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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.

Contents

Trademark or not?

Open/Closed Circuit

"Tadpoles"

See also

References

External links

Trademark or not?

''Aqualung'' and ''Aqua Lung'' are registered trademarks for diving equipment.
Liquide Air held the patent on the original "Aqua-Lung" until the patent time-expired. Similar to how the trademarked term Xerox is sometimes used as a verb to describe copying a document, the term "aqualung" became a generic word in Britain after public interest in scuba diving began around 1953. The word "aqualung" was commonly used in speech and in publications as a 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 kept "Aqualung" as a trademark -- the acronym "SCUBA" (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) is the common appellation for that type of equipment, although in more recent times the acronym has become a noun, a verb and an adjective (see scuba).

Open/Closed Circuit

The original "Aqua-Lung" was an "open-circuit" design, so called because gas flows from the tank, to the diver, out into the water. Other SCUBA's, invented earlier than the "Aqua-Lung", are now termed "closed circuit", as gas flows from the tank, to the diver, through a scubber (which removes carbon dioxide), back to a secondary bag, back to the diver again, in a relatively closed loop. In modern times, this design is commonly called a rebreather.

"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.

See also

★ Timeline of underwater technology#The diving regulator reappears for details of this development.

★ Scuba sets for description of modern breathing sets.

References

1. "Year by Year 1943" -- History Channel International

External links

★ Aqua Lung manufacturers site (English, French, German, Italian, Czech, and Japanese language versions available)

★ Aqua Lung (Also known as Mistral Regulator)

★ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3899236907367885306&hl=en
Two Jacques Cousteau Aqua Lungs are shown in this 1950 Video recorded on the island of Maui.