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> and do not stick out. The manufacturers putting 
> cute little string arrangements on them is to 
> satisfy their own "belief" that the wings stick out
> straight, like on an airplane. This brings out my
> favorite recommendation, and that is that people
> who design this stuff should try diving with it
> sometime.  - George

I started out with a Dive Rite Wings (the original kind) on my deep mixed 
gas rig.  One day, while doing an air dive with my twin 72s with an old 
Sea Quest wings, the inflator hose caught on a rock and pulled the 
corregated hose right off the BC, rendering the BC useless for buoyancy.  
It had double cable ties on it, but still it yanked off.  I held my 
wetsuit jacket tight around my neck, stuck my regulator under the bottom 
of the jacket, and used my wetsuit as a makeshift BC to get me up.  After 
that dive, I decided that, because 1) I often don't wear a wetsuit at all, 
and 2) my wetsuit leaks like a sieve at the left shoulder, I ought to 
have some sort of redundant buoyancy control.  First attempt was a 
fenzy-type horse collar.  That sucked.  Next step was to sandwich in a 
second Dive Rite wings.  That was funtional, but definitely impacted my 
ability to chase fishies around.  Then I bought an OMS dual bladder BC, 
with the elastic bands.  That was, and is, the single best BC I have ever 
owned.

George, I know you don't seem to like the elastic bands, but BELIEVE me, 
they DO help me out on my dives quite a bit.  In addition to keeping the 
deflated BC compact (because I've tuned my rig to be close to neutral, 
the BC is almost always mostly deflated), which yields a noticable 
reduction in drag when I'm chasing fish; the bands provide a bit of 
posative pressure and make it a lot easier to dump gas without overt 
contortions to correctly position the exhaust port.  I also use them 
to tuck the backup inflator in a secure place.  I have not found any 
problems with the elastic bands in the sort of dives I do.  They are 
silicone, so if they snag, it wouldn't be much effort for me to snap one 
or two in a hurry.  I imagine the merits of this kind of BC for cave 
diving may not be the same, but it does work for me.

I agree with you, though: normal wings do NOT stick out like airplane 
wings when you dive.  The advantages of the elastic bands for 
manuverability may be too subtle to be of value to most divers.

Aloha,
Rich

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