PADI tables finally going away?

[ScubaSteve]

My point (more so on the other thread) isn't that it does not make sense to teach computers. I personally believe that we are shortcutting the student's education by removing the Tables from the curriculum. Yes some PDC's are inexpensive but not everybody has the money to get one right away and MOST rental regs come with a console....rental computers are in somewhat limited supply as well since most renters do not rent them. So because we failed to teach them the "old school method of safe diving" because we wanted to save a nickel, they either cannot dive or dive anyways and hope it ends well. I am just glad that I trained early enough to have learned to dive tables. I believe I am a better educated and perhaps even safer diver for having that knowledge.

 

[AfterDark]

Does anyone know what the markup for a LSD is on a PDC? Probably higher than including tables in the students package. Then the instructor(s) teaches them they must dive with a PDC or they'll die of DCS. There is after all no alternative. Of course young ones today are so dumbed down it wouldn't dawn on them to ask what kept people from dying before PDC's. Follow the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!

 

[Jax]

We got to the moon on slide rulers. The only submersible to dive 7 miles down was built with slide rulers. Without slider rulers we wouldn't have computers, how do you think the computations to build the 1st computers were reached? How many times can a PDC be banged around until it fails? I broke the corner of my tables with the hole in for a lanyard, the tables still work.

Yes, yes, and Apollo 13 had less computing power than a (+, -, x, /) calculator with a square root capability. I know. It was brought back to Earth by its engineers loaded with slide rules.

I was just pointing out that tables seem to be going the way of the slide rule . . . I think slide rules are kind of cool, myself.

 

[DiveNav]

Saturday went to the Avalon park (aka Casino Point) with my AOW class.

Each student had tables and 2 dive computers (we have plenty of those in the office these days )

First dive was the "deep dive"; we descended to 100ft, did the "required exercises" including comparing NDL for all our dive computers (that took about 3 minutes) then did a leisure ascent following the park bathymetry.
At the 15ft stop we re-compared the dive computers.

Total dive time was ~40minutes ....

Once at the surface I told the students to take out the tables and tell me what they thought .....

According to the tables (and their rules) .... we should have packed our gear, go home and don't dive for another 24 hours ....

According to ALL the dive computers (we had both aggressives, conservatives and middle-of-the-road dive computers), our previous dive was a very safe one with plenty of NDL margin before even getting into the yellow.

Instead of packing our gears, we packed the tables, had a nice surface interval discussing decompression theory and kept diving.

Alberto

 

[AfterDark]

Saturday went to the Avalon park (aka Casino Point) with my AOW class.

Each student had tables and 2 dive computers (we have plenty of those in the office these days )

First dive was the "deep dive"; we descended to 100ft, did the "required exercises" including comparing NDL for all our dive computers (that took about 3 minutes) then did a leisure ascent following the park bathymetry.
At the 15ft stop we re-compared the dive computers.

Total dive time was ~40minutes ....

Once at the surface I told the students to take out the tables and tell me what they thought .....

According to the tables (and their rules) .... we should have packed our gear, go home and don't dive for another 24 hours ....

According to ALL the dive computers (we had both aggressives, conservatives and middle-of-the-road dive computers), our previous dive was a very safe one with plenty of NDL margin before even getting into the yellow.

Instead of packing our gears, we packed the tables, had a nice surface interval discussing decompression theory and kept diving.

Alberto

Using the US navy tables (from my head I don't have them here at work) which is what I use you could do another dive to 100' for 7 mins. 3 mins @ 100' group B -10min - 3hr 20 min interval - 2nd dive 100' 7 no decom. Since it's memory I could be wrong but this sounds about right to me. I would probably back this up especially if I was using memory with a 5 min stop @ 10'

 

[ScubaSteve]

.......Once at the surface I told the students to take out the tables and tell me what they thought .....

.........Instead of packing our gears, we packed the tables, had a nice surface interval discussing decompression theory and kept diving.

The thing I respect most here is the fact that they are learning both. While tables are inherintly more conservative because of their inability to depth average etc., I still believe that an educated (implies understanding IMO) diver is a safer diver. They may learn very quickly that they will extend their bottom times by investing in a computer but if that computer ever fails them, or they cannot afford one, they still have the option of diving tables. This, IMO is better than having a diver run out of options and dive blindly.

 

[Jax]

The thing I respect most here is the fact that they are learning both. While tables are inherintly more conservative because of their inability to depth average etc., I still believe that an educated (implies understanding IMO) diver is a safer diver. They may learn very quickly that they will extend their bottom times by investing in a computer but if that computer ever fails them, or they cannot afford one, they still have the option of diving tables. This, IMO is better than having a diver run out of options and dive blindly.

I agree except -- if the computer fails them, they can dive the tables if and only if they have a depth gauge, submersible pressure gauge, and timer. (Saved my bacon!)

 

[ScubaSteve]

I agree except -- if the computer fails them, they can dive the tables if and only if they have a depth gauge, submersible pressure gauge, and timer. (Saved my bacon!)

Agreed.

 

[Leadking]

The table should ALWAYS be available and understood. Everyone should have a basic understanding and familiarity with the tables. You should know when your computer gives you the wrong data.

 

[AfterDark]

The table should ALWAYS be available and understood. Everyone should have a basic understanding and familiarity with the tables. You should know when your computer gives you the wrong data.

I agree, apparently many others don't.