What is exact outcome of AOW courses?

[Centrals]

Depending on you and your instructors, much more than the certification can be gained doing the AOW course. I'll report my findings hopefully in October.

There is ONLY one certification on AOW, of course you can progress far beyond that but is entirely your own decision.
Take one step at a time.

 

[Blackreef]

You'll understand open water diving better and you'll be certified to dive up to 30-40m recreationally. A lot of places in the world will check if you have an AOW card to dive before you can dive at deeper dive sites.

 

[Blackcrusader]

You'll understand open water diving better and you'll be certified to dive up to 30-40m recreationally. A lot of places in the world will check if you have an AOW card to dive before you can dive at deeper dive sites.

You must have missed discussion in the thread. OW is already certified to 130ft / 40m which is the recreational depth limit. AOW does not certify you to a deeper depth it just has training to a max depth of 100ft / 30m.

My son is OW and when in the USA was told cannot join some dives. When he challenged the operator and showed them more than 400 dives and many deeper than 100ft they then would question if his dive insurance covered that. He would show them his DAN insurance which covers any certified diver to 40m depth on the basic package. A lot of places will also look at diving experience not just a certification.

My son was offered a checkout first dive then allowed on all the dives.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Couple of things:

1. I did my YMCA/NAUI-based open water training in 1986. Like a lot of divers at that time, we used "The New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving" as one of our textbooks. (We used the 6th Edition, which had gone out of print a year earlier, in 1985.) We learned how to do air consumption calculations and how to plan and conduct deco dives using the U.S. Navy Air Tables, topics covered in this textbook. (We were NOT allowed to do deco dives during our training, however.)

2. I did my NSS-CDS/NACD Cavern and Basic Cave training in 1988 in Ginnie Springs FL. At that time, garden-variety cave diving was NOT referred to as "Technical Diving" (obviously, since the term hadn't been coined/popularized yet). At that time, some (Florida) Full Cave divers were diving quite deep using air as a bottom gas and deco-ing using 100% oxygen.

3. Only when I did my IANTD Nitrox training (in 1993, in SE MI), and my IANTD Deep Air and Advanced Deep Air training (beginning in 1994) did the term "Technical Diving" loom large, coined by M2 a few years earlier. I understood at that time that Great Lakes wreck divers had already been diving quite deep using air as a bottom gas and deco-ing using 100% oxygen long before the term "Technical Diving" had been coined.

I agree with @lizardland: "At the end of the day, 'technical diving' is an arbitrary phrase that's kind of morphed... ."

FWIW,
rx7diver

I taught as a YMCA Silver instructor, and all of those were part of the OW class using Dennis Graver's Scuba Diving when I became an instructor in 2008. Graver's book is the best OW Diver textbook out there, in my opinion.
When they first started diving on the Andrea Doria, all they were using was air. Gary Gentile (diving it since 1974), Evelyn Dudas (dived it in 1967), Steve Belinda, etc., were using air to over 200ft.
Peter Gimbel (of Gimbel's hole on the wreck fame), were on it a week after it sank.
Later in the 80s and early 90s, recreational (technical) divers started using mixed gases. Which most agencies were vehemently against.
Until they saw they could make money off of it.

 

[Blackreef]

You must have missed discussion in the thread. OW is already certified to 130ft / 40m which is the recreational depth limit. AOW does not certify you to a deeper depth it just has training to a max depth of 100ft / 30m.

My son is OW and when in the USA was told cannot join some dives. When he challenged the operator and showed them more than 400 dives and many deeper than 100ft they then would question if his dive insurance covered that. He would show them his DAN insurance which covers any certified diver to 40m depth on the basic package. A lot of places will also look at diving experience not just a certification.

My son was offered a checkout first dive then allowed on all the dives.

Thanks.

 

[rx7diver]

I taught as a YMCA Silver instructor, and all of those were part of the OW class using Dennis Graver's Scuba Diving when I became an instructor in 2008. Graver's book is the best OW Diver textbook out there, in my opinion. ...

Yes, when my instructor could no longer find even used copies of "The New Science ..." for his students to purchase, he began using Dennis Graver's book, which he continued to use until he retired a few years ago.

rx7diver

 

[stargazer1]

I recommend doing at least a few dives before you take the AOW class. I liked my class a lot. I had a good instructor, and the navigation part was both fun and very useful. I got exposed to some new skills that I started using.

 

[pelagic_one]

Thanks for all of the input and discussion. I went to my PADI LDS and ... SURPRISE! ... they are switched over to SSI. I signed up for the SSI "advanced open water course" which is four certifications resulting in an "advanced open water" recognition card. This costs more but will be much more training than the PADI AOW course. It will result in full certifications of several skills. I'll start another thread on my SSI experience.

 

[tursiops]

Thanks for all of the input and discussion. I went to my PADI LDS and ... SURPRISE! ... they are switched over to SSI. I signed up for the SSI "advanced open water course" which is four certifications resulting in an "advanced open water" recognition card. This costs more but will be much more training than the PADI AOW course. It will result in full certifications of several skills. I'll start another thread on my SSI experience.

Thanks for the update. Yes, you could have just taken the five full specialty courses from PADI and (from any good dive shop) have gotten the AOW card for nothing, but you'll be fine.
The only thing you'll be missing is the PADI mandatory "Thinking Like a Diver" material, which is quite valuable. It covers gas management, situational awareness, buddy communications, management of risks. Since your shop is no longer teaching PADI, perhaps they have some old PADI AOW material that covers Thinking Like a Diver that they can pass to you, and perhaps even cover.