Who came up with the "modern" backplate?

[Eric Sedletzky]

Dive Rite introduced the first commercial backplate in 1980, wasn't the first plate, but it was the first commercially available plate with the standard 11" center spacing. They also came out with the STA in the 90's I believe for Lamar's wife. First plate was made by Greg Flanagan in 1979, and that was the stop sign, though it was a surplus sign, not one stolen from the road. The Dive Rite plate was based on this design.

This what I was looking for, thanks.
It goes back a little further than I thought. The doubles plate wasn't really introduced to the west coast until DIR came in and mainstreamed it, and that was about 1999 as I recall. Before that we would see Dive Rite gear and OMS in the Leisure Pro catalogs but never payed any mind because they were never thought of as something that could be used recreationally with singles. At that time there were zero dive shops carrying anything remotely close to a backplate/wing system (it's still that way here).

So prior to 1979-1980 and the plate as we know it now, what did the tech/cave community do to make sets of doubles?
Did they somehow modify jackets or still use old school plastic packs outfitted with wings somehow, or were there any wings? I'm sure there had to be some pretty colorful and imaginative solutions out there at that time. No wonder nothing was standardized. Maybe someone has a few old photos of some of the contraptions they came up with during that time, it would be interesting to see them. I'm sure it was a time of pure DIY ingenuity.

I know plates go back to the early 60's, but my specific focus is on the press-braked doubles backplate as it is being manufactured now. There is a gap in time from the 60-70's old style plates, to the plate as we see them now.
And I suppose we could go a little further and add up how many companies there are currently making the same basic style of doubles plate.
I add up in my head just sitting here at least nine or ten.


I also appreciate the reference to the Freedom Plate, but that's not the focus of this discussion, that style is a completely different animal.
That was an attempt to bring back a modernized version of the original style of the 60's plastic pack for single tanks and make it usable with all modern components including wings. But it was too specialized and never took off.

 

[tbone1004]

the original doubles bands attached to the standard plastic backpacks for singles tanks.
work computer won't let me grab the picture because they're all from ebay, but if you see doubles bands with an extra band that goes between the two tanks, it's those. That extra arch sat in the single tank slot in the plastic plates. They then used horse collars for buoyancy until the wings started coming out. Some of them also had attachment points for the harness directly on the bands.