Gas & Dive Planning
Gas Management for Recreational Divers: Rock Bottom, Turn Pressure and Thirds
Plan reserve gas for two divers to reach the next available gas source. Rock bottom, usable gas and turn pressure, with worked examples.
Gas & Dive Planning
Build your understanding, one dive at a time.
Articles in this topic
11 articlesGas & Dive Planning
How to Plan a Dive: Start With the Exit, Not the Dive
Why DIR divers plan every dive backward from the exit, for reef, wreck, cave and technical dives, and how rock bottom and ratio deco make that work.
Gas & Dive Planning
Scuba Tank Factors: How to Turn PSI Into Cubic Feet in Your Head
What a tank factor is, the formula, tank factors for common singles and doubles, and how to use them to plan gas and match teammates on different tanks.
Gas & Dive Planning
Instruments Should Confirm What You Already Know: Gas Math Underwater
Why UTD divers run their gas, time and depth numbers in their heads during the dive, how to do the math, and what to do when the gauge disagrees.
Gas & Dive Planning
Diving in Gauge Mode: How Teams Manage Their Decompression Plan
Why Gardner Underwater teaches with computers in gauge mode, how it keeps a team on one decompression plan, and what it demands of you.
Gas & Dive Planning
Ratio Deco Explained: A Decompression Strategy, Not an Algorithm
What ratio deco is, what it's built on, why it's a strategy rather than a model, and where to learn it properly from UTD.
Gas & Dive Planning
Rock Bottom Calculator: Minimum Gas by Depth, With the Formula
How to calculate rock bottom (minimum gas) the UTD way, with values from 40 to 100 feet for an aluminum 80 and an HP100 and a worked example.
Gas & Dive Planning
Standard Gases: Why DIR Teams Use the Same Mixes
Why DIR teams dive the same gas mixes: UTD's standard bottom and deco gases, the oxygen and narcosis limits behind them, and how they simplify planning.
Gas & Dive Planning
The Rule of Thirds: Where It Comes From and When It Isn't Enough
The rule of thirds comes from cave diving: a third out, a third back, a third in reserve. Why it under-protects mismatched teams, and how rock bottom fixes it.
Gas & Dive Planning
Gradient Factors Explained Without the Math Headache
Gradient factors in plain English: what GF low and GF high control, what lower numbers do, why there's no single best setting, and how UTD's approach differs.
Gas & Dive Planning
How to Calculate Your SAC Rate and RMV
How to calculate your surface consumption rate from your logbook, convert between psi and cubic feet, and use it to plan gas at depth, with worked examples.