Why do we hate the Air2?

[DaleC]

Discussing other AAS methods would take the debate firmly off-topic.

I've started a new thread; that can progress a reasoned comparison and contrast of AAS systems

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ad...arative-debate-aas-configuration-options.html

What's the point? One side will say those guys are too unskilled and bound to hurt themselves with their system while we are too skilled and will never experience a difficulty with ours? Level playing field for discussion - I think not.

But excellent attempt to curtail discussion right when I bring up a failure point that can't be explained away without resorting to the machine of the gods.

 

[DaleC]

I don't think it would take long for someone to decide just to remove the one that's obvious . . .

Really, how long does the usual OOA diver take to make their decisions and how do we know for certain what's obvious and did we ascribe those same tendancies to the AIR 2 scenario? Btw, did you physically work through what would happen if someone did mug your B/U reg or not even bother?

 

[DevonDiver]

What's the point? One side will say those guys are too unskilled and bound to hurt themselves with their system while we are too skilled and will never experience a difficulty with ours? Level playing field for discussion - I think not.

But excellent attempt to curtail discussion right when I bring up a failure point that can't be explained away without resorting to the machine of the gods.

Don't be paranoid. Does it really matter if a particular element of the discussion is continued in this, or another, thread?

Are you somehow keeping score of 'threads won'?!? Please.....

If you read the new thread I've created, you can see that I've put some time and effort into creating a potential discussion that examines, without bias, the pros and cons of various AAS options. That opens up fresh possibilities, with a new tone of discussion, that are strictly speaking off-topic to the OP's question in this (rather tired) thread.

I wasn't trying to curtail your point... in fact, I felt it was a very valid point that deserved examination in its own dedicated thread (you are welcome).

 

[DaleC]

I'm not keeping score of points won. In fact I really have no polarized stake in this discussion one way or the other as I, in fact, use a longhose/bungied BU quite often and find many things right with it. I also admire the DIR regime for what it is. But this is only one of several configurations I use and I try to put some thought into the pros and cons of each system I encounter. I think we all win when failure points can be identified if we are open minded enough to consider them.
Pointing out the failure points of a DIR rig in this thread was appropriate IMO because that rig was continuously being used to compare and contrast the percieved shortcomings of the AIR 2 system.

 

[DevonDiver]

I'm not keeping score of points won. In fact I really have no polarized stake in this discussion one way or the other as I, in fact, use a longhose/bungied BU quite often and find many things right with it. I also admire the DIR regime for what it is. But this is only one of several configurations I use and I try to put some thought into the pros and cons of each system I encounter. I think we all win when failure points can be identified if we are open minded enough to consider them.
Pointing out the failure points of a DIR rig in this thread was appropriate IMO because that rig was continuously being used to compare and contrast the percieved shortcomings of the AIR 2 system.

Hence, a new thread created to enable exactly that type of discussion.

Dale... really​... I am not attacking you here.

 

[danvolker]

Not a joke at all. Any diver believing they will always be aware of everything happening in their environment and always able to control the actions of others is bordering on something though...

Dan, I bet in the low vis conditions we experience locally, at a popular site like Whytecliff, Porteau, Edmonds or Keystone, I could sneak up and grab your B/U before you could do anything about it. I didn't say Divers A and B were buddies or that Diver A even knew Diver B was OOA. Someone's OOA, they see a reg, they swim up and grab it. Let's go from there. How does the configuration hold up?

Nice try but if you're going to allow being "all seeing and all knowing" to evade the failure points I've identified you have to ascribe them to the AIR 2 analysis too.

And hey, I don't have spell czech, I have to rely on my mammory.

Fine... I'll play....

1. Rule # one....We dont dive with divers of the team B lack of training/ability.....At least not on a low vis and challenging site where it is not easy to keep track of them...Baby dives, sure, in high vis so we can watch them.....Dale, you know I am not making this up, and of all of our DIR rules, this IS Rule number One!!!
2. In the challenging condition 3 foot vis or less dive, that DIR WAS created to deal with ( read as complete siltout in caves) and when diving with our team members ( all team A..Team B NOT allowed, and couldn't be there if they wanted to), each of us knows how to find the primary, and that it is for donation. Each of us is comfortable finding the backup in zero vis as well.
3. We will imagine for a moment that your Team B zombie somehow makes it to where our team is, even though this is a separate dive group, and each has never seen the other.
   1. My team is on scooters, team B guy cant reach us do to speed differences--we monitor each other continually
   2. or..Zombie from Team B is 6 foot 6 and 340 pounds and plays Rugby when not brain dead on dives....he is too strong for any on Team A to out-wrestle, even 30 seconds into his OOA interval. The attacked diver from Team B has the primary reg still, and feels everything being ripped apart by the huge zombie. Team A diver decides his buddies will obviously help him if he can get clear, so he unclips the waste band, and slips out of the harness in 3 seconds, and makes a beeline to his buddies--who are each offering the long hose, and keeping their distance from the zombie. Team A then executes a controlled retreat from the onsluaght toward the surface, no longer with any real issues of note to concern themselves with. The zombie has the air/gas supply of the team A diver, and is not a buddy of any DIR diver, and has shown that he is a danger to any around him--so he is NOT going to be assisted by Team A, other than the donation of all the air/gas he just recieved. It is NOT the job of the DIR diver to save dangerous zombies that are in no way connected with the DIR team, particularly after they have already attacked the DIR team. I should add however, that in the entire history of DIR diving, this scenario has never occurred, and in any "reasonable" scenario, the DIR team "would" be willing and able to assist the OOA diver without danger to themselves, as is directed by the DaleC "attacking zombie" scenario
   3. Still, rule number one should have eliminated any chance for this attacking zombie scenario to occur. We dont do challenging dives in the middle of hordes of unskilled divers found in places they should not be.

 

[danvolker]

Dan,
Just to play the Devil's Advocate and not because I think there is anything wrong with the DIR system...

DaleC's senario states diver A is using a DIR config. This isn't the same as having completed DIR training and may be just what these debates on SB promote inadvertantly. After all many people may start configuring their gear according to what they read here about DIR without taking the time to continue their education. Thinking, after all isn't that the config that some of the best divers use? Well I beleive we have ( at least in this discussion ) turned to the thought that training and practice may be more important than gear selection. This doesn't invalidate DIR but suggests that even within that relm the equipment and the training go hand in hand. This principle of learning skills and training go back to our earliest experiences diving building skills one at a time in a sequence that readies us to dive. DIR is a great system when all the divers diving together are all equipped and trained alike but recreational divers don't have the luxury of that expectation and as such should be aware of the variety of configurations used today and how they effectively change the requirements for them or a buddy when used. Just because you see a diver in proper DIR configuration doesn't mean that they will react to a OOA situation as in your picture because they don't actually have the training to go with the kit they configured from pictures. They may or may not be well practiced with their gear. It could in fact be the first time they ever dove that configuration but they looked good getting in the water.

Rabbit,
Your points are better than Dale's....there are plenty of people who like the DIR gear, but have not yet had ttraining or mentoring with it. The gear, without the training, will not protect the Team A diver at all from the DaleC "Attacking Zombie" scenario.
I need to point out that if anyone has done ANY DIR reading, they have read that DIR is a "holistic system", and the Training AND the Gear, are part of the same kit....so to speak. To be DIR, you need to practice our most basic buddy system rules and follow categorical imperatives like Rule Number One. Air share drills are continuous, as is situational awareness drilling. With all the big bullsharks we have on our deep dives in Palm Beach, situational awarness and peripherol awareness of what is behind you, is quite well developed. But a guy with our DIR gear, is NOT a DIR diver, without the training.
In the attacking zombie scenario, no gear choice would protect you.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Dan, your acting like DIR divers in a playground at recess, Dale put a normal situation on dives.

I have run into DIR divers on holiday, let me tell ya, they do not have your attitude way of diving at all (we don't dive with divers of the team B).


Speak for your self, cause if you are hear to say Dir will not dive with others, then Why are you accepting help from non DIR divers in your sfdj project.


Dir is not even a good diving practice, that is why divers drop out.

Cave divers can be team divers, wreck divers can be team divers, anyone can be team divers.

Dan you are a not helping your project in any way for this DIR stuff.

I guarantee I can out do a DIR diver at everything, by the simple fact I have more than one way of thinking.



Dan, I can clearly see you are no way in any form, a good leader in diving practices.

 

[danvolker]

Dan, your acting like DIR divers in a playground at recess, Dale put a normal situation on dives.

I have run into DIR divers on holiday, let me tell ya, they do not have your attitude way of diving at all (we don't dive with divers of the team B).


Speak for your self, cause if you are hear to say Dir will not dive with others, then Why are you accepting help from non DIR divers in your sfdj project.


Dir is not even a good diving practice, that is why divers drop out.

Cave divers can be team divers, wreck divers can be team divers, anyone can be team divers.

Dan you are a not helping your project in any way for this DIR stuff.

I guarantee I can out do a DIR diver at everything, by the simple fact I have more than one way of thinking.



Dan, I can clearly see you are no way in any form, a good leader in diving practices.

Voodoo guy...
First, you have to read...you didn't.
Dale came up with a scenario that HAS to be the controling element in my response....
He did NOT ask me about this scenario occurring in high vis, on a 60 foot dive--- If it was on this scenario, I and my team would be happy diving with non-DIRs.

What He did was specify that I needed to be able to answer this in a low to almost no vis, very challenging environment....In this scenario, DIR divers are not supposed to be diving with non-DIR's---In other words, deep in a cave, a DIR Diver is not diving with a non-DIR, or on a 250 foot deep shipwreck in a raging current, a DIR diver is not diving with a non-DIR.....In a 40 degree water dive in 3 foot vis, where there are bands of marauding untrained divers just about to have zombie episodes, DIR divers are not going to be found diving in this proximity. It violates rule number one.


Most of us suspend Rule number one for easy relaxing reef dives in shallow water--- a 40 to 60 foot reef dive in 70 foot vis. We still dive as a team, but the water is so shallow, and vis so good, it is easy to see and know what is around you at all times....if we saw a buddy team of some other group 50 feet away from us, that was not looking like they were OK, we would all be on alert....If any of us sees a diver going OOA, our primary is stuck out ahead of us, and we are swimming to that person at flank speed.

The scenario Dale came up with, with the extremes he is using, require the full use of the DIR system, and that would have to include Rule number one....

Why you choose to insult me, and to wildly imagine this has anything at all to do with the tropical reef dives we are starting with for our Project baseline dives, is beyond me....Obviously, after a few dives with new people, they will be acquainted with our long hose primary system...If they like it, and begin adopting DIR ideas and configurations, they can be in teams going to deeper more challenging sites like on the 130 foot deep reef line....If not, they can still help on the 20, 60, and 90 foot deep reeflines where huge vis is the norm, and diving has little challenge--is mostly just pure fun. The Dale C zombie scenario would just not be feasible on these shallow reeflines in Palm beach.

So what is the deal with you and the "attitude" ?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I think some of y'all need to comprehend the difference between DIR and a hog rig ... because the latter is simply a tool that the former uses, and does not define who or what constitutes "DIR".

If you're gonna invoke DIR, then at least understand that there's an overriding mentality that would make the situation Dale described (a) unlikely, and (b) quite likely to result in the OOA diver getting a reg shoved in his path before he ever got close enough to grab anything.

Awareness, training, practice ... those are more what defines DIR than the length and position of their reg hoses. And yeah ... believe it or not, low-vis conditions won't prevent a properly-trained DIR diver from seeing you coming and having that reg out there in front of your face before you can make a move toward their backup ... a lot of you deride DIR folks for constantly practicing ... well ... guess what they're practicing? It helps develop a behavior pattern that has them looking around and communicating quite a bit more often than the average diver does ... and doing a whole lot less "assuming" about what's going on.

Now ... if you want to assume that some untrained diver using a hog rig is in that situation, then you're more likely going to have a legitimate argument ... but guess what? If someone manages to sneak up on me and grab my bungeed backup, one of two things is gonna happen ... it's either going to snap back in my face, which is gonna make me aware of their presence, and in which case they now don't have a reg to breathe and I'm gonna be shoving my primary reg in their face ... or the reg's gonna break free of the bungee and they'll be glued to me by a short hose ... in which case, I'm gonna grab ahold of them, stare them eye to eye, let them take a few breaths and calm down, and then sort it all out.

Either way it's not much of an issue. And let me pre-empt the inevitable "panic" argument by stating that if a panicked diver grabs ahold of you it ain't gonna much matter what your reg configuration is ... you've got bigger issues.

Finally, let's just point out that you're less likely to have a DIR-trained diver in that situation in the first place because unlike their traditionally-trained counterparts, gas management is a standard part of EVERY DIR class ... and they're taught to think of gas as a team resource, so they're not just gonna be watching theirs ... they're gonna be watching yours too ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)