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A.APPLEYARD wrote: > And I don't thank the UK navy for keeping secret their nitrox technology and > discoveries for so many years from 1945 until civilian divers eventually had > to laboriously re-tread the same ground much later as if it was something new. > <Then> the UK navy said that it knew about nitrox all the time. And in all > that time I wonder how many patents for automatic mixture rebreathers were > requisitioned by the UK Ministry of Defence and kept secret away from all the > use that civilians could have made of them? ... I can't comment on what the Royal Navy kept secret on nitrox. They did a lot of research between 1940 and 1945 but it appears to have tailed off after that. The US Navy took up research in the 1950's. Then Keller and Buhlmann did a lot of mixed-gas diving research in the 60's that to some extent was actually driving what the Navies were interested in. Although Keller and Buhlmann kept their actual mixes secret their work was public. They invited the press to their trials. I don't think it is correct to say that; "civilian divers eventually had to laboriously re-tread the" "same ground much later as if it was something new." I think that diving on gases other than air has emerged recently from a small group of pioneers to appear to the general mass of recreational divers as "something new". The UK Cave Diving Group (CDG) has been using mixed gases for the past 20 years. It would also appear that certain UK recreational diving organisations have been looking at nitrox for at least the last 15 years. I think the major problem in the UK is BSAC's reaction to nitrox. They have just invested a lot of money in their new tables and they can't use them for nitrox. To change to the Buhlmann tables would be to admit that they have made an extremely expensive mistake and politicians don't do that. They have been pronouncing "bad" things about nitrox in an effort to disuade their members - even up to the classic statement about the N2 and O2 stratifying in the cylinder, just as it does in the upper atmosphere (huh?). I'd say that the general diving public is just waking up to nitrox, not because it has been a secret, but because their was not perceived to be a need for it. Alan awright@gs*.bt*.co*.uk*
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