Notable early manufacturers

Normalair is a firm that is now part of the Honeywell Corporation based in Yeovil (UK). They made an early make of single-hose aqualung that had a fullface mask as standard. Normalair provided the Deep-Dive 500 rebreather sets used by James Bond 007 in the 1981 film For Your Eyes Only.

Captain Trevor Hampton in the 1950s or 1960s designed an early single-hose aqualung with a fullface mask with a circular window which was a very big and thus very sensitive demand regulator diaphragm. But when he patented it, the Navy requisitioned the patent, and by the time the Navy found no use in the patent and released it, the market had moved on and he got no use from the patent.

The first commercially successful single hose scuba inventor was Ted Eldred of Melbourne, Australia (Porpoise 1952), although many people were working on it at the same time.

The second company to make single hose scuba was also in Melbourne. It was made by Jim Ager who owned Air Dive Pty.Ltd. His regulator was the Sea Bee (1955). Jim still makes scuba regulators and is the longest continuous maker of single hose scuba in the world.