Can anyone tell me about this?

[NorthWoodsDiver]

Going through a pile of equipment from the former Blue Water Sports in Tallahassee. Found a few real museum pieces. Does anyone know anything about this inflator? It's HEAVY and appears to me chrome plated brass body and some stainless steel components. Figured the old timers would recognize it

[Puttzer]

Is Fleet OK?

[Jont]

WOW, I havent seen that since I was 9 or 10 years old....Its a wing inflator that I think came off of a product called the AT PACK made by sea pro or something like that, given when the BC was created it was rather unique.

It had a hard plastic back plate that you filled with lead shot and other material so it replaced your weight belt, a SS plate on the bottom fitted with a pin retaining system held everything in place so if you needed to dump weight you simply pulled the pin and out poured your weight, the problem was that if you didnt clean the lead it would stick together and it was hard to get it to drop.

The plastic version of the inflator all broke and the brass one was so hard to press as a 10 YO child it required 2 hands to add gas to the wing.

A horse shoe wing wrapped around the back plate/weight holder and options like a comfort jacket could be fixed to the backplate instead of 2" webbing.

It was popular among wreck divers in the Northeast and was sold by Island Dive Centers owned by Ed Betts.

It was also the target of Scubapro's "If you dont dive with our orange bladder-less BC you will die" campaign that began in the 70's and continued through the 80's.

Very cool stuff.

Jon

[NorthWoodsDiver]

WOW, I havent seen that since I was 9 or 10 years old....Its a wing inflator that I think came off of a product called the AT PACK made by sea pro or something like that, given when the BC was created it was rather unique in a sense,

It had a hard plastic back plate that you filled with lead shot and other material so it replaced your weight belt, a SS plate on the bottom fitted with a pin retaining system held everything in place so if you needed to dump weight you simply pulled the pin and out poured your weight.

A horse shoe wing wrapped around the back plate/weight holder and options like a comfort jacket could be fixed to the backplate instead of 2" webbing.

It was popular among wreck divers in the Northeast and was sold by Island Dive Centers owned by Ed Betts.

It was also the target of Scubapro's "If you dont dive with our orange bladder-less BC you will die" campaign that began in the 70's and continued through the 80's.

Very cool stuff.

Jon

Awesome, thanks for the history. I actually found the BCD that it goes with too or what was left of it...

Fleet is okay BTW. He has decided to retire and the remaining inventory and assets was sold off.

[a64pilot]

I think Cousteau and his group dove with At Pacs, I lusted after one, but it was way out of my price range. I dove with a single 72 on some kind of black rubber plate with webbing and cutoff jeans, no kind of bouyancy control. When I first saw a "Yellow Box of Death", it made me think of these Pacs

[O.C.Diver]

Man that brings back memories! Sold them in the 80s when the company was Seapro, then Seasport, and finally Divetech. The original company that invented and held the patent on them was Watergill. Believe the invention or patent date was around 1972. Slightly before my time.

Ted

[WEPIV]

My first dive at 11 in 1973 consisted of (as I recall) a steel 72 and single reg connected to a fiberglass (?) backplate that I had found on the road on Anna Maria Island. It had a crack where someone had ran over it but my grandfather took some fiberglass he had around (from building his houseboat) and patched it.
The tank (and me) were connected to the backplate with some strong webbing.
I don't remember any gauges really.

[Jont]

I ended up with an ATPAK at 15 years old between 8 and 14 I would dive with no pressure gauge digging by hand for clams and hunting lobsters on jetties, when the reg stopped delivering air it was time to surface.

It took me 3 summers of selling clams and lobsters to restaurants to buy the ATPAK and a second Mark 5 AIR 1, I think they were something like 800 back then with options.

I'd kill to do that all over again

[Benderr]

I ended up with an ATPAK at 15 years old between 8 and 14 I would dive with no pressure gauge digging by hand for clams and hunting lobsters on jetties, when the reg stopped delivering air it was time to surface.

It took me 3 summers of selling clams and lobsters to restaurants to buy the ATPAK and a second Mark 5 AIR 1, I think they were something like 800 back then with options.

I'd kill to do that all over again

This forum needs a "Like" button.

[a64pilot]

I don't remember any gauges really.

Nope no gauges, just what was called I believe a J valve? I think this valve actually rotated a sleeve in the valve with the idea that you breathed through a small orifice when you had high pressure in the tank and when it got hard to breathe, you pull the rod that was connected to the valve and it rotated the sleeve opening a larger orifice? Of course what really happened was when it got hard to breathe, you would reach back to pull the valve only to discover it was already open. Sort of like the "RES" on motorcycle petcocks, idea being that you rode until the engine quit, then rotate the petcock to RES and rode to a gas station. Fine idea, worked great. As long as you remembered to put the petcock back to ON and not leave it to RES when you re-fueled

Idea back then was you couldn't hurt yourself with a single 72, that is you couldn't go deep enough and stay long enough to get into Deco before you ran out of air, so who needs a depth gauge?