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As many of you know, I have no great love for OMS. Their products were designed many years ago and, until now, they have done nothing to update them to current standards. One of their products is so patently stupid and unusable, the infamous stuporwings (double bladder wings with elastic "auto deflation" bands) it boggles the mind that anybody who has not lived in a cave for the past five years is still using them. With the market filled with used stuporwings selling for practically nothing, OMS has finally realized that they have to come up with a marketable item. Currently OMS is getting it's ass kicked by fast moving companies like Halcyon and DiveRite. Even huge Scubapro has gotten in the tech thing. Frankly I'm surprised the OMS is still in business. After a couple of false starts OMS has finally come up with a set of wings which are done correctly from top to bottom. Plus they come in at over $100 less than those of the competition. Northeast scuba supply can set you up with a pair, ask John John@No*.co* and he will fix you up. John sent me a pair of 55lb wings to take a look at. I laid them out next to my Halcyon 65lb wings and took a look at the differnces. First off the hose and overpressure valve are in the correct places, OMS finally got it right. The overpressure valve and inflation valve are identical to the Halycon. The overall shape of the wings are identical, but as you might expect the 65lb Halcyon's have a larger cross section when inflated. For years OMS boasted of it's "high volume" inflators, exactly the wrong thing on a tech wing, and now they are using proper OEM "low volume" units. And it only took them 15 years to figure this out. OMS could not resist leaving the huge knob hanging off the overpressure valve, an easy thing to fix (snip-snip). The OMS inflator hose is about 4" longer than the Halcyon and is of the flat corregation style. On construction details you can see where OMS cut some corners to beat the competition on price. Some examples: -The Halcyons have a flaps at the bottom of the wings with a mesh inserts for water drainage while the OMS makes due with two grommets on each side. -The Halcyon has a reinforced seam on the edges while the OMS has a plain seam. -The Halcyon has a reinforcing web strip running down the center tank mount area while the OMS has none. -Halcyon has a canvas loop which helps keep the hose from getting stressed at the top, the OMS does not. On the inside the OMS has a rubber flap to keep the bladder away from the zipper just like the halcyon. The rubber flap is sheet rubber rather than the bicycle tube Halcyon uses. Don't think this makes any practicable difference but it looks better. The OMS has 4 grommets to the Halcyon's 2 for mounting to the backplate to give you a bit of adjustment. The bladder material on the Halcyon is a urethane impregnated fabric while the OMS is straight urethane. With such a rugged container (both are 1000 denier cloth) I doubt this makes much difference. The Halcyon material appears to be more rugged but on the other hand you can see into the OMS bladder (the material is clear) and check out what biological horrors you have growing in there after a long dive season. All in all the OMS 55lb wing is a good effort, overall quality of construction is good. They are the Chevrolet wings while the Halcyons are the Cadillacs. The Halcyons have more details in construction which show up in the price, but if you are not a "hard corp" diver and want to save a sawbuck you may want to give them a try. I would choose them over the DiveRite standard wings. Oh, and did I mention that there are no bungees on this model??? I thought that bungees were God's Gift to scuba divers, but low and behold not a bungee in sight. And only one bladder. Hmmm, could it be that bungees suck and that dual bladders are useless? Apparently OMS thinks so. But OMS won't kill the stuporwing until the clueless idiots out there quit buying them as they have warehouses full of them. Jim ------------------------------------------------------------------- Learn About Trimix at http://www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/ -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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