Subject: RE: DEEP AIR VOTE, was: (RE: Re:IANTD vs 70 m air instruction
and158m air dives You gotta be kidding)


>snip
> I personally am comfortable breathing
>air to a maximum depth of about 150 feet (as I said in the post that seems
>to have garnered so much attention). All the senseless name-calling in the
>world won't change my feeling on this,....>

>Aloha,
>Rich
>
Richie,

Is this my imagination or are you just joking here?

Diving in the 100 - 150 fsw range on air is a recipe for disaster and we
don't need double blind studies and scholarly treatises to confirm what
should long ago have become obvious to anyone serious about so called "tech
diving".   This is the worst sort of treason coming from you, especially
since you were one of the early people to use mixed gas in the ocean. In
fact I was cleaning out some magazines last week and lo and behold a dusty
old Aquacorps Journal with your youthful picture on the back turned up and
the subject was said same.

Of particular horror is your advocacy of solo diving, a practice which has
claimed quite a few lives of late.  To make matters worse you promote, by
example, solo diving with rebreathers which is another endeavor with a
disturbingly morbid track record. The problem is that you are considered the
leading civiliam expert on computerized electronic ccrs and like Tom Mount,
everyone wants to emulate you.  If Richie Pyle can dodge the bullet why
can't Joe Shinola?

If Tom Mount can point to you and say "the leading practicing authority of
solo deep open and closed circuit mixed gas diving endorses intermediate
deep air" then a lot of people will listen to this lie and the end result is
some over weighted poor fat bastard will go and get himself killed solo
diving with an air pony on the Andrea Doria or some such deep junk pile. I
know, I know, I know you will just disount what I and George say  as so much
threadbare hyperbole, but the freshly minted dead people of this summer were
very real and had names and families and believed the bs.  There is no
shortage of 12 inch tough guys who want to prove that they are just as tough
as Tom Mount and you.  Like Chris Werner said:

> Hey Richie, how is that you can deal with the deathtrap
> (Cis-Lunar) that you
> swear by diving, with all the complications and it hideous fatal track
> record, but yet you cannot mix the right gas for OC?  You are one
> lucky guy
> and tougher than nails.
>
That's the problem.  You are articulate, tough and very lucky.  Mount and
IANTD are on the wrong side of this air thing and resolutely refuse to
change the standards. Unfortunately, for all involved, the standards will be
changed, by mandate from the insurance companies, which are choking on the
endless lawsuits and settlements. I fully expect that it is only a matter of
time before you will be called as an expert witness (or defendant) in one of
the many wrongful death lawsuits now pending and you will have to vigorously
defend your above statement.  I surely hope that you have the bona fide
belief and conviction to do so.

Best regards,

Bill

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