Aqualung Group (formerly Aqua Lung International , and prior to that La Spirotechnique ) is a manufacturer of self-contained breathing apparatus and other diving equipment. It produced the Aqua-Lung line of regulators, including the CG45 (1945) and the Mistral (1955). From its founding in 1946 until 2016, the company was a division of Air Liquide . The company was sold to Montagu Private Equity in 2016, and subsequently acquired by Barings LLC in 2023.
15-588: In December 1942, lieutenant de vaisseau ( ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant ) Jacques-Yves Cousteau met in Paris for the first time the engineer Émile Gagnan , employee at Air Liquide , a French company specialising in compressed gas. Because of severe fuel restrictions due to the German occupation of France , Gagnan had miniaturized and adapted to gas generators a Rouquayrol - Denayrouze -type regulator. Invented in 1860, adapted to diving in 1864 and mass-produced as of 1865 (when
30-618: A division of Air Liquide to sell the Aqua-Lung regulators. In the United States, the Aqua-Lung regulator was first sold in the late 1940s by René Sporting Goods, a sporting goods store in Los Angeles, California owned by René Bussoz. He soon obtained a contract with La Spirotechnique to import Aqua-Lung equipment into the United States for sale on the Pacific coast (Spaco, Inc. had the contract for
45-458: Is 0-7m or 0-10m depending on the organisation's code of practice. It is 48 cm = 19.2 inches high, 30 cm = 12 inches wide, 19 cm = 7.6 inches thick. It weighs 14.2kg = 31.3 pounds out of water. If the rebreathing loop fails, it can be switched into open-circuit mode bypassing the breathing bag, as bailout . Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant Ship-of-the-line lieutenant ( French : Lieutenant de vaisseau ; Spanish : Teniente de navío )
60-564: Is a naval officer rank , used in a number of countries. The name derives from the name of the largest class of warship, the ship of the line , as opposed to smaller types of warship ( corvettes and frigates ). It is rated OF-2 within the NATO ranking system and is equivalent to Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and the United States Navy . This article on a military rank or appointment
75-522: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Aqua Lung America Aqua Lung America (formerly U.S. Divers Company ) is an American company based in Carlsbad, California which makes scuba equipment . The company is a division of the Aqualung Group , which was, until 2016, a division of Air Liquide . Aqualung Group was sold by Air Liquide to Montagu Private Equity by the end of 2016. It
90-597: Is a model of chest mounted oxygen rebreather for shallow water and special forces operation, which has been used by the French Navy and the Commando Hubert since 15 October 2002. It is made by the diving gear manufacturers Aqualung . Its working parts are in a dark-blue streamlined rounded shell. It can be worn on the front or on the back. It is rated as duration on a filling: oxygen 4 hours or more, soda-lime 7 hours at 21.1 °C (70 °F). Operational depth range
105-456: The Atlantic coast ). In 1952, Bussoz changed the name of his company to "U.S. Divers Company" and registered the Aqua-Lung trademark in the United States. In 1957, Bussoz sold the company and the trade names to La Spirotechnique. Around 2003, U.S. Divers Company was renamed Aqua Lung America after La Spirotechnique changed its name to Aqua Lung International. The U.S. Divers name is maintained as
120-753: The Australian Ted Eldred had started to sell the first single-hose regulator, the Porpoise. In 1955 La Spirotechnique launched its first single hose regulator. Designed by Jean Bronnec and Raymond Gauthier, this regulator was the Cristal, named the Aquamatic in English-speaking countries. The first American branch of La Spirotechnique was U.S. Divers Company , which first sold aqualungs (CG45, Mistral), Aquamatic (Cristal) and other La Spirotechnique regulators in
135-560: The CG45. In April 1955 it launched the Mistral, a single-stage regulator that was cheaper to build and easier to breathe than the CG45. The Mistral became the brand's spearhead and set off to establish scuba diving across the world. The CG45 and the Mistral were twin-hose regulators , but La Spirotechnique wanted to create a single-hose regulator , to let divers exchange their mouthpieces in narrow underwater caves and hollows, not knowing that in 1952
150-800: The Ministry of the French Navy ordered the first apparatuses), the Rouquayrol-Denayrouze regulator was being commercialized in 1942 by the Bernard Piel Company, who had inherited the patent. Cousteau requested Gagnan to adapt his new own regulator to diving and both men patented in 1943 the first modern diving regulator . Early in 1943 Cousteau and Gagnan ordered Air Liquide to make at its factory in Boulogne-Billancourt two scuba set prototypes that Cousteau and Frédéric Dumas used to shoot
165-540: The United States. At some point La Spirotechnique used the word Aqua Lung to change its name, or to use it as an alternate name. Nowadays U.S. Divers Company is known as Aqua Lung America. Aqualung Group is based nowadays in Carros , near Nice and owns its own international branches around the world, like Aqua Lung America. Spirotechnique produced the DC55 passive addition sem-closed rebreather. FROGS (Full Range Oxygen Gas System)
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#1732905853141180-590: The beginning of the popularisation of scuba diving. In English-speaking countries the CG45 was commercialized under the name of Aqua-Lung , a word coined by Cousteau himself for that purpose. In the USA during World War II the American military physician Christian J. Lambertsen designed a wartime frogman 's rebreather which in 1952 came to be called the SCUBA (acronym for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus), and later
195-544: The name (changing to 'scuba' and treated as a word) was used to mean any underwater breathing set. In Britain the word "aqualung" became a generic trademark for open-circuit underwater breathing sets and remained so for many years. The word "scuba" became the generic word quickly in the US and eventually in Britain. For more information see Aqua-lung#Trademark issues . From 1946 to 1955 La Spirotechnique sold only one model of regulator,
210-409: The underwater film Épaves ( Shipwrecks ), directed by Cousteau the same year. They were the first modern diving regulators to be made. In 1946 Air Liquide founded La Spirotechnique, its own division destined to design and mass-produce regulators and other diving equipment. In 1946 La Spirotechnique also launched the CG45, the first modern regulator to be commercialized. The year 1946 represents thus
225-513: Was acquired by Barings LLC in December 2023. After U.S. Divers Company was renamed Aqua Lung America, the name U.S. Divers was retained as a trademark for Aqua Lung's line of snorkelling equipment. The " Aqua-Lung " regulator was created by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Émile Gagnan in 1943. In 1946, the company known as La Spirotechnique (now Aqua Lung International) was established by both men together with Jean Delorme, CEO of Air Liquide , as
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