Traveling with regulators

[galvanni]

I've recently purchased my own set of gear, so I've never traveled with anything other than my mask, fins, and neoprene. I'm curious about how others pack regulators and gauges that they normally bring on the carry-on, which I'm assuming most people do take their regs and computer/gauges at the very least. I've always traveled with a med mountaineering backpack as the carry-on and have never broken my mask, but I'm a little concerned about putting my reg and gauge setup in there. Do most of you use a hard-side carry-on to transport the regs? Any tips that I could use? I guess I'm mostly concerned with the hoses crimping and the plastic breaking, but I guess if I sandwich it between a few layers of clothing and keep the loop of the hoses towards the outer edges of the backpack it should be OK? Or should I just get a normal hard-side carry-on? I guess I've always used this backpack because I can cheat the size if they ever checked. It has straps all the way around that I crank down when getting through and then loosen back up when aboard the plane. I've been able to take an extraordinary amount of stuff with me doing that.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Stick with a soft-side carry-on; the one you already have is probably fine.
Sufficient padding with clothes will provide enough protection for your reg.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

Mask, regs, computers and cameras in carry on. Sandwich your delicate gear between layers of clothing and they're well protected.

 

[Zung]

The only thing I've ever carried on was my camera and housing. I always wrapped the regs in wetsuits, and used the fins and other stuff to pad inside the dive bags; the masks go in tupperware-like plastic boxes in the pockets of the bags. Nothing ever got damaged, or lost.

But with the current restrictions imposed by the airlines, I may have to rethink my packing...:depressed:

 

[herbdb]

We carry regs, computers, gauges and cameras. This significantly lightens the checked bags.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Regs are pretty tough. When carry on and you are handling the bag, the chances of damage are small. Biggest issue be being able to pull them from the bag for inspection. If your bag is dense like mine (camera, regs, computers, lights, etc..) it is hard for the TSA to use the Xray and you will must likely have a show-n-tell with them with an unpack and repack cycle.

If weight permits, I check and just sandwich between soft gear. A 7MM suit with fins and a BCD provides lots of padding. Do buy a compact digital scale to weigh your bags with before leaving to the airport.

 

[halocline]

You can always wrap the 2nd stage in a little bubble wrap if you're ultra paranoid about checking it. I just use my wetsuit and/or some clothes to pad it. Honestly, after decades of traveling with very fragile, very expensive musical instruments, scuba gear is nothing worth worrying about. If you have a wrist computer, that wouldn't be a bad thing to carry on. I don't even bother with that, though, I just put it in a couple of socks.

 

[Kilili]

I just put in reg bag and throw in suitcase. Never any problems. Besides, my carry-on is reserved for expensive and fragile camera gear.