is they leave class, never touch the tables again, and then dive using computers without understanding squat about how they really work and how they should be used. I could be wrong, but you appear to be an example. You do not appear to know how to use a computer to plan a dive. If students are not taught that, they will not even know a computer can do that. You can say "read the manual," but the manuals are overly complex, and the key functions are not easily spelled out. A student who has been through the computer version of a course will know that a computer is capable of doing a series of vital processes, including dive planning, emergency decompression, etc. They will have been taught how those functions affect dives, and they will know to look in the manual to see how their specific model performs those tasks. In a tables-only course, students learn to perform a skill which surveys show they will almost never use, and they are not taught the skills they actually need.
I may also be wrong about this, but in your repeated references to dive planning, it appears to me that you really only know one way to plan dives. There are many ways to do it, and you should use the method appropriate to the intended dive. I wrote and teach a PADI-approved course in advanced dive planning. If you would like to take it to learn more, I would be happy to work out those arrangements.
