David Strike wrote:

A meaningful analysis of the no fly issue.  Since he did, I'll take a
somewhat less useful approach.  Wade, you're still a great straight man and
I don't in any way mean this in a negative sense.

> > The question I was heading Lee toward was:
> > After you reach total desaturation, how much additional safety margin do
> > you get for sitting out more hours?

I started to ask you how long it takes you to reach total desaturation, but
that would have been a trap more likely to close communication than
faclitate it.  So, I'll take a different approach in hopes that it's better.

Technically, your question can't be answered as asked.  It contains an
invalid assumption.  Specifically, that you ever reach total desaturation.
You don't.  You spend most of your life saturated to ambient conditions, for
discussion purposes, at 1ata.  The only time most of us are not saturated to
ambient conditions is when we're diving.  Very few ever reach N2 saturation
while underwater and those that do, often spend a great deal of time in a
surface decompression process paying for it.  After diving, we are more than
saturated at 1ata, but hopefully not enough more to be bent.  The goal is
not necessarily return to saturation at 1ata before flying and certainly not
to be completely desaturated, but to return to some level that will not bend
you during a flight.  Depending on which expert you listen to, this may take
place within 12 hours, 24 hours, or even longer.

Regardless of how long it takes to be safe to fly, I strongly suspect that,
after a series of dives that brings one's near or beyond the no deco limits,
it takes longer than 24 hours to return to 1 ata saturation.  If there's a
medical expert in the group who would like to confirm or correct this, now
would be a good time.

Lee