Visit the armored
diving suits section in
the historical diving section to learn all about the pioneers of atmospheric
diving suits.
Introduction
We stated before that Eluhu
Thompson deserves the title of " Godfather of mixed gas diving" He
was the one that suggested to replace nitrogen with helium in 1919. In
the years after that several more experiments took place like the dive of
commercial diver Max Nohl to a depth of about 140 meters on heliox in 1937.
Soon after that Word War II
started and fighting got more attention than diving experiments. In 1946 Jack
Browne (the inventor of the Jack Brown full face mask) made a mixed gas dive
to about 180 meters.
Also in the 1960-ies America
played an important role in the development of mixed gas diving. There were many
oil companies there that constantly needed divers to go deeper. In the
experiments that followed saturation
diving was developed.
Galeazzi
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In the 1930-ies Galeazzi
manufactured a copy of the German Neufeldt and Kuhnke suit. Galeazzi
modified the original design in several points. For instance, he applied a
gimbal ring in the joint that reduced the total area of friction making
the joint more mobile.
Life support is maintained
by an oxygen rebreather and: the diver could see his feet ! Looking down
and working turned out to be much easier than in the Neufeldt and Kuhnke
suit. Like with the earlier rigs this suit was only really suitable with
two feet on the ground and not while dangling in open water.
Helium developments slowed
the design of new atmospheric diving suits but since helium was a scarce
gas, inventors kept investigating the possibilities.
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