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> 3. Some manufacturers are touting nonredundant (three oxygen sensors > do not qualify as redundancy because they are part and parcel of a single > averaging circuit) electronically controlled rebreathers as being safer than > nonelectronic units. Again, hogwash. I'm sure that each and every person > reading this has had a radio, computer, electric clock and or an > electronically controlled appliance fail on him. When it happens in a dry > environment, it's merely an inconvenience. When it happens underwater, it > can very easily become life threatening. On the subject of hogwash, please understand that not all rebreathers with three O2 sensors have them "part and parcel of a single averaging circuit" - in some cases, they really are redundant. It's also a common misconception that fully closed circuit rebreathers *rely* on electronics to function. > 4. Some manufacturers and users are saying that electrical displays > and manual gas bypasses allow the diver to safely "fly" rebreathers when the > electronics fail. There have been too many cases of divers ignoring their > displays during task overloads until they have passed out for this to be a > reasonable assumption. This is an extremely important point. I'm fairly confident of two things: 1) people will die on rebreathers, and 2) most of them will die primarily because of user error. > In addition, a diver should NOT be operating manual > bypasses when the breathing loop may contain a mixture that affects his > ability to reason. If a diver has ANY reason to suspect that all is not well > in the breathing loop (including a "gut feeling"), he should immediately > switch to an open circuit bailout. If he can then rationally decide that he > can safely > continue on the breathing loop, then so be it. I agree with this statement 100%. > It looks like Bill Stone, Richard Nordstrom, Kevin Gurr and > cohorts are the pace setters here. They appear to have the best handle on > the redundancy issue and are reported to be working on units for depths > greater than 17 ATA. Use an adequate gas supply on your open circuit > bailout, guys. In my experience, allowing for Open Circuit bailout is 95% of the logistics for a deep (>5ATM) rebreather dive. It seems to me that this should apply to all rebreathers, fully and semi-closed. I've found that the best OC bailout solutions depend on a huge array of variables, and thus creating training standards and such will be a difficult task. What is RBC's rcommended procedure for OC bailout shcemes for deeper decompression dives? Aloha, Rich
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