Wing advice

[Andy C]

I'm planning on getting a BP & wing fairly soon but am still confused over a few things. I dive mainly on holiday, but am intending to start to do some UK diving, all with single cylinder.

I've found Diverite & OMS both do Al BP at reasonable prices (£37 & £56). Any-one got any comments on them, specifically any reason not to buy the diverite one ?

The only wings I can find that say they are for use with single tanks are Halcyon Eclipse and the Diverite Venture. Any comments ?

Also how much lift do you need in a wing ? Assuming you are properly weighted (ie neutrally buoyant at the final 6m stop) you should only need enough lift to compensate for the extra weight of the gas, which for a 15l tank is about 5kg, so why are 40lb wings recommended ?

[Richie]

Andy,
The Tek Wing can be delivered in single band format. If you are going to add a BP then the Redwing (Tw less harness etc) is a much cheaper option at around £150.
Might be worth a look - I use a Tek Wing and its fine  - with add on BP.
Richard

[Juz]

<font color='#32CD32'>AIUI, you need to have enough lift for both you and another diver, in case they were to have a bouyancy failure.

Juz

[Dr Stevil]

just my $0.02 worth...
can't see why some folk are concerned about having too much potential lift available, if you so don't need, it don't inflate the wing so much
I see some people talk about flapping wings if they're &quot;too big&quot; , simple, bungee them unless you subscribe to DIR.
I use my set up (OMS IQ harness + bungied 100 lb bladder) with everything, twins, twins + stages and singles, both here and abroad, works for me...

[daz]

The OMS alu plate has camband slots, &nbsp;

I am not sure if this is true of the Diverite plate. &nbsp;If not you would also need a STA (Single tank adaptor)

I use a Diverite trekwing, &nbsp;small, neat. &nbsp;Not specifically for single cylinders, also works with small twins but does the job.

Daz

[tom]

Following on from Richie and Steve's comments:

I used my brand-new-and-shiny Buddy Tekwing this weekend for the first time (only dived with a stab jacket before). Straight out of the box, using the harness and plastic plate it came with, with a single 15. Seemed to work fine - I didn't encounter any tank wrap, or flapping at all (the wing has loops on it that you run the harness through when using a single, and they seem to work).

I did have some surface trim issues but I'll probably post about them on another thread to save hijacking this one.

Anyway, £170 from Kent Diving, might be worth looking at.

[Andy C]

Daz, good point, in the picture I've seen, the diverite plate doesn't have slots. Are there any advantages to having the adapter?

Tom, worth a thought, did you have any problems going from a BCD to the wing? I've been told that it takes a while to get used to the changes.

Thanks

Andy

[daz]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Andy C @ Feb. 24 2004,16:36)]Daz, good point, in the picture I've seen, the diverite plate doesn't have slots. Are there any advantages to having the adapter?

Tom, worth a thought, did you have any problems going from a BCD to the wing? I've been told that it takes a while to get used to the changes.

Thanks

Andy

In a word.... &nbsp;Nope.

Actually I guess if you were using it to switch between singles and twins then it is probably easier to just leave the cam bands on the STA and connect it when required, where as with the OMS BP you will need to rethread the cam bands if switching.

Most STA's I have seen are steel though so additional weight for holiday

I just set up an Alu plate with cambands and ickle wing for holiday, singles etc. and a Combro SS plate with not quite so ickle wing for twins.

When I switched from BCD to backplate/wing I did not have any major issues and my trim was much better from day 1. &nbsp;On holiday I normally find that with a Alu cylinder and steel pony a 1kg weight on the camband on the oposite side to the pony gives me a nice weight distribution and does not tip me forward in the water when on the surface. &nbsp;In all honesty even with a single 12l steel cylinder and nothing else it does not seem to tip me forward. &nbsp;

Daz

[tom]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Andy C @ Feb. 24 2004,16:36)]Tom, worth a thought, did you have any problems going from a BCD to the wing? I've been told that it takes a while to get used to the changes.

I've only used the thing twice, might be in a position to give a better answer after next weekend. I can give you some initial impressions though.

I switched to a wing because I wanted to use a long hose setup, and I didn't find that ideal using the BC I had. I also wanted to de-clutter myself a bit. It all seemed to work OK, and I found the harness system more comfortable.

I was expecting to have lot more problems adapting to the new system, but underwater it was pretty similar to my stab jacket, except that I think my trim was a little bit more horizontal. My stab jacket was one that has most of its buoyancy at the back though, so the transition wasn't that enormous.

There was certainly enough lift for my 15 + pony (side slung like a stage), the wing was never fully inflated at any point. In fact I had to deflate it at the surface.

Surface buoyancy was an issue though - I did experience the notorious 'tipping forward' tendency, and had to fin to maintain position most of the time. It improved when I let air out of the wing and leaned back more. Matt pointed out that my Pony was probably pulling me forward as well I need to experiment with the height of the cylinder I think (will take another look at the advice on Dom's website). I'm also considering trying a keel weight mounted on the cylinder - has anybody out there tried it? Any advice?

I tried my the pony mounted in two ways - the top was always clipped off to the top left d-ring. On my first dive the bottom was clipped to the left hip d-ring, on the second the bottom was clipped to the d-ring on the wing itself. I found the pony flopped around too much on the first dive and was a problem; on the second it sat much closer into my body and I barely noticed it was there. I'm not sure what that did to the streamlining though, need to experiment a bit.

The one thing I didn't like is the inflator apparatus, which seems cumbersome and unwieldy. I may look at replacing it with something more streamlined (maybe the Halcyon one people were talking about recently).

I think it will take a few dives to get fully used to the wing, and learn how to set it up optimally, but there weren't any major changes I would worry about.

Hope that's some use!

[Kate R]

<font color='#000080'>

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (tom @ Feb. 24 2004,16:55)]The one thing I didn't like is the inflator apparatus, which seems cumbersome and unwieldy. I may look at replacing it with something more streamlined (maybe the Halcyon one people were talking about recently).

can you do that? i hate the buddy inflator  

i used to just use my suit for buoyancy but now i'm playing around with using my stab i'm finding the inflator a real PITA - i have to use two hands! would be great if i could change it for another one....