Dave with "The Dustbin" in
1992 |
Inspiration
CCR
History
First prototype was built by
David
Thompson in 1991, under the name "The Dustbin" (see picture). In 1994 he
was teaching a trimix class, were one of the students happened to be Martin
Parker from A.P.Valves. During these meetings he mentioned he was developing
a closed circuit rebreather. Martin was already building parts for Dräger
Atlantis at the time, and agreed to make components for David Thompson.
David continued his work developing the Inspiration and in May 1995 he took
Martin diving on the 3rd or 4th prototype. Martin’s first words after
closing the mouthpiece were; "We're gonna build this!".
David initiated cooperation with A.P.Valves to produce the Inspiration in
1995 and in June 1996 the unit was ready to show off at the IANTD Conference
at Swindon. A.P.Valves has their own ANSTI breathing machine, which helped
fine tune all components to reduce the work of breathing. CE testing was
finished in May 1997. The first open water trimix dive on the Inspiration
(as you know it today) was done by Martin Parker in July 1997. The first
Inspiration CCRs were sold November 1997.
More pictures here. |
