| Drager Panorama/Golem BOV bailout scenarios Like Lance, I've taken delivery of the Drager Panorama Nova FFM. Very nice fit, comfort, and quality. I also received my new Golem Vario BOV from Jakub and completed a shakedown dive with it yesterday. Now, it is time to plumb the mask/BOV combination for bailout scenarios.
To keep it simple, I always dive my DIL and deep bailout gasses with the same mix. So, I'm planning on plumbing the OC 2nd p-ported to the mask and the BOV to a Y-block, which will terminate in a QC. This single QC will allow me to plug into any cylinder via an accomodating whip, thus making bailout, loop volume addition via the nasal reg, nasal bailout, and oral bailout all centralized to a single tank which can be switched on the fly. (No switching blocks)
The next part of the plan is this: I want to leave my OC bailout and deco bottles setup for passing to buddies by leaving the 2nd with a mouthpiece and not p-ported. Gas for me would be through the QC and into either the nasal OC reg p-ported to the mask, or the BOV through the mouth p-port. In the event of a caustic cocktail, the loop can be removed from the mouth and the nasal reg moved to the mouth port. I would just carry a dummy plug for the remaining p-port hole.
This makes possible:
1. single point hookup during kit up.
2. same offboard gas mix for any bailout method
3. quick nasal sanity breaths via nasal OC reg
4. prolonged bailout via BOV OC
5. offboard regulators remain all diver compatible
6. caustic cocktail contingency with the nasal OC reg reported to mouth
7. if absolutely nessessary, removal of FFM and bailout to standard OC
Alleviates putting p-port adapters on all tank regulators or adding additional unP-ported 2nd stages on.
I'm thinking I'd flip the BOV to have the hose come out diver right, the same way the nasal OC reg comes off the mask. The two reg hoses would be pointed in the same direction and could come into a Y-block behind the divers head. The single hose would then run down the diver left side and loop up by the drysuit inflation hose for convenient access to all offboard whips. Think single-point refueling for all you aviation types. Gas switches take place only through manual intervention from the diver (no accidental switches). Bottle whips will have MOD tags at the OC end for FO2 varification.
What do you guys think? Only a single hose that does it all with no gas switching blocks to complicate things or create dangerous FO2's, and no need for manifolds other than a simple Y-block.
__________________ Eric Stadtmueller, otherwise known as, MEM "Da Pilot" |