[Disclaimer: By reading the below article, you release me from any and all responsibility and acknowledge that diving and diving equipment is accompanied by risk of injury or even death. You also acknowledge the necessity of proper training from a licensed instructor prior to beginning Scuba Diving or diving beyond your current level of training (or with new/unfamiliar equipment)]
Let’s start with trim and weight distribution – with a BCD, your buoyancy cell is partially on your back, and around your hips and stomach. With a BP/W, your buoyancy cell is located solely on your back, and it is specifically designed in a shape that aides your in-water trim. The best wings take into consideration the rest of your unit, such as weight from your first stage etc. and are shaped accordingly to ensure when inflated at depth, the air in the cell sits in the right spot for your trim. In terms of weight distribution, BP/W set-ups allow part of your weight to be in your backplate when using a stainless steel plate – thus allowing a much better positioning of that weight vs. on your waist. There are also creative weighting solutions which are possible with a BP/W but not advisable with a BCD – these regretfully cannot be published online for liability reasons, but an Intro To Tech course with a Technical Instructor WILL benefit you greatly if you are serious about your skills as a diver and getting your weighting PERFECT.
Moving onto how BP/Ws allow for a more stable scuba unit, we can note that once assembled, the entire unit is essentially bolted together into one solid piece. Your STA is bolted to your backplate, OR, your twinset is bolted to your backplate, in most cases and with most serious manufacturers, when assembled properly this allows for a very, very solid unit – there is no tank rocking on heavier tanks as you walk – as you’d experience with a mid-range bcd containing a plastic backplate. Bear in mind that while saying this, I use a single piece continuous weave harness with no break points or adjustments – which I love and would never change.
The final area I’d like to address here is modularity and ease of maintenance. On non-sealed backplate and wing systems (be careful of sealed systems, everything should be detachable into the components I stated above, unless of course you want a sealed system?), the entire system is modular and can be broken down into it’s key components – that means, if you want to change your wing to a wing for twinset diving, you change it, it’s a two minute job. If you want to change to a new harness, you can change to a new harness, if you drop a kitchen cleaver onto your wing (unlikely) and destroy the wing, you send it to a maintenance guru, who opens the wing cover zipper and replaces the bladder then patches the cover (yes, there’s a zipper, it’s not glued like a BCD). With a standard bcd, breaking a single shoulder buckle means full replacement of the entire unit – with a BP/W, backing an Abrams main battle tank over your backplate after cleaning it means you simple get a new backplate – some of the hardware from your harness might even survive for limited re-use. IT’S MODULAR, replace broken parts, upgrade as needed for any kind of diving, it’s a BACKPLATE AND WING!!!
As in all areas of diving, there are many ways of doing EVERYTHING, and it is the same with backplates and wings – the above is my method, and the method which I was taught and use on each dive, what works for me may not work for you. To add an example, some divers have their wing sandwiched between their plate and twinset but also have an additional set of bolds holding their backplate and wing together for when doubles are removed. We have reviewed here, the basic facts of backplate and wing equipment only.
Please note that an aluminium backplate is not automatically perfect for travel, there are many factors involved which I’ve addressed in the link below.
To explore aluminium vs. stainless steel backplates, click here.
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