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From: "Drew Glasbrenner" <glasbrenner@mi*.co*>
To: <klind@al*.ne*>
Cc: "Cave listserv" <cavers@ca*.co*>, <techdiver@aquanaut.com>
Subject: Re: Breathing off the inflator/Air II
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 19:42:53 -0500
(Original message snipped)
->Drew:  I don't use an AIR2 and wouldn't consider it but I was wondering
about
>this statement about redundancy between drysuit hose and BC inflator hose.
Is
>there anyone out there who has actually done this in practice?
>

I know of at least one who has tried it. Me.


>I for one have tested the positioning of my BC inflator hose vis a vis my
>drysuit inflator valve and I'm pretty certain that there is no realistic
way
>that I could pull my BC inflator hose off and attach it to my drysuit
inflator
>without getting at least half way out of my harness.  First of all, my
drysuit
>inflator valve angles down and to the right to connect to my argon hose or
>regulator drysuit inflator hose coming from under my left arm.  So not only
>does my BC inflator hose need to reach the drysuit inflator valve, it would
>need to kink around nearly 180 degrees to attach to the nipple.  Following
the
>instruction of my DIR cave instructor I shortened up my BC inflator hose
and I
>just don't see where attaching the BC inflator hose to the drysuit is a
>realistic option unless you have a really long inflator hose to begin with.
>My hose is long enough to reach the drysuit inflator, it's just not long
>enough to make the 180 degree kink to attach to the nipple.
>

Kent...I unfortunately do not have a DUI suit, which I'd bet is what you are
using. My suit has a swivel on the addition valve. I can unhook the drysuit
inflator hose, and attach my bc hose with a few inches to spare as long as I
rotate this valve. I too was advised to shorten my bc hose and corrugated
hose and did. But I found George's comment that you should be able to reach
both the addition valve and the bc inflator in the same hand more important,
so I did not shorten it so much.

>As for the opposite, why would you ever disconnect your drysuit hose and
>attach it to your BC?  It's much faster and more straight forward to just
>orally inflate in the event that your power inflator fails which is what my
>first response to a power inflator failure would be.  Is there some reason
why
>emergency oral inflation of your wing is a bad idea?  Heck, oral inflation
>used to be the ONLY way to inflate wings and drysuits.
>

I agree that orally inflating your wing is much easier, but I have yet not
found a way to get my lips down to my drysuit addition valve. Some of the
caves here can go from 150 to 70 and back, or 110 to 30 then back to 90 (two
quick actual profiles). If I did lose suit inflation I'd like to be able to
get through these without pinching off any body parts because my suit didn't
have enough air in it. I don't expect to ever have to do it, but it is a
part of the overall plan. Regs do fail, hoses fail, and I could even misread
how much argon I have in my bottle (although I'd steal some from my buddy at
deco).

I will say one positive thing about the air II type devices...If you are
trained OW with one, you learn to donate the primary without any qualms.
Other than that, they are pretty worthless.

Drew


>Kent Lind
>Juneau, Alaska
>
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