Safety Bottle Caching At JB

[wingman]

There are some gems from flying that are worthwhile to remember:

There's nothing more useless to you then the runway behind you, the altitude above you, the fuel still in the truck, the airspeed you don't have, and a half second ago. Here it is a gas reserve that you do not have.

I don't think anything was said that suggested normal gas planning was being adjusted to reflect the existence of extra gas cached in the cave. it is a cache.

When hiking in the desert i like to cache water and last time i was in the grand canyon...the las vegas dema... my cached water was used by a group orienteering who got lost and were in dire need when they stumbled on my cache in the early am. While i am uncertain as to the exactness of this i think that there was a recent ginne event in which it was a good thing that there was some cached gas in the cave.

While flying under imc (bad weather) the faa requires me to have enough fuel to get to my destination, then to my alternate and then be able to fly for at least 45 minutes...i always took comfort in knowing i had enough fuel for much more than an additional 45 minutes. Likewise i like diving with a spare bottle in the cave even though my gas planning ignores it. I like to think of this as engineered redundancy. So, simply, is it more safe or less safe?

[amphipod06]

I don't think anything was said that suggested normal gas planning was being adjusted to reflect the existence of extra gas cached in the cave. it is a cache.

When hiking in the desert i like to cache water and last time i was in the grand canyon...the las vegas dema... my cached water was used by a group orienteering who got lost and were in dire need when they stumbled on my cache in the early am. While i am uncertain as to the exactness of this i think that there was a recent ginne event in which it was a good thing that there was some cached gas in the cave.

While flying under imc (bad weather) the faa requires me to have enough fuel to get to my destination, then to my alternate and then be able to fly for at least 45 minutes...i always took comfort in knowing i had enough fuel for much more than an additional 45 minutes. Likewise i like diving with a spare bottle in the cave even though my gas planning ignores it. I like to think of this as engineered redundancy. So, simply, is it more safe or less safe?

Agreed. While it is true that the only time you can have too much gas is during a fire, IMC planning requirements (reminds me vaguely of the rule of thirds...)still illustrate that the seven P's are still the best policy.

"Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance"- BTW, that has been going around since Jesus was a corporal in the services...

On a different note- I thought it was pretty cool that the group hiking got to use your cache, good thing you did not need it...

Slim, yeah well, it seems that polls are quite popular in here...hehhehehehe

Dive safe,

Celia

[OFG-1]

FWIW, I think the safety bottles at Indian are great, but the big difference is they are maintained by the guides, so you can be sure they are safe to use, and won't get stolen. In a public area like JB, or Devil's Eye, well....

As one of the people that maintain the safeties in Indian, let me tell you, they are a pain in the ass!

You would not believe what electrolysis does to the equipment. We have lost 2 or 3 aluminum 80s per year. You get corrosive boreholes in the sidewalls of the tank. I have seen them .095" deep. The chrome comes off the regulators and valves. We have had 2 80's that have corroded in the neck and slowly leaked down. (They were found and replaced by Vince I believe). We have gone to steel 72's and they seem to hold up better, but the valve still takes a beating. We have to rotate tanks in and out every 60 or so days. We have tried zinc and magnesium anodes, but no luck.

The WKPP boys tell me that they take 10+ tanks to the recycle place every year.

The safeties were part of the original agreement with the YMCA that allowed diving in Indian.

[cmalinowski]

There are some gems from flying that are worthwhile to remember:

There's nothing more useless to you then the runway behind you, the altitude above you, the fuel still in the truck, the airspeed you don't have, and a half second ago. Here it is a gas reserve that you do not have.

I don't think anything was said that suggested normal gas planning was being adjusted to reflect the existence of extra gas cached in the cave. it is a cache.

When hiking in the desert i like to cache water and last time i was in the grand canyon...the las vegas dema... my cached water was used by a group orienteering who got lost and were in dire need when they stumbled on my cache in the early am. While i am uncertain as to the exactness of this i think that there was a recent ginne event in which it was a good thing that there was some cached gas in the cave.

While flying under imc (bad weather) the faa requires me to have enough fuel to get to my destination, then to my alternate and then be able to fly for at least 45 minutes...i always took comfort in knowing i had enough fuel for much more than an additional 45 minutes. Likewise i like diving with a spare bottle in the cave even though my gas planning ignores it. I like to think of this as engineered redundancy. So, simply, is it more safe or less safe?

If you don't feel safe with the gas supply you have, you are not planning properly IMHO.

And, truth be told, you don't HAVE the gas. It's somewhere in the cave. What if you search for it (losing precious time) and find it and... it's empty. Or, better yet, someone else beat you to it because you both poorly planned for the day. He's two mins ahead of you. Go catch him and "cache" his body in the cave somewhere.

Chris

[Line Squirrel]

You get corrosive boreholes in the sidewalls of the tank. I have seen them .095" deep.

That's pretty bad, especially when you consider it only takes one pit .060 deep to fail a cylinder.

[aainslie]

Oh, good grief andrew...and you, for sure, i would have thought understood the concept of a positive externality...oh well. Of course you probably do enjoy a good free ride along with everone else, eh?

With regard to the rest of the comments i am reminded of a pretty famous speech in which it is said:

"Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

Actually i like the idea of a gas cache and i like goldline/line (i do think there is way too much of it though) in the cave as well...now there's a public good no one seems to complain about much. Bill

I'll see your positive externality and raise you one peverse incentive...

The advantage of a line is obvious, and no one would argue that dependence upon that line is not only acceptable, it's downright healthy.

The same cannot be said for this cache idea. Some people will be tempted to depend upon it, and plan it into their emergency strategy.

And since clearly there will be a cost to this somewhere down the line, I view it as neutral at best, possibly negative.

But hey, you're right. I'm willing to free ride with the best of them if someone else is willing to set up and maintain this system at no cost to me.

On your IMC analogy - I always have a very clear idea of what my gas reserves are. Clearer than most. I'm not sure what your IMC analogy has to do with a risky, shared reserve.

[dogwatch]

In Outlaw's defense, I understood the difference between what he was proposing for discussion in the first post versus what his group has done/would do for their own dives. I guess it's easy to read things several different ways on the internet. We used to pre-stage stages/safeties all the time..... although caves were generally less "public" back then.

[OutlawCaver]

The responses to this topic are what I expected and are greatly appreciated. As I stated, I was already aware of the pros and cons of such an endeavour but I was interested in others opinions anyway. Could I interest anyone in caching Sofnolime kegs in JB?....LMAO

[Walter Pickel]

The WKPP boys tell me that they take 10+ tanks to the recycle place every year.

We have 7 we pulled from Weeki Wachee. There have been in about 18 months (couldn't get them last year). Less than half actually had gas, all first stages were delaminated and second stages looked awful.. We will see if they go back in service.

The most curious thing was the hoses on one of the stage regs had actually flattened. Have the bottles were at an average depth of 350 and the other half around 280.

They take a beating and we have changed our rotation routines to lesson the wear and tear.

[Arnold Mesiser]

Maybe an oddball thought but doesn't poseidon/divator make stainless steel tanks?? If they are available and they were compatible with first stages here- a solution for cache tanks ?