Aqua Lung/La Spirotechnique

Aqua Lung International ( until the early 1990s, La Spirotechnique ) is a manufacturer of diving equipment for military, professional and sport divers. The company is one of the Air Liquide Group, which also has a sister company called Aqua Lung America.

Company History

In December 1942, Jacques -Yves Cousteau first met with Émile Gagnan, an engineer from Air Liquide, which had specialized in the distillation of liquid air, in Paris. Because of the rationing of gasoline in World War II and Gagnan Cousteau developed along a miniaturized gas generator. Inspired by inventions of engineers Benoît Rouquayrol and Auguste Denayrouze from 1860, Cousteau and Gagnan developed a regulator for scuba divers, they were patented in 1943. That same year, two prototypes were produced, who used Frédéric Dumas and Cousteau during the filming of her underwater film épaves (, shipwrecks ').

Shortly after the Second World War developed Cousteau and Gagnan a highly optimized version of its regulator, the CG45. In 1946, Air Liquide subsidiary La Spirotechnique to make diving equipment in mass production. Through this step, a high-quality regulator was first available, at reasonable prices. This was instrumental in the formation and development of recreational diving in the 1950s. 1946 Air Liquide began the CG45 under the brand Aqualung in Anglo- Saxon countries to market.

The term Aqualung in the UK in the vernacular as the name for a diving apparatus - While in the U.S. the acronym SCUBA prevailed, established itself - due to the large spread of the CG45 Aqualung. By 1955 La Spirotechnique sold alongside other diving equipment just a machine model, the CG45. After the production of the next model Mistral began. Like its predecessor, this was also a two- hose machine. Ignorant about the fact that Ted Eldred began in Australia in 1952, a Einschlauchautomaten for sale, marketed La Spirotechnique 1955 also called a Cristal Einschlauchautomat as a world first. In the English -speaking world this Einschlauchautomat was sold under the name Aquamatic.

In the USA U.S. Divers was the general importer for the Aqualung products for many years. Later, Air Liquide U.S. Divers took over and renamed the company into Aqua Lung America. U.S. Divers remained but exist as a brand. La Spirotechnique was renamed Aqua Lung International in the early 1990s.

Aqua Lung International and Aqua Lung America

Aqua Lung International and Aqua Lung America have not only U.S. Divers also known for water and underwater equipment brands: Aqua Sphere, Deep Sea, Apeks, Whites, Aerial and Stohlquist. Today, Aqua Lung International and Aqua Lung America subsidiary of Air Liquide, with more than 200 employees and employees in the U.S., there are over 500 Aqualung currently operates twelve offices worldwide worldwide.