Which wing

[Packhorse]

>not much from the Transpac, unless you have a plate in it (not stock)

So you can add a plate to the transpac? Any brand plate?
How does it secure?

 

[fdog]

<snip> Surely your BC only needs to offset the buoyancy lost from your wetsuit at depth and the weight of your air at the start of your dive? <snip>?

Yes! Quite so.

However, how much is that bouyancy? It's however much "weight" it took to sink it.
>Negative Bouyancy from empty Faber cylinder, -4.5 lbs
>lead, 15 lbs.
>misc. equipment (regs, lights, etc), maybe 2 lbs.

Add the above to your gas load and you're in the range of 32 lbs.

Your suit will probabally not lose all it's bouyancy; my experience is that it might have a couple of lbs. of bouyancy left. They smash pretty flat at depth.

I'm not sure what size you are, but I dive occasionally in a 7/5 wetsuit. I am neutral in just the suit (no other gear) at 24 lbs of lead in sea water, so, the above numbers "look right" to me.

With your gear configuration, I would use a BC with at least 36 lbs of lift, to give me a 4 lb. cushion for "fudge factor".

Hope this helps!

All the best, James

 

[*Floater*]

Diving a balanced rig is a good idea. It means being weighted so that with tanks almost empty you are still neutral close to the surface and can do your 3m (10 ft.) safety or deco stop without problem, and using tanks and other equipment which allow you to ditch excess weight if necessary and swim your rig to the surface (EDIT: with an empty BC) at any point of the dive (namely when your tank or tanks are full and you are deep so that your wetsuit has compressed and lost most of it's buoyancy). For example, if you use a Heiser 190 (-62.3 lbs buoyant when full) then it's pretty much impossible to have a balanced rig because a normal person could not swim that up.

Note the edit. The idea is you don't need a double BC because you can always get to the surface even if your wing fails.