I guess we've all said what we have to say

[vance]

Is participation on this board done? I'd like to keep it going, but there isn't a lot of energy here. 5 of us can't keep it alive.  

[nikeajax]

Phil, I've been trying to get more participation for many, many years--yep, people's apathy have bled something really wonderful white... I have most of everyone's emails that I need...
JB

[crabbyjim]

There are other places to discus vintage diving but I prefer this one. The participants are welcoming and forgiving, even Doctor Frankenreg.    

[SeaRat]

Well, I don't think we've really met our end at all. There is so much to say. I just put together my Scubapro Wide-view tri-window mask without a purge on it's nose. It's my favorite combo for the tri-window masks, and I have two of those masks (one with and one without the purge valve) that I love. I used the purge one in my snorkel trips in Maui last Spring.

Screen Shot 2019-05-20 at 10.04.44 PM by John Ratliff, on Flickr

Now, I'm only about half-way through getting the info about masks and snorkels out there. The holiday season kinda threw a damper on it, but it's coming. So you see, we cannot simply give up. I've also been linking some of my discussions on ScubaBoard to my more extensive discussions here too. So come on guys and gals, we need simply to keep enjoying our vintage dive equipment and experiences.

Besides, I'm finishing up my book, and trying to look at getting an agent or approaching publishers myself. Between Air and Water, the Memoir of an USAF Pararescueman apparently would appeal to publishers. I've talked to one author of USAF books, and here's what he had to say:

Firsthand bios from the war are now popular in books. A PJ book, I'm sure, would be marketable. I've done more than 30 books without an agent, but it wasn't an easy road to getting established in the field. Best method to begin the process is seeing what's out there and sending a proposal to publishers. You have to sell yourself as much as your book. Hellgate Press, for one, does these kinds of books. Magazine is in the mail
Wayne Mutza

Thanks, my book(s) will incorporate my early years, training in the USAF for Pararescues, and my deployments. Because it has gotten large, I'm probably breaking it into two books, my active duty days (4 years, 5 months) and my Reserve days/College days (5 years). Lots of stories, some from the Vietnam war, some from Korea, and some about Apollo in the first book. John Ratliff

That's outstanding. Word count will tell a publisher the size of a book, or if two volumes are needed. I've seen some big mothers you could barely lift. Your subject and that it's written from firsthand experience is a huge plus. I used to see what was on the shelves in bookstores, and Amazon listings show the publisher. My second book with McFarland is in editing. I'm happy with them. Writing books became more fun when I realized I'd never get rich from them, much less eat.
Wayne Mutza

Wayne has some outstanding books on aircraft such as the Kaman H-43 that I crewed in Okinawa, Korea, and Thailand.
hh43b by John Ratliff, on Flickr

I think we are undergoing the normal January blues, and somewhere in my poor memory cells there is a name or title for this.

John

[SeaRat]

I've just written another chapter of my book. It has to do with the other side of combat rescue--waiting.

HH-53 in air B&W by John Ratliff, on Flickr

More Humor In the Air

Boring…flying duck butt missions were boring. Our entire mission was to be in the Jolly, and do nothing. A “duck butt” mission meant that we were flying circles at 10,000 feet, waiting for any birds that had an emergency or got hit by ground fire and had to eject. Every four hours or so, we needed to refuel, which involved getting together with a HC-130 Hercules refueling aircraft and taking a drink. To do that, we needed to be in parachutes, as this could be a hazardous inflight maneuver to dock the refueling probe with the hose chute on the Herkie bird. That meant that our rotors were only a few feet from that hose, and should the hose enter the arc of our rotors, things would come apart and we would crash. So other than that, we were flying with nothing to do. We were bored.

I learned something, and that was that you don’t open a bottle of root beer at 10,000 feet. The root beer literally exploded out of the bottle and covered the left window area where I was seated (there was no actual window, as with the heat and the need to have a minigun pointed out that window, the plexiglass had been removed), with only about one swallow left in the bottle. I had one heck of a mess to clean up too, so that kept me occupied.

At other times, I would read a book, or take out my camera and take pictures of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, The Trail, through Laos, was like looking at I-5 from 10,000 feet, as it would across the mountain ridges, and around B-52 bomb craters.

There were stories about how some bored aircrew members amused themselves. One PJ, unnamed, decided to play a prank on the pilots. The pilots were isolated from the rest of the crew but a bulkhead. They had a passage to the front, but their seats provided an effective barrier to the back of the helicopter. They had helmets on, but the helmets restricted their head motion a bit from looking to the back of the cabin. So this PJ put on his harness, tied into a floor D-ring, let out the appropriate amount of nylon one and a half inch tape, opened the right door, and put one foot, probably his left foot, onto one of the foot holds on the outside of the chopper. He then found one of the hand holds, and swung his body around to find a second foot hold for his right foot. From this position on the outside of the helicopter, he leaned over and knocked on the outside of the copilot’s right window. The startled reaction from the copilot was worth all the preparation he had taken. The PJ then retraced his steps back into the cabin.

As can be imagined, this episode was talked about within the squadron, and actually went to other squadrons as people went TDY (temporary duty) to other sites in Southeast Asia. So the word got around, especially when stories were told in the bars and clubs.

One flight engineer decided to act on this, and replicate the prank. So he got his harness on, opened the door, found the footholds, and gently moved his body outside the airframe. He was about to knock on the outside of the copilot’s window, when he glanced back toward the door. There, flapping in the wind stream, was the end of his lanyard. He had forgotten one very important part of the prank, and that was to tie the end into the D-ring with the snap link on the lanyard. We were told that there were scratch marks on the outside of that helicopter as the FE hastily retreated back to the safety of the cabin.
Copyright 2010, John C. Ratliff

[vance]

I'll be off-line for a while. Off to Mexico. I'll dive some and snorkel in warm(er) water.

[snark3]

I'm with CJ on this. There are other places to discuss vintage diving and gear. I've found that here the people are non-judgemental and willing to help someone like myself who's new at repairing his own equipment.

[DavidRitchieWilson]

Of all the vintage diving forums and subforums I contribute to, I find ours to be friendliest and the least judgemental. While well-researched postings on other forums can be, and are, routinely ignored, such messages are always acknowledged and responded to here. I particularly like the way knowledgeable members absent from discussions where their participation would help are encouraged to give their views when they next log in.

As for running out of subject matter to talk about, I can't speak for regulators, but I can confidently say that there is plenty of material left to explore, and to say, about fins, masks, snorkels and suits, indeed enough to last a lifetime!

DRW

[SeaRat]

Jan 8, 2020 8:01:40 GMT -8 vance said:

I'll be off-line for a while. Off to Mexico. I'll dive some and snorkel in warm(er) water.

Phil,

You have us turning green with envy. Take some photo, report back, and simply enjoy the warmth.

John

[nikeajax]

The fact of the matter is, is that there is lots to say, but no one is saying it...

I say this in half jest: if we had a fetish/kink area, I'd wager money we'd have lots of participation

If it weren't for the Healthways threads no one would participate--AT ALL! Yeah, we have a few other subjects, like Dacor, Sportsways and Nemrod, but no one would have even bothered with those if there weren't already some kind of activity seen.

I love to learn, and I love to share my knowledge: I will always put myself out there to help someone, as well as engage anyone because it's very instructive to learn other methods of things, because everyone is different.

For a while there I was PM'ing people telling them, "Thank you for being on the forum because..." but I stopped though: no one really wanted to share themselves, because sharing anything about who we are is perceived as dangerous. Instead, I mostly receive PM's about, "Can you do this for me?" I mention this because sharing and learning about others is how you build a healthy community, make friends and find common ground--AND HAVE EVENTS!

forum noun

fo·​rum | \ ˈfȯr-əm\

plural forums also fora\ ˈfȯr-​ə\

Definition of forum

a : the marketplace or public place of an ancient Roman city forming the center of judicial and public business
b : a public meeting place for open discussion The club provides a forum for people interested in local history.
c : a medium (such as a newspaper or online service) of open discussion or expression of ideas

JB

[snark3]

JB- while many of the participants here are on the west coast, there are very few of us here in New England. Having events here is difficult.

[nikeajax]

Skip, you've missed the point I was trying to make: it's about being social and having a community!

Check out this forum:

www.colemancollectorsforum.com/

These people have a real sense of community and they're literally participating globally!

There are people who know lots more than I do about scuba gear, but they can't and won't be bothered to share what they know.

I have lots of hobbies: music, film, native flora and fauna, books/writing etc... I'm very lucky to have such diverse interest too, but the fascinating things like scuba are very esoteric and the minutia of such things can be a lot of fun to research and geek out on--gee-whiz, just ask DRW

For me, I want to learn why things are different, not just know that Aqualung or Coleman gear always works. I know that I have influenced what people buy for their gear, because I am never afraid to share who I am. I'm lucky, my friend John took the time to reach his hand out to me in friendship and tell me the things he knows and learned: not many people are will to do that on this forum.

TD told me that I was really the only person who was willing to teach him the things I know: that's sad: it's things like that that make our sport so dangerous to the average person.

When Phil taught me something about adjusting my Scuba, Mark joked that it was something outsiders shouldn't be privy to. It's something that should be common knowledge: but it isn't: because why?

The bottom line is that there used to be a good community that has faded to only a very few voices...

JB

[SeaRat]

"I guess we've said all we have to say." No, not until I die! Stories to tell, equipment to share. The wonders of living and diving, especially locally. I grew up diving locally, and continue to do so. Right now, river conditions are not great, but one of my Facebook friends is local, and is diving higher up, in the snow area with clear, but very cold, water. He is Japanese, and his videos are in Japanese, but resides here in Portland and is publishing on YouTube about Oregon diving. Here's one of his latest:


Note the oval mask! Now, the point is that we need to use our local resources and enjoy our vintage diving. We have a lot to contribute to diving too.

I just posted on a ScubaBoard thread about flying after diving. Here's that post.

1atm said: ↑
Ok, since everyone else has already gone off the rails, I can happily add my piece of survivor bias. On my last tech dive trip, after 6 consecutive days of decompression diving to 50-52 meters (165-172ft), I was on a plane home some 8 hours after surfacing from the last dive. So was my buddy.

Neither of us died, nor got hurt, nor grew any extra pairs of eyes. I intend to do it again.

Now more seriously (disclaimer: dont take the advice literally, I’m not responsible for you).. commercial passenger aircraft must maintain a minimum of cabin pressure equivalent to 2400m altitude (approx 8000 ft). That equates to about 0.75 atmospheres. So you can do the math, or ask your deco program to do it. Let’s say you surface with the most loaded compartment at 85% of its m-value, and add a short surface interval of lets say 4h-6h, in my books you would probably be fine in any case, Thats because tissue half times are between 4 and 700ish minutes, and you”d have to do some hardcore stuff to get the slow tissues fully loaded, so likely some midway compartments will be leading. So the extra 4-6 hours will give you a big buffer to make it to 0.75atm. And unless you talk bush taxi or own plane, you wont make it faster than 4-6h from the water to the plane, incl drying off, packing gear, checking in and clearing security.

Now in the case of loss of cabin pressure at altitude it might be a different story, but first thats very unlikely and secondly you then have another set of problems at hand to begin with.

My response:

Actually, you don't yet know wether you were injured or not. Ever heard of aseptic bone necrosis? This is a disease of the bone that you'll not discover for years after the original injury, when the bone breaks unexpectedly.

SeaRat

PS, I just found this off a Facebook post on their SCUBA Accidents and Incidents page.
Flying After Diving: Finally, the Facts (Not Just Theory)

Now, we don't have to worry about flying after diving much, as we're diving locally, right? Nope. I just pulled out of my library a whole book based upon a 1974 Dysbarism-related Osteonecrosis symposium. But this is a disease no one thinks about anymore. It is built into our dive computers, as it (bone) is one of the "slow tissues" that is in the calculations. But as is seen above, there are people who break the flying after diving rules, and think they've gotten away with it because they didn't need a chamber ride. But bones have no nerves, and are asymptomatic. So there is still a lot vintage divers can contribute, both here and elsewhere, to the diving community.

John

[nikeajax]

Jan 8, 2020 13:06:07 GMT -8 snark3 said:

JB- while many of the participants here are on the west coast, there are very few of us here in New England. Having events here is difficult.

New England is so, so tiny as compared to California, and yet we have members who come from all over the state to participate in our little event. I know there are at least three of you in MA, i'm sure there are more, but there are some of you in New York as well. There's some really great history with true to life sunken pirate ships too.

If there was a better community on this forum, it wouldn't be at all hard to make an event happen

I can't dive right now, and yet I still attend with my wife: why? Because it's part of a community of people who I'm learning to know. (Phil always has stories that make me laugh out loud that helps!)

JB

[crabbyjim]

Jan 8, 2020 10:38:29 GMT -8 SeaRat said:

Jan 8, 2020 8:01:40 GMT -8 vance said:

I'll be off-line for a while. Off to Mexico. I'll dive some and snorkel in warm(er) water.

Phil,

You have us turning green with envy. Take some photo, report back, and simply enjoy the warmth.

John

You may be turning green with mold due to rain. Better have a doctor check it out.