Dive Rite Aircell Travel Wing with Trans-Plate Harness System

This is a matched backplate-and-wing bundle from Dive Rite: the Aircell Travel Wing, the Trans-Plate harness, the XT-Lite back-plate, a cam strap and a crotch strap, sold as one package. It is built for the diver who has already decided a plate and wing beats a jacket BCD, and who wants that rig to survive a luggage allowance.

Who this suits

Dive Rite lists the wing's use case as warm water diving and travel, and its compatibility as aluminum 80 cylinders. That is the honest boundary of this package. A single aluminum tank, a thin exposure suit, somewhere warm: it was designed for that dive and it does it well.

Skip the wing if you dive a drysuit or cold water. Lift capacity is 25 lbs, sized for an aluminum 80 and minimal exposure protection. A drysuit diver, or anyone running doubles regularly, needs more lift than that and should buy the wing separately.

Skip the bundle if you prefer a plain single-piece webbing harness. The Trans-Plate is a padded, hybrid backpack-style harness.

25 lbs of lift on a 2.4 lbs wing

Lift is what the wing holds up at the surface, and it has to cover your rig plus whatever buoyancy your suit loses at depth. Against an aluminum 80 and a thin suit, 25 lbs is the right number. Put a steel tank and a compressed drysuit under it and it is not.

The wing weighs 2.4 lbs. It is 3D contoured and low-profile, in 1680 ballistic nylon with SuperFabric side panels. Side panels take the abrasion from tank bands, boat decks and gear bags, which is where a light travel wing usually fails first.

The harness, and what each strap is actually rated to

The Trans-Plate is a hybrid backpack-style harness that puts weight distribution on the hips and back instead of hanging the rig off your shoulders. On a long surface swim in full kit, that is the difference you feel the next morning.

The strength ratings are worth reading strap by strap, because they are not one number:

• Shoulder straps: 2 inches (50mm) of webbing rated to 7,000 lbs (3,182 kg) breaking strength, with 1000-denier ballistic nylon shoulder pads.
• Chest strap: 1 inch (25mm) of webbing rated to 2,200 lbs (1,000 kg), with a Delrin 1-inch squeeze-style quick-release buckle.
• Shoulder buckles: acetyl resin engineered plastic, squeeze-style quick-release, so the harness comes off without rethreading webbing.
• D-rings: four 2-inch slightly bent D-rings per shoulder strap, except on medium, which carries one per shoulder strap.
• Harness base plates: marine grade stainless steel.

The buckles are engineered plastic, not metal. Delrin and acetyl resin do not corrode, which is the reason to use them on a rig that lives in salt water.

The XT-Lite plate

The plate is 16-gauge 316L grade stainless steel, a low carbon rust-resistant grade. A steel plate is ballast you never have to clip on, which is exactly what an aluminum cylinder needs as it empties and floats.

The hole pattern decides how long you keep it. Center slots at 2 inches (5 cm) and 1 inch (2.54 cm) take a single tank without a single tank adapter. 11 inches (27.94 cm) on-center holes take a standard doubles bolt kit, with two upper bolt holes to move tank height. Accessory holes are 3/8 inch (0.953 cm) with 1 inch (2.54 cm) slots for lights, a pony or a lift bag, and the bottom slot accommodates a crotch strap up to 2 inches (5 cm) wide.

Edges are laser cut and hand finished, which matters on a plate you thread webbing through by hand on a rocking boat.

What is in the bundle, and which configuration this page covers

Five pieces: the wing, the harness, the plate, the cam strap and the crotch strap. No cylinder and no regulator.

The cam strap is 2 inches (5 cm) wide and 36 inches (91.4 cm) long, with a marine grade stainless steel buckle on nylon rollers, a rubber non-slip pad and hook and loop retention for the tail. It fits cylinder diameters from 6.9 inches (17.5 cm) to 8 inches (20.3 cm), which covers the common single-tank sizes including the aluminum 80.

The crotch strap is 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) wide, with a side-release squeeze-style quick-release and a 304-grade stainless steel scooter ring rated for diver propulsion vehicles. It secures the harness and back-plate to your body for uniform trim and buoyancy, which is what stops the rig riding up and the tank valve finding the back of your head.

Harness size is the one choice to get right at checkout, because it changes the hardware: medium comes with one 2-inch D-ring per shoulder strap instead of four.

The bottom line

This is a complete travel rig for a single aluminum 80 in warm water, and Dive Rite is upfront that this is what it is. 25 lbs of lift on a 2.4 lbs wing, a 316L steel plate that will also take doubles, and shoulder webbing rated to 7,000 lbs. It is not a cold-water or drysuit setup. The wing is the piece you would outgrow first if your diving changes, and the plate and harness would carry on without it.

Specifications