Aqua-lung
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Aqua-lung was the original name for the first open-circuit SCUBA diving equipment, developed by Emile Gagnan and Jacques Cousteau in 1943[1]. It consists of a high pressure diving cylinder and a diving regulator that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure, via a demand valve. Before that, there were a few attempts at constant-flow compressed-air breathing sets.
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[edit] Trademark or not?
Aqualung and Aqua Lung are registered trademarks for diving equipment.
In Britain, for many years after public interest in scuba diving began around 1953, the word "aqualung" was commonly used in speech and in publications as a generic term for divers' open-circuit demand-valve-controlled breathing apparatus; and also in figurative uses such as "the water spider's aqualung of air bubbles". The word got into the Russian language as a generic noun "akvalang" акваланг.
In the USA, U.S.Divers managed to fend this tendency off and keep "Aqualung" as a trademark and let the word "scuba" be the generic.
Over time, the word "SCUBA" came into common usage for that type of equipment, but with the increasing popularity of a different, "closed circuit" type of SCUBA, named the "rebreather", a need has arisen for another short but precise word to describe the original open-circuit SCUBA.
Two Jacques Cousteau Aqua Lungs are shown in this 1950 Video recorded on the island of Maui. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3899236907367885306&hl=en
[edit] "Tadpoles"
In the early years of scuba diving in Britain, "tadpole" as a nickname for a type of diving gear had two meanings:-
- A type of ex-RAF pilot's oxygen cylinder with a tapering end, which was often used as an aqualung cylinder in the 1960's and earlier.
- An early make of Siebe Gorman aqualung with a twin-hose regulator, and two air cylinders with both ends hemispherical, 13 inches long and 7 inches diameter. Siebe Gorman's trade catalog describing this set showed two sorts of diver wearing this set, both with weighted boots, and no mention of free-swimming. A 1950's UK naval diving manual also said that the aqualung was (only) for bottom-walking diving. In this time Siebe Gorman had no idea of sport diving, or was against sport diving, but expected aqualungs to be used for light commercial diving.
[edit] See also
- Timeline of underwater technology#The diving regulator reappears for details of this development.
- Scuba sets for description of modern breathing sets.
[edit] References
- ^ "Year by Year 1943" -- History Channel International
[edit] External links
- Aqua Lung manufacturers site (English, French, German, Italian, Czech, and Japanese language versions available)
- Aqua Lung (Also known as Mistral Regulator)
