CONTACT US

The Career Path of a Commercial Air Diver

The career of a commercial air diver starts with the student attending a commercial scuba and surface supply commercial air diver course preferably to 50 metres depth however a student diver can do 30 metres depth and return later to upgrade to 50 metres.    It is important that this training is recognised by IMCA.    Important to Note is that IMCA do not issue Air diver qualifications they only recognise certain countries 50 metre qualifications and the same goes for saturation closed bell courses.    Also very important is that you must attend comprehensive proper diver training and not short cut minimum cheap training.   Proper training costs a bit of extra money but it benefits your diving career.     There are hundreds of air divers looking for work and the mis-informed message by some out there is do the cheapest course you can for the shortest duration beware this will not benefit you at all and it will ensure you battle to keep a job as your knowledge and skill will be lacking and this type of minimal short cut cheap  training will ensure you do not become competition to any other diver looking for the next job.

Commercial Scuba consists of fullface masks with switch over blocks for scuba cylinder selection example one cylinder is the bailout back up air
Twin 10 litres, 12 Litres & 15 Litres are common in Commercial Scuba with switchover blocks to Full Face Masks
PDC commercial scuba student with basic life line PDC also uses advanced life lines with voice comms to full face mask as well as wireless underwater communications commonly called through water comms (TWC)
Rebreathers are covered on the PDC Commercial Scuba Course. Here two Diving Doctors under going DMO Medical training are having an introductory dive with some of the PDC with rebreathers
The PDC 8 m Rib with scuba divers diving at 30 metres near the he PDC Dive Boat called Dive Support which has a twin lock chamber onboard for safety
Another two Diving Doctors on there DMO medical course having a dive on some of the PDC semi closed rebreathers. The PDC commercial diving course also includes nitrox training and diving

The newly trained commercial diver would then spend at least 2 years working inshore in what is called the civils diving industry.    In the civils diving industry the work would include the following underwater tasks, Cleaning, Inspecting Ships, polishing propellers, welding anodes or temporary patches, lift eyes or fitting Coffer dams on ships so dry repairs can be carried out.   This ship husbandry is conducted in the harbours or outside the harbours while the ship is moored or on anchor. Then there is are the salvage operations,  Pipelines to and from the shore, Dam Wall maintenance, UW Mining of various minerals and Fish farm type diving in tanks or at sea there are also  other surface supplied work tasks, these are a few named inshore diver work tasks.   Gaining experience in Underwater CCTV and Photographs are most times included in the civils work such as shipping, pipelines etc, however this should be included in your diver training courses as well.

PDC Surface Supply Training starts in the dive tank and moves to the PDC Jetty for training dives and tasks between 6 msw and 12 msw
From diving shallow off the PDC Jetty student divers move to sea dives off the PDC Dive Boat called Dive Support for 18 msw to 30 msw training dives and tasks
PDC student divers ascending up the shotline from a 30 msw training dive after completing various set work tasks
The PDC 6 m Deep Dive Training Tank is used for many skills including underwater welding
PDC Builds it's own underwater auto darkening welding visors which have proved to be a great piece of equipment benefiting welding and eliminating stray arc strikes
PDC has built it's own welding electrode rod holder that firmly holds a welding rod and it has brass wear parts that can be replaced. 30 years of underwater welding with searching visors and electrode holders has allowed PDC to perfect these into robust lasting diver units

The next step in a divers career would be to plan to move towards the Offshore Air Diver Oil and Gas Industry work industry where the pay is better.    The move into this Offshore Oil and Gas work requires you need to have held a Surface Supply Commercial diver qualification with the minimum trained depth of 50 metres, which includes skills such as,  Dive Basket, Wet Bell and Decompression Chamber Operator Training including actual diving with real decompression including using Surface decompression techniques, this 50 metre training includes diving skills using power tools both Pnuemo and Hydraulics, HP water Jetting, CCTV,  Photography with measurements,  UW lift bags, UW Rigging, UW cutting called burning done with Oxygen a broco torch and Broco rods and then an introduction to underwater wet stick welding with the competence achieved to weld a 50 mm fillet bead as well as other skills.   This 50 metre training  qualification must be held for a minimum of 2 years before applying offshore.     If you did a 30 metre surface supply commercial diver course you would need to upgrade this to a 50 metre qualification and then have to wait  2 years as a 50 metre diver, hence a good reason to do the 50 metre training course from the start of your training or upgrade your 30 metre qualification as soon as possible after completing the 30 metre qualification.

The students divers on the 50 msw course in the dive basket ready to dive
PDC student divers on the 50 msw course move on from the dive basket to the Wet Bell Training
PDC student divers on the 50 msw course dive to 50 msw from DSV Deepworx making use of all the support equipment to carry out the dives namely the dive basket, the wet bell and then just diving with an umbilical to 50 msw as that competency in all support equipment is what will be expected of them from the dive companies they will work for.in the future
The PDC built range of auto darkening underwater welding visors designed for Kirby Morgan Helmets and Band Masks
PDC Student diver getting ready for High Pressure water jetting for the first time. PDC uses both the Cavit Jet Gun and the Traditiona lLarge HP Retrojet Jet Gun
PDC has many underwater real work tasks for the PDC air students to train on. This is an alignment spool piece Swivel flange task in a rigging frame and it is used both on land and underwater. This task incorporates rigging with the Lever Hoist / come a longs with C plates and endless slings, Line up Gudging Pins / Drift Pins or Prodgers and Studs with Reaction Nuts and Tommy Bar, Flogging Spanners and Hydraulic Tension Tools PDC has both Hydratight jacks and the ( Hy Torc )

Besides having the minimum of the 50 metre dive qualification you would need to have a OPITO BOSIET Offshore Survival Course with EBA module to get into the offshore air diving, another good qualification is the IMCA DMT.  There are other OPITO courses you may require depending on what region you will be working in such as the H2S.   While working as a offshore Oil and Gas air diver you would be earning fairly good money and be happy to remain a offshore commercial air diver could for the rest of your career or you may want to follow the dive supervisor route or aiming to go to the highest level of commercial diver and be building more experience, with dives and bottom time to be accepted on a closed bell saturation diver course.   More information on that is found in the section of the website under closed bell diver.